Elms Progressive Media

Free Trade opens up markets by eliminating all taxes and tariffs on products being imported and exported, creating one large economy in which everyone competes. Free trade is part of the neoliberal model that encourages countries to produce for export rather than for their own consumption. Under this model, poor countries like Nicaragua are supposed to use their “comparative advantage” to compete against large economies like Mexico and the United States. Nicaragua’s “comparative advantage” is a cheap, abundant labor force and cash crops. Following in the footsteps of NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement), CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) involves five Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua), and the Dominican Republic. Expanding NAFTA further south through the regional free trade agreement CAFTA is a strategic step towards the hemisphere-wide FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas).CAFTA BackgroundCAFTA passed in the US Cong...

Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/79ec4d9c-87d7-11e0-a6de-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1NWMld5ft The US Hispanic population grew of 43 per cent in 10 years, which is four times faster than the total US population, according to 2010 census data released on Thursday . The Hispanic population increased by more than 15.2m people, which is more than half of the total US population increase of 27.3m. In terms of total population, people that reported being of Hispanic origin was 50.5m people, or 16.3 per cent of the total population of 308m. EDITOR’S CHOICE Supreme Court backs Arizona workers’ law - May-26 Clive Crook: America’s immigration mess - May-15 Obama in fresh push on immigration - May-10 Editorial: US immigration - May-11 Migrant work...