Chavez: No to FTAA...

In keeping with the old cliche about politics creating strange bed fellows, I find myself agreeing with Hugo Chavez on the issue of FTAA.

According to ABC News:

Venezuela's president, an outspoken critic of a U.S.-sponsored free trade arrangement for Latin America, prepared to address thousands of like-minded protesters Friday at a rally coinciding with the start of a regional summit.

President Bush has hoped to promote the Free Trade Area of the Americas at the 34-nation Summit of the Americas beginning Friday. The deal proposed by Washington would break down trade barriers from Alaska to the tip of South America.

Leaders attending the two-day summit had agreed ahead of time to focus on creating jobs and reducing poverty.

Sadly, President Bush has fallen prey to the wishes of the multinational corporations who desire cheaper labor than they are able to employ in this country.

From AmCon:

As one executive of a large American multinational company—once a prominent manufacturer in the U.S., now almost entirely making its products overseas—said to me recently, “You show me a company that doesn’t do its manufacturing in China, and I’ll show you a company that can be beaten, competitively.”

A country that retains no manufacturing base is a country ripe for defeat both economically and militarily. Who will be left in America to bear the burdens when our nation faces the outcome of these disastrous free trade policies? Surely it won't be the men who are acquiring huge wealth by offshoring our manufacturing industries.