Word: naftas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
...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...
...Remind grousing Brazil that they've been allotted a generous 52 percent of the 5.4-million-ton slab-steel quota. And if they want to be treated like exempted NAFTA members Mexico and Canada, well, the Free Trade Association of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations - a Western Hemisphere version of NAFTA - kick off in 2005, which just happens to be three years away. Remind the Russians that they've been allotted 25 percent of that same slab-steel quota, and that if they want to be treated even better, like special-exemption Turkey, they could always be more helpful...