Trade: Against Whom Are ‘We’ Competing?

The April 23 front-page photo depicting gleeful, hand-slapping Presidents Bush, Vicente Fox and Prime Minister Jean Chretien at the trade summit in Canada speaks of nothing so much as a band of thieves congratulating themselves on a job well done. However, it’s Bush’s comment within the article that describes the heist: “We have a choice to make. We can combine in a common market so we can compete in the long term with the Far East and Europe, or we can go on our own.”

What competition can “we” be having with the Far East and Europe, besides the race to the economic bottom? Most of the exports from the Far East and Europe (as well as from Mexico and other Southern Hemisphere nations) are coming out of transnational businesses located in those very regions where costs and regulations are most minimal. Just exactly against whom is the “competition” directed?

LAUREL HALL

La Habra

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These days “free trade” is a polite euphemism for granting big corporations the right to export their chemical-laden, sweatshop-oriented, petro-based, genetically modified ways to the rest of the world. Those treaties create international laws that override local environmental laws. Do we want corporations to have superhuman sovereignty over the rest of us?

The protesters are risking their lives to send us a message. Will we listen? Let us go gently into the future, rather than barrel ahead without regard for the Earth and fellow human beings.

NORI MUSTER

Los Angeles

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Is this hypocrite versus hypocrite? Long ago people protested the evils of alcoholism and slavery. More recently objectors targeted unjust war and racism. Today they march against--freedom? In the long run, free trade is demonstrably good: for consumers, for jobs, for democracy, even for the environment. The demonstrators are shortsighted.

At the same time that our government excludes Cuba from the talks on the grounds of undemocratic behavior, we refuse to give these demonstrators a voice in the talks. They are wrong, but they have a right to be heard.

MICHAEL HELPERIN

Los Angeles