Shackled by Free Trade

Re “Room at the Top,” editorial, May 16: The Central America Free Trade Agreement is described as ending “most tariffs and import restrictions between the six nations and the United States.” While the goal of free trade theory is to lower barriers to trade, barriers such as tariffs and import restrictions are a minuscule subset of the barriers sought for removal.

CAFTA is a complicated set of economic regulations that, for example, sets limits on how states and cities can spend our tax dollars. CAFTA could prohibit us from buying recycled paper for county offices or from purchasing police uniforms made under fair working conditions, rather than by children in Nicaraguan sweatshops.

CAFTA’s Chapter 10 grants vast new rights to foreign firms that enable them to second-guess U.S. environmental and public health laws. They can challenge us and demand millions of dollars in compensation even if the laws are scientifically justified and democratically supported.

Jesse Colorado Swanhuyser

Santa Monica

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It is a rare historical event when the Republicans and labor unions are both on the right side of an issue, but their opposition to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Central American Free Trade Agreement is a very positive development. For the U.S. to submit to any more commerce controlled by foreigners and foreign organizations is suicidal.

The huge international bureaucracy created by these “free trade agreements” results in thousands of pages of regulations. The Constitution and Declaration of Independence are not going to survive if there are any more steps made to bring about regional government that will be followed by world government.

John K. Carter

Camarillo

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Although the topic is CAFTA, The Times can’t help but take a shot at President Reagan. Nicaragua was indeed a threat to the United States throughout the 1980s, not by sheer military force but rather through its alliance with Fidel Castro’s Cuba and its support of other Marxist guerrillas in Latin America. Americans and freedom-loving people everywhere will forever thank Reagan for his clear commitment to defeating the unelected, Cuban-supported, Marxist-influenced Sandinista regime, a commitment that eventually forced Daniel Ortega to hold free elections in which he was soundly beaten.

Alexis I. Torres

Los Angeles