Dan,

Outside of the elites, thse trade deals are not particularly popular in Latin America. Issues of fairness abound and they inevitably impact the nations in Latin America far worse than they do the US.

The Bush administration has still not complied in eliminating cotton subsidies despite the decision against the US two years ago.

Think NAFTA was good for Mexican corn farmers? Think again:

The United States and Canada have been selling tons of corn in Mexico for over a decade, thanks to NAFTA — the North American Free Trade Agreement. It eliminated tariffs on most agricultural trade and was supposed to be a win-win for the United States and Mexico.

For Alvares Correa, NAFTA has been a disaster. While the trade agreement opened up U.S. markets to Mexican corn farmers, they haven't been able to sell any corn in America.

Meanwhile, American farmers have flooded Mexico with cheap corn thanks to generous U.S. government subsidies — subsidies left unchecked by NAFTA. A U.S. corn grower receives an average annual subsidy of $20,000 a year. The Mexican government gives their farmers just $100.

Farmers said that entire towns are emptying because thousands of small farms have gone out of business. As many as 2 million farm workers have lost their jobs — the vast majority headed north across the U.S. border looking for better pay.

Guess where these entire towns have gone?

In fairness, this is a bipartisan problem. Senator Durbin wants to maintain the heavy levy on Brazilian ethanol to protect the much less efficient corn ethanol market.

Somehow, I don't think too many Latin Americans are going to be upset if these deals fall through.

Outside of the elites, thse trade deals are not particularly popular in Latin America.

From the article:

In Peru, between 55 and 70 percent of the population supports a trade deal, recent polls say.

Hmm. Especially considering that in Peru the pro-deal candidate did win the election. You may not consider them "particularly popular," but certainly the deals at least are not "particularly unpopular," either.

One letter objecting to specific portions of the Peru deal (not the deal as a whole, and the problematic portions are very problematic indeed from the equity standpoint) does not equal a wholesale rejection of the free trade agenda. The FT would do well to bear this in mind.

Peru may very well be an exception, but they are not popular in Argentina, Mexico and Brazil.

Peru may very well be an exception, but they are not popular in Argentina, Mexico and Brazil.

First off, my comment addressed the question of whether trade liberalization agreements are DOA in the U.S. Congress, not in Latin America. My point is that merely because some congressmen signed a letter objecting to specific portions of the Peru agreement does not signal Congress' rejection of the agreement as a whole, or of other trade liberalization agreement.

Second, while I would agree that trade agreements are less popular in Latin America than they were, say, five years ago, the defeat of Lopez-Obrador in Mexico suggests that they may still have life left in them.

Third, we should not be prioritizing so many trade agreements with poor Latin American countries anyway. We should be signing them with our major trading partners.

temoc94,

I was actually responding to John Thacker.

With regard to Lopez Obrador, as I have mentioned before in comments on this blog, Mexico is one of only two countries in Latin America that I am aware of (Argentina being the other) that has no plurality threshhold to reach to allow someone to be elected president without having a runoff. Lopez Obrador lost, but lost by the thinnest of pluralities and Calderon hardly has a mandate.

I wouldn't read too much into Calderon's victory.

I'm not following this: are you complaining about getting what you asked for? Most of us with real jobs outgrew that about age 16.

I'm joining this thread a little late, but I really must point out something about Mexican corn farmers. Hundreds of new factories have been built in Mexico to take advantage of lower wages. Lower-skilled Americans lost their jobs as a result. On the other hand, Mexican markets are full of corn and many other agricultural products from more the productive US farms. Mexican farmers have suffered for this. But the end result is net increase in jobs on both sides of the border and lower prices for consumers. It's called comparative advantage, and sometimes it actually works.

Maybe Randy Paul would have us go back to a pre-NAFTA economy, but there are lots of people who would complain about that too. You can pretend the global eceonomy doesn't exist, or you can try to make it work better.

OBM,

I'm all for that. One way to do it would be to eliminate ag subsidies.