Why should I care about Fair Trade?

Many people don't think fair trade issues directly impact their community, and they may dismiss international trade as a worthwhile battle to take on at the local level.

Thinking globally and acting locally has never been more important.  You can make a real difference in your school, business, city or county by pushing local policies and resolutions from the red box on your right. 

Co-called "Free Trade Agreements" impact every sector of society.  Dangerous Trade Agreements such as CAFTA and FTAA:

• Expand NAFTA’s Attacks On Workers And The Environment

The FTAA mirrors NAFTA rules, except it goes much further. NAFTA has proven a nightmare for working families and the environment. Under NAFTA, 879,000 U.S. jobs have been lost, approximately 28,000 small Mexican businesses have shut down, and union bargaining power in all three countries has been undermined.

• Erode Vital Public Services

The FTAA would forge into new dangerous ground through its far-reaching rules on liberalization of essential services such as education, health care, energy and water utilities, environmental services, postal service, and many others. Under the FTAA’s definition of “liberalization,” government health, labor, and environmental regulations would be considered “barriers to trade” and open to challenges by multinational corporations.

• Destroy our Family Farms

Family farmers in Mexico and the U.S. have been devastated by NAFTA provisions which favor huge agribusiness, keep commodity prices low, and flood local markets with cheap imported commodities. The FTAA would encourage additional concentration of and access for corporate megafarms, causing further harm to small farmers. In addition, the agribusiness lobby is trying to use the FTAA as a way to force all countries in the hemisphere to accept biotechnology and genetically modified foods, pushing farmers in the U.S. and developing world into dependency on transnational corporations and closer to the brink of economic collapse.

• Increase Corporate Power

The FTAA would expand the provision of NAFTA that grants corporations special rights to sue governments when public interest regulations constrain corporate profits, thereby eroding the ability of national and local governments to regulate in the public interest.

Fair Trade agreements are for Everybody.

You can combat free trade agreements  like CAFTA and FTAA with the information listed in the red box to your right.  There is a choice.  Start the journey.

ALICE would like to thank The Citizens Trade Campaign and Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch for blazing the Fair Trade trail on the high road.

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