MAILBAG

Road to CAFTA leads nowhere

KEENE, N.D. - What will the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement do to North Dakota and the United States? To answer these questions, we need to first look at the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Under 10 years of NAFTA:

* The United States lost 879,280 jobs.

* North Dakota lost 1,090 jobs.

* Between 1997 and 2002, North Dakota lost 1,729 farms.

* The $30 billion U.S. net export deficit with Canada and Mexico in 1993 has increased by 281 percent to $85 billion in 2002.

According to a report by Won Koo, director of the Center for Agricultural Policy and Trade Studies at North Dakota State University, DR-CAFTA will follow suit by jeopardizing roughly 370,000 jobs nationwide, 13,000 in North Dakota in the sugar industry alone. This virtually will eliminate the $21.1 billion U.S. sugar industry.

Not only will DR-CAFTA cost the American economy in lost jobs, it also will result in multimillion dollar lawsuits.

How, you ask? DR-CAFTA contains language similar to Chapter 11 in NAFTA, which grants foreign corporations the right to sue governments through a secret tribunal for any laws inhibiting their anticipated or real "profit-making potential."

Everyone is at risk, including but not limited to local zoning, conservation and pollution laws/regulations, human health and safety measures, farmers (farm subsidies), ranchers and mandatory country of origin labeling laws.

Congress needs to know that DR-CAFTA is a destructive trade for all of America. Write, call or fax your congressmen today and voice your concerns.

Donald Nelson
Nelson is a rancher-farmer and member of the Dakota Resource Council.