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Fair Trade Archive: GTW E-Newsletters, Action Alerts, and Updates

Peru-U.S. NAFTA Expansion: Overview

In December of 2005, as other countries tried to drive a harder bargain, the United States and Peru reached a deeply flawed deal on a Peru-U.S. "free trade" agreement (FTA). The Bush administration signed this Peru NAFTA expansion on April 12, 2006, and then reached a deal with some Democrats on May 10, 2007 to advance the Peru FTA while leaving intact the majority of the deal's harmful NAFTA provisions.

Read the Text of the Peru FTA

Unfortunately, the Peru FTA text replicates the exact same failed NAFTA and CAFTA model – guaranteed to cost more quality jobs, bankrupt more farmers, and give more power to corporations to use international trade tribunals to attack U.S. sovereignty.

The people of Peru did not even want the agreement. In April of 2006, the National Electoral Council of Peru certified nearly 60,000 signatures submitted by anti-FTA coalitions to request a referendum on the deal. However, when the June elections resulted in a majority for parties that were critical of the FTA, the lame-duck (post-election, but pre-new congressional term) Peruvian Congress resolved to ignore the petition and, despite broad calls for it to be considered by the newly elected Congress, the lame-duck session in Peru approved the agreement.

In the United States, the Peru NAFTA expansion was passed in late 2007. But in the House of Representatives, a majority of Democrats - including nearly three-fourths of the freshmen and a majority of the party's committee chairs - voted NO on the Peru FTA, sending a signal that even with the May 10 deal "fixes," this FTA is just more of the same bad NAFTA-style trade agenda.

 TAKE ACTION: Write a letter to the editor about your Congressperson's vote on the Peru NAFTA expansion!

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