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<p class=MsoNormal><a name=2990791367766777103></a><b><font size=4 color=navy
face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
color:navy;font-weight:bold'><a
href="http://www.swopblogger.org/2010/03/bill-clinton-admits-his-neoliberal-free.html">Bill
Clinton admits his Neoliberal Free Trade policies are wrong: 'It was a mistake'</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><a
href="http://www.swopblogger.org/2010/03/bill-clinton-admits-his-neoliberal-free.html">http://www.swopblogger.org/2010/03/bill-clinton-admits-his-neoliberal-free.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Monday, March
22, 2010<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Former U.S.
President Bill Clinton made a remarkable admission a couple of weeks ago.
His neoliberal “free trade” policies of the 1990’s have led
to the destruction of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Haiti</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
agricultural sector and the inability of the country to feed itself.</span></font><font
size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy;font-weight:bold'>"It
may have been good for some of my farmers in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Arkansas</st1:place></st1:State>, but it has not worked. It was a
mistake," said <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Clinton</st1:place></st1:City>
to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live
everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop
in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>In a <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032001329.html?sub=AR">remarkable
article,</a> Associated Press reporter Jonathan Katz describes what has
happened in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Haiti</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
which is similar to poor countries all over the world. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>When Haiti
lowered its tariffs on rice in the 90s on the direction of the international
neoliberal trade regime—led by the U.S. with Clinton as its champion, and
foisted onto poor countries by the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and
the International Monetary Fund—subsidized American farm products flooded
its market with cheap food. Haitian farmers were unable to compete.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>From the AP
article: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Cheap foreign
products drove farmers off their land and into overcrowded cities. Rice, a
grain with limited nutrition once reserved for special occasions in the Haitian
diet, is now a staple. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Imports also put
the country at the mercy of international prices: When they spiked in 2008,
rioters unable to afford rice smashed and burned buildings. Parliament ousted
the prime minister. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Now it could be
happening again. Imported rice prices are up 25 percent since the quake - and
would likely be even higher if it weren't for the flood of food aid, said WFP
market analyst Ceren Gurkan. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Three decades
ago things were different. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Haiti</st1:place></st1:country-region>
imported only 19 percent of its food and produced enough rice to export, thanks
in part to protective tariffs of 50 percent set by the father-son dictators,
Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>When their reign
ended in 1986, free-market advocates in <st1:State w:st="on">Washington</st1:State>
and Europe pushed <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Haiti</st1:place></st1:country-region>
to tear those market barriers down. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, freshly
reinstalled to power by <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Clinton</st1:place></st1:City>
in 1994, cut the rice tariff to 3 percent. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Impoverished
farmers unable to compete with the billions of dollars in subsidies paid by the
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
to its growers abandoned their farms. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><a
href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HSPzRDwdeVo/S6enp2AqO4I/AAAAAAAAA0M/a6NKNRea4ws/s1600-h/SWOP99.JPG"><img
border=0 width=400 height=256 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.jpg@01CACEBD.C084CD30"></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>What Katz
describes in this article, and <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Clinton</st1:place></st1:City>
cops to, is a neoliberal trade regime that led to the destruction of
third-world agricultural sectors and a huge migration from rural areas to urban
cities. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>Here in the
states, we can credit the large wave of immigration we experienced over the
past decade to those trade policies, as people from south of the border
struggled to feed their families and ultimately headed north. Many of those
immigrants work on those same American farms that profit through
exporting to developing countries. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><font
size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'>U.S.</span></font></st1:place></st1:country-region><font
size=2 color=navy face="Trebuchet MS"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
"Trebuchet MS";color:navy'> workers have also suffered from "free trade,"
with the dismantling of our manufacturing base as companies head overseas in
search of cheaper labor. What sectors have been created to replace those
manufacturing jobs that pay living wages? During this incredibly painful
recession we are currently living through, this is quite the burning question. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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