Editorial: What's the deal on free trade?

The protests against the undefined free trade agreement with the United States have already begun, first during labor’s Mayday march and then with a number of farmers’ protests. As professionals, manufacturers, consumers, financiers and others become aware of what’s at stake, such protests are likely to broaden their scope.

It might all be premature, except that with the examples of NAFTA and CAFTA to examine, we have a fairly good idea of what the Bush administration is set to offer us. Panama will be asked to submit its entire economy to US domination, for the benefit of neither the American nor the Panamanian people, but for a relatively small group of large US-based companies.

Of course Panama should reject that. But that’s not the end of the question.

Actually, hemispheric economic integration could be good for Panama. The easy flow of goods and capital, the free migration of individuals and the transnational democratic institutions that characterize the European Union would surely improve standards of living across the Americas if we can achieve free trade on that basis.

A beneficial agreement would still be seen as a threat by those who are defending their privileges and monopolies within the little Panamanian market. It might have an annoying international bureaucracy as its down side. It would disrupt the lives of many of us who are set in our ways. Those sorts of objections shouldn’t be deal breakers.

The sticking points should not be the concept of economic integration or the inevitability of change, but the specific details of the offer.

The difference between an acceptable and an unacceptable deal may depend on Panama’s approach to the negotiations. The Moscoso crowd has a record in office that ought to warn us that the public interest means nothing to it, so we should be suspicious of any lame duck treaty. Whether the incoming Torrijos administration is willing and able to defend Panamanian interests in talks between grossly unequal economic powers remains to be seen.

All sectors of Panamanian society should assert their particular hopes, fears, needs and desires, and we should all remain calm and attentive. If we can get an agreement that’s good for us, fine.

If we can’t, we shouldn’t be pressured into accepting whatever Uncle Sam has to offer. Failure to agree in this round of negotiations would not be the horrible catastrophe that those who have adopted globalization and privatization as their fundamentalist dogma suggest.

editorial

So what’s the deal?

Bear in mind...