H.R. 3045 - CAFTA Implementation Act

H.R. 3045: Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. A managed trade (these bills go way beyond tariffs, as discussed in the WTO discussion above) agreement between the United States and Central America similar to NAFTA. These agreements are key to the implementation of United Nations Agenda 21, part of which includes removing trade barriers in order to facilitate the redistribution of wealth from the United States to other countries. The key here being the redistribution of this nation's manufacturing capital.

Economists will always cite the microeconomic fact that free trade tends to result in the most productivity to a global economy. However, any tax is a similar negative externality on the productivity of a free market. Income tax and sales taxes which discourage productivity and production, respectively, are actually worse economically than tariffs and duties, which on the other hand have the offsetting benefit of encouraging domestic production. As long as one has to lower economic productivity through taxation, those taxes should be structured to harm the nation as little as possible. If one instituted a system of tariffs and duties and exactly offset the taxes by lowering income taxes, the system would actually benefit the economy in two ways – removing the worse externality on disincentivizing production and reducing foreign dependency.

The other thing that economists miss are the national security concerns from these trade agreements. Other governments do not necessarily respect the freedom and liberty of their people and could actually be enemies of the United States. Can a U.S. worker compete with Chinese slave labor? What about having military components made in a foreign factory of a potential enemy? How about being completely cut off from international shipments in the event of a world war? One of the few things I agree with Alexander Hamilton on is the necessity of ensuring freedom and liberty by making sure that one is not dependent on governments who do not respect freedom and liberty – and he therefore advocated a strong system of protective tariffs and duties which served this country well through the 1800s. Trade agreements should be bilateral agreements based on certain strategic commodities that the U.S. has short supplies of. Blanket free trade agreements do not serve either the economic or national security interests of the United States. If you want to know why our country has an employment crisis with no good jobs – look at the influence of NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO and the international corporations which bought off both parties in D.C. to get these agreements passed. Next time your friend gets laid off from a good manufacturing job because they are going to China, remember Cathy's vote on CAFTA, the WTO, and other such agreements.