Guatemalan FTA with US said risky
Prensa Latina, Cuba
Guatemalan FTA with US Said Risky
9 January 2006
Guatemala, Jan 9 (Prensa Latina) “The Free Trade Agreement imposed by the United States on Central America and Dominican Republic will have negative consequences for our countries,” said Guatemalan jurist Alfonso Bauer Paiz.
Bauer Paiz told Prensa Latina the falseness of the supposed trade agreement is due to high subsidies Washington gives its industry, trade and agriculture.
He also spoke of the need to eliminate all tariff, customs and phytosanitary barriers from Latin America to that territory.
According to the legal specialist, the pact’s first negative consequences would be the “increase of unemployment and loss of sovereignty of our countries.”
“The FTA is the latest evidence of neo-imperialism, it is the re-application of a so-called modern economic policy, and dates to the 17th century,” Bauer Paiz stated.
“The trade accord with the United States ensures free circulation of their goods and citizens to Mexico and Central America, while it raises a wall along its border to avoid our people going there,” he said.
Alfonso Bauer Paiz is part of a team of experts created to analyze irregularities of the Free Trade Agreement law, which will allow for presentation of an appeal at the Constitutional Court on behalf of social, union, rural and grass-roots organizations opposed to the trade pact with United States.
