Kaptur To Study NAFTA

11/12/2003 - High Plaines Journal

WASHINGTON (DTN) -- Trade negotiators and lobbyists will be in Miami next week for Free Trade Area of the Americas talks, but House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, is taking a detour on her way to Florida. Kaptur, a strong critic of free trade proposals, announced this week she will lead a congressional delegation to Mexico to study the effects of NAFTA on both sides of the border, before continuing on to Miami where she is scheduled to speak Tuesday.

Thousands of protesters and opponents of the trade talks are expected in Miami. Public Citizen, announced there will be a concert in Miami on Nov. 19 and a march on Nov. 20 to protest the trade talks, which would form one customs union from Alaska through Canada and the United States to Argentina and Chile. The National Family Farm Coalition, which has many affiliate organizations in the Midwestern states, is among the groups that have been participating in a "March to Miami" to protest the talks and the decline in the position of family farmers.

Kaptur said in a news release dated Nov. 8 that she would lead a group of House members to El Paso, Texas, Thursday where they will spend four days examining the impact of the NAFTA agreement on both sides of the border 10 years after NAFTA went into effect. Kaptur said House members will meet with workers and farmers and their families, as well as Mexican political leaders and will also attend an interfaith religious service to honor the victims of violence in the border region and to remember those who have died trying to emigrate to the United States.

The Kaptur release said other members who are scheduled to travel with Kaptur are Jerry Costello, D-Ill., Raul Grijalva, D- Ariz., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, and Benny Thompson, D-Miss., The release said the list of members in the delegation is subject to change.

Trade negotiators have had a hard time coming up with an agenda to which all countries in the Americas can agree and Brazilian officials said over the weekend the United States has agreed that if countries do not like certain parts of the agreement they will be able to decide not to participate in it.