[NYTr] Bush intervenes in Costa Rica's historic referendum on NAFTA expansion: Take Action!

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Global Trade Watch - October 8, 2007
http://action.citizen.org/content.jsp?content_KEY=3323&t=BlankTemplate.dwt


Bush intervenes in Costa Rica's historic referendum on NAFTA
expansion

In Brief: Tell Congress that voters want a different course on trade -
write your representative now!

http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=15509

Dear Fair Trade Supporter,

Costa Rica just held the world's first ever popular referendum on a
NAFTA expansion. The result: nearly half the country ignored the
fear-mongering tactics of Bush and big corporations and voted against
CAFTA and for fair trade.

As today's Washington Post reported, the vote "followed a contentious
campaign marked by a scandal that toppled one of the country's vice
presidents and a last-minute push for votes by the White House."

This "push" included the Bush administration invoking misleading
threats just hours before the polls opened that Costa Rica would suffer
economic reprisals for voting "no." Tell Congress this kind of
irresponsible bullying can't happen again!
http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=15509

Despite this last-minute intervention, nearly half of the voters in
Latin America's oldest democracy voted down the NAFTA expansion, based
on the clear negative impact of this policy on Mexico and other
countries. You can read our analysis here at Eyes On Trade:
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2007/10/close-cafta-vot.html

This outcome should make clear that the process of repairing U.S.
relations with Latin America needs to start with staying out of their
elections, and not pushing more destructive NAFTA-style trade deals.

Unfortunately, Bush doesn't seem to think so. In the coming weeks,
Congress will vote on whether to help Bush expand NAFTA to Peru -
despite the opposition of that country's religious, labor, retiree, and
indigenous groups and others. 

You can help stop Bush's NAFTA expansion to Peru - a deal that has all
the same job-offshoring, people-displacing, corporation-enriching
provisions that half of Costa Rica braved Bush's threats to oppose.
Please tell your members of Congress that you want a new path on trade
in America, both North and South.
http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=15509

Thank you for your help in the fight for fair trade!

Global Trade Watch

p.s. For more information and key documents on the Peru NAFTA expansion
deal, and updates on Costa Rica and CAFTA, see GTW's website or our
blog, Eyes On Trade. http://www.tradewatch.org/
http://www.eyesontrade.org/