CAFTA could cause environmental hazards

 At first, I was surprised to see The Chronicle pop up on my Google Alerts yesterday on Central American Free Trade Agreement alerts, but then I was excited to see what my almamater’s paper had to say about the CAFTA debate. I was saddened to see that the article focused entirely on the economic arguments for CAFTA and didn’t at all discuss the other impacts of these free trade agreements on our daily lives. Although I would not agree with big business that CAFTA is good for our economy, I challenge The Chronicle staff and Duke Students to think of these issues from a larger viewpoint. CAFTA, as NAFTA has, will threaten the ability of our communities, states and nation to protect its citizens against environmental hazards. It not only leaves out real, enforceable environmental protection in the language of the agreement, but it also enables foreign corporations to sue our governments for any law that they feel hurts their profit margin.

 Over the past ten years with NAFTA, many laws that are meant to protect public health have been challenged by corporations. California is paying out millions of dollars to a Canadian corporation for banning a carcinogenic gasoline additive that was seeping into hundreds of communities’ groundwater. Are you willing to risk your clean drinking water or your government’s right to make laws that protect human health for the sake of a corporation making a few million more dollars a year? CAFTA is bigger than trade and economics. It’s about our democracy.

Erica Maharg

Trinity ’03