Yesterday, I mentioned the protests in Costa Rica over the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). From our friends at the Citizens Trade Campaign comes a reminder that there is a so-called "free trade" deal pending with Peru. They ask you to take action to stop the deal and here are the main reasons why:

The Peru FTA contains a NAFTA/CAFTA-style foreign investor chapter that promotes off-shoring and subjects our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge directly by foreign investors in foreign tribunals. It allows challenges by foreign investors in foreign tribunals of to challenge timber, mining, construction and other concession contracts with the U.S. federal government, and affords foreign investors greater rights than those enjoyed by U.S. investors.

The Peru FTA’s procurement rules subject many common federal and state procurement policies to challenge in trade tribunals, continue the NAFTA/CAFTA ban on anti-off-shoring and Buy America policies, and expose U.S. renewable energy, recycled content and other requirements to challenge.

The Peru FTA’s agriculture trade rules undermine U.S. producers’ ability to earn a fair price for their crops at home and in the global market place. They favor multinational grain trading and food processing companies while farmers on both ends will be hurt. The Peru FTA is projected to increase hunger; illicit drug cultivation; undocumented migration; and continue the race to the bottom for commodity prices, pitting farmer against farmer and country against country to see who can produce food the cheapest, regardless of standards on labor, the environment or food safety.

While the amended text of the Peru FTA removes the most egregious, CAFTA-based, provisions limiting the access to affordable medicines, it still includes NAFTA-style provisions that undermine the right to affordable medicines for poorer countries.

The Peru FTA, like NAFTA and CAFTA, still contains language requiring the United States to accept imported food that does not meet our safety standards.

    Good enough for me to give it a thumbs down but I’m easy…