Write a Letter to the Editor

Writing a Letter to the Editor Opposing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement

(for talking points on Fast Track, please see below)

Letters to the Editor matter!  They are an excellent means of sharing your opinions with a large audience.  Because politicians often read the letters section of the local newspaper to keep track of public opinion, they are also a great way of communicating with your elected officials.  Over the long term, letters can even help to shape news coverage.  

Talking Points about the Colombia Free Trade Agreement:

• CHOOSE ONE ISSUE TO FOCUS ON: The ColombiaFree Trade Agreement is bad for Oregon/working people/the environment and should be opposed.  
   
• The United States is in the midst of its largest trade deficit ever.  The Colombia Free Trade Agreement would make matters worse by forcing U.S. employers to compete with sweatshops abroad.  This would undoubtedly help accelerate the export of Oregon jobs.  The Oregon Fair Trade Campaign estimates that 68,000 Oregon jobs have already been lost to outsourcing and foreign competition.  
   
• Colombia remains the deadliest place on Earth to be a labor advocate.  Since 1991, at least 2,283 union leaders have been murdered -- with the vast majority of cases remaining unsolved.  You cannot trade "freely" with another country when its workers are physically intimidated into accepting poor working conditions.
   
• Colombia's rainforests are home to an incredibly wide range of plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth.  The Colombia Free Trade Agreement does almost nothing to protect biodiversity in Colombia, and would lead to increased drilling, mining and logging there, putting countless species in danger of extinction.  
   
• The Colombia deal copies the same horrendous agricultural provisions found in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and as such, is expected to push sizable numbers of small-scale Colombian farmers out-of-business.  This decidedly "unfree" trade agreement would force Colombian farmers to compete with farm goods imported from the United States that receive massive government subsidies and can thus be sold for less than the cost of production. 
  
• The Bush administration is pushing Congress to vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement this year.  Our elected officials should oppose this reckless policy.  

For more info on the Colombia FTA, visit http://www.citizenstrade.org/cfta.php

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