Word: nafta
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...could affect federal laws on matters from food safety to monopolies. "Trade is no longer primarily about tariffs and quotas," he said. "It's about changing domestic laws." In the Senate, Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry wants to amend the bill to make it harder for companies to file claims. "NAFTA was never intended to infringe on U.S. sovereignty in such a way," he said...
...stakes are high. The Administration wants to extend NAFTA to 31 more countries in Latin America. If investor protections are also offered through the World Trade Organization, Methanex-style suits could spread through the global trading system. That would open the U.S. to corporate claims from scores of countries, but the effect on Third World nations might be even more dramatic. Could a developing country stand up to a timber giant wanting to clear-cut the rain forest? A multinational retailer flouting labor laws? Says Mary Bottari, of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a liberal activist group: "The mere...
American businesses want trade treaties to protect their property from seizure abroad. Says Stephen Canner, vice president of the U.S. Council on International Business (USCIB): "If there's a taking of property, a government has to pay." NAFTA's investor clauses were strengthened partly because American investors did not trust Mexico. "The idea was to protect factories from being taken over in some banana republic," says Segundo Mercado-Llorens, a labor lobbyist. "No one contemplated these provisions would be used to invalidate our environmental laws...
...State Department says the Methanex claim "does not remotely resemble the type of grievance" envisioned under NAFTA. But the Canadian firm is only one of more than a dozen multinationals that have taken advantage of the treaty's broad provisions. The LOEWEN GROUP, a Canadian funeral conglomerate, wants the U.S. government to pay $725 million in damages because a Mississippi jury harbored what Loewen claims were "anti-Canadian, racial and class biases" when it found the company guilty of contract fraud. METALCLAD, a California firm that was prevented from opening a toxic-waste plant in Mexico, won $15.6 million from...
...taking on the task of reconciling Clinton the Scalawag with Clinton the Brilliant Policymaker, Klein walks us briskly through the White House years, showing us a President who balanced the budget, reformed welfare, passed NAFTA, bailed out Mexico; who brought stability to Bosnia and instability to Newt Gingrich. Like everyone else, Klein is critical of Clinton's handing the health-care brief to Hillary and leaving decisions unmade so long it looked as if he could be rolled. But Klein argues that Clinton was never as inept in diplomatic matters as his critics charged and that he was a good...