"The Ministers reaffirm their commitment to a comprehensive and balanced FTAA that will most effectively foster economic growth, the reduction of poverty, development, and integration through trade liberalization."

—Declaration of the Ministers at their eighth meeting in Miami, November 20, 2003.

Just because our government should look out for America’s interests first does not mean that, as Americans, we should be indifferent to the plight of the less fortunate in other nations. However, there’s the right kind of help and the wrong kind of help. There’s win-win and lose-lose. Unfortunately, government programs often provide the wrong kind of help.

To see how our Latin American neighbors can truly prosper, let’s consider the source of our own prosperity. Why is it that in America, in just three generations, man managed to outstrip the world's total progress for six thousand years? How was it possible that our republic, with less than seven per cent of the earth's population, was able to create more wealth than all the other billions of people in the world?

The reason is that Americans have made more effective use of their human energies. And they were able to do so because they were blessed with liberty -- the mainspring of all human progress.

Economic progress — which begins with the invention of tools, and the exchange system deriving therefrom — is inseparable from liberty. Yet each nation in history, with the single exception of America, made the fatal mistake of restricting freedom, and thereby stifling progress.

The internationalists have rejected these well-established lessons and seek to regulate the world. Even America is not immune. A recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers documents that the federal regulatory burden is the single most important factor behind the exodus of jobs from the U.S.

The globalists behind the FTAA are not stupid, just ambitious power seekers. They certainly know that socialism and corruption in government stifle initiative and promote poverty and despair. Yet they encourage socialism throughout Latin America and especially at home. To entice Latin American nations to sign on, the internationalists offer World Bank loans (funded in part by American taxpayers) for infrastructure development projects.

But lower tariffs and even increased markets for Latin American goods will do little to help the people of those nations if their governments remain socialist and discourage private initiative and the right to prosper. Expanding trade between nations whose people are not free primarily helps the slave masters, not the people. Unfortunately, U.S. government-to-government aid programs (commonly referred to as "foreign aid") and the policies of the IMF and World Bank (supported by the U.S.) have helped the worst regimes to maintain their hold on their people.

And when an enlightened leader comes to power in Latin America, one who champions true free-market reforms, then he draws the ire of the international socialist community, including the government of the United States and the Establishment media.

A case in point was Augusto Pinochet of Chile (see recommended reading below). In 1973, a military coup by General Pinochet saved his nation from an imminent communist assasination campaign planned by Salvador Allende to consolidate a Communist-style dictatorship. During subsequent decades, Pinochet led his nation through genuine reforms. Under his leadership, Chile’s economic growth became the envy of Latin America. Yet despite his undeniable successes, Pinochet was demonized by the internationalists and domestic soclialists as repressive.

Even more blatant evidence of internationalist bias against freedom and independence is the case of Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori. In 2000, the immensely popular Fujimori could claim a remarkable 10-year presidency. American officials, and all supporters of freedom, should have enthusiastically supported him. His Marxist predecessor, Alan Garcia, had destroyed the economy, and Peru was collapsing under the fierce, Cuban-backed onslaughts of the Tupac Amaru and Shining Path terrorists. Fujimori defeated both terrorist groups, reversed socialist policies crippling the economy, privatized many socialist government enterprises, reduced government spending, stamped out much corruption, and cracked down on coca production and drug trafficking. And, contrary to the international propaganda campaign against him, he accomplished this without resorting to tyrannical policies or electoral fraud.

Yet globalists operating through the UN and the U.S. government crashed Peru’s economy and toppled its duly elected government in order to advance their agenda. Fujimori was replaced by Alejandro Toledo, a "reformed" radical Marxist. Joining Señor Toledo, as new commissars in South America, are fellow Marxists Fernando de la Rua (Argentina), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), and Luis Lula da Silva (Brazil). All have been raised to power with globalist support. Together with Fidel Castro, these leaders are taking Latin America back into the revolutionary turmoil of the Soviet era.

The situation in Latin America today is horrible. Our government looks the other way as Fidel Castro builds a following among the leaders of the nations to the South. In the 70s, our government "gave away" the strategic American- built Panama Canal to an unstable Marxist government and more recently has ignored the growing toehold of Red China throughout Latin America, particularly in Panama and Venezuela.

For several decades, most U.S. government programs advertised as helping the world’s poor have done just the opposite. The pretended benevolence of the FTAA architects has been merely a smokescreen to win support and defuse opposition.

CFR leader David Rockefeller, for instance, was a frequent welcome guest in Moscow during the Cold War and today receives the same greeting in Peking. During a visit to Marxist Zimbabwe in 1982, Rockefeller discounted the presence of Cuban troops in Angola; said that he saw no problem to American business interests from the African Marxist states; and bluntly stated that "we can deal with just about any kind of government, provided they are orderly and responsible."

In 1989, as Chinese pro-freedom student demonstrators, handcuffed and with shaven heads drooping, were exhibited on state-run television prior to their swift and brutal public executions, Secretary of State James Baker held a press conference. "Human rights," he said, "is not the only principle which determines our foreign policy." Baker went on to explain that there are other legitimate issues affecting our relationship with the People's Republic of China. He made it clear that it was not the President's intent to disrupt commercial trade or jeopardize the friendship which "has been carefully cultivated over 15 years." The President himself later told newsmen: "What I want to do is preserve this relationship. I am not interested in economic sanctions."

On the day after the bloody Tiananmen Square massacre of anti-Communist student protestors, Kissinger used his syndicated newspaper column to praise then-Chinese ruler Deng Xiaoping as "one of the great reformers in Chinese history.... [a man] who chose a more humane and less chaotic course" for China.

Our prescription for Latin America: Congress must not allow our government to tax Americans to support tyrants and oppression. Genuine free trade and investment in nations developing in freedom requires no government encouragement or (Kissinger Associates to grease the deals with tyrants). Moreover, when foreign governments protect the property of their people, new capital will be generated from within.

The facts to support this criticism of internationalist policies are plentiful. Please check out the recommended reading!

Recommended reading:

Welcome Mat for Terrorists - The New American - December 29, 2003

With Marxist Regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil and Haiti, and Communist movements in other Latin American countries, the FTAA poses an enormous security nightmare.

Pulling the Plug on Fujimori - The New American - December 30, 2002

Globalists operating through the UN and the U.S. government crashed Peru’s economy and toppled its duly elected government to advance their new world order.

Patriot Enchained - The New American - September 13, 1999

General Augusto Pinochet, former President of Chile, is being persecuted for his successful stand against Communism

A Lesson in Free Enterprise by Taylor Caldwell - The New American - December 30, 2002

A childhood race teaches a valuable lesson about the difference between free enterprise and socialist "share the wealth" schemes.

Further reading in Archives