Missouri groups urge McCaskill to vote NO on Peru FTA
Source: BrownfieldNetwork.com, by Julie Harker
November 28, 2007
The pending Peru Free Trade Agreement is an expansion of NAFTA that Missouri Farmer’s Union president Russ Kremer says further threatens family farms. Kremer’s group, along with the Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska Conference of Teamsters and the Greater Kansas City Fair Trade Coalition said Tuesday that while exports of US corn and soybeans have increased in the NAFTA era, the prices received by American farmers declined to their lowest levels. Kremer acknowledged the higher prices being paid for those commodities THIS year but says expanded free trade threatens them.
"This (trade agreement) will make it much easier for ethanol, or ethanol-type crops, to flow into this country, which, you know, ethanol has been one thing that has contributed to the increase in domestic demand for grain. And, we think that that threatens that."
The groups are calling for Missouri’s Freshman Senator Claire McCaskill to vote against the Peru agreement to back up her campaign pledge to support fair trade policies. They blame NAFTA and CAFTA for the loss of 300-thousand family farms in the US and in free trade countries. Kremer says a Peru Free Trade Agreement would be more of the same…
"Large multi-national corporations have the ability to drive prices down by sourcing from the farmer that has the lowest price."
Holly Shulman, with Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, says there were improvements made to the agreement, such as labor standards and environmental standards, but she says "not a single union, family farm, faith, or environmental group supports the Peru FTA.
In a statement, Senator McCaskill said she will review the proposed agreement “with a critical eye to assure that American interests are protected.” The Peru FTA passed the US House earlier this month and is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate next week.
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