Our leaders make the broad-sweeping claim that as we loosen trade restrictions everyone will benefit. The curious part is that the FTAA negotiators are afraid of criticism. The FTAA, a treaty intended to relax restrictions on trade, is itself a restricted document. The only parties free to view the agreement up until now have been the 34 countries participating in negotiations and a group of 500 multinational corporations. I don't think it could be said any better.
Many corporations now own more capital than several countries put together.
This has serious implications if you consider that corporations, by definition, are not democracies. And that is exactly what the FTAA will do. Let's not kid ourselves. While the FTAA pact is a secretive piece of paper, no one denies that it will permit multinational corporations to bypass regulations that impede their ability to trade to their heart's content. Afraid to be left out of a new market, many countries in the America's are afraid to complain too much about the implications of the FTAA, lest they become like the black sheep economy of Cuba, which has been excluded from negotiations so far.