Freeing Trade By Restricting It

Declan McCullagh offers another reason to dislike CAFTA: It "will require Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to mirror the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's broad prohibition on bypassing copy-protection technology." They'll also have to match the U.S.'s extended copyright terms, allow software patents, and restrict the technologies used to de-encrypt satellite TV signals.

[Via Norman Singleton.]

Comments

[Ruthless]

I knew it! Dubya has it in for Costa Rica because it's the home of Laissez-Faire City.

[AML]

Internationalizing restrictions on commerce while calling it "free trade," yet wonder bill pumped out by the Ministry of Truth.

[Hakluyt]

And people wonder why I don't vote for Republicans.

[Twba]

People wonder why I quit voting.

[Ruthless]

Twba,
Voting is Ritalin for adults.

I may have said that before.

[Rich Ard]

At least you know people who ask about voting.

[Pig Mannix]

I think at this point, we all understand CAFTA isn't perfect.

More realistically, is it an improvement over what was in place before? Noxious as some of the provision are, it still expands opportunities for trade. Maybe not what I'd want in a perfect world but still better than nothing.

Realistically, governments are always going to be erecting barriers to trade to satisfy various interests. CAFTA, at least, negates a few of them. On the balance, I'd say we're better off with it than without it.

[Hakluyt]

Pig Mannix,

No, it doesn't expand any oppurtunities. Its well known that all CAFTA does for "free trade" is make permament what was already in place. CAFTA doesn't "negate" anything.

[Hakluyt]

But hey, its a "victory" for Bush, so Republicans love it.

[sage]

Hakluyt,

I may have a short attention span

[James Anderson Merritt]

See my entry in the comment thread of the sister article to this one, "One Small Step for Free Trade in the New World..."

Short story even shorter: the US Constitution defines free trade in one page with lots of white space. Why are CAFTA, NAFTA, etc., so big, unless they are something other (and perhaps much less desirable) than free trade?