Many believe our membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) is unconstitutional and that it violates Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress shall have the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations….” Under our Constitution [if you actually believe we have one], Congress may not hand over these powers to the WTO or any other domestic or foreign organization. Following this same line of thought, we should immediately withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and all other so-called free-trade agreements. They are flawed agreements that do nothing but support the offshoring and outsourcing that enriches multinational corporations and first-world capitalists while destroying the U.S. economy.

In 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was sold to the American public with grand promises. NAFTA would create tens of thousands of good jobs here. U.S. farmers would export their way to wealth. NAFTA would bring Mexico’s standard of living up, providing new economic opportunities there that would reduce immigration to the United States. Unfortunately, all bets are off. NAFTA is just another ruse in the ongoing violations enacted by the POTUS and Congress. The US has been SOLD and traded to the highest bidder.

NAFTA has been an experiment, establishing a radically new “trade” agreement model. It exploded the boundaries of past trade pacts, which had focused narrowly on cutting tariffs and quotas. In contrast, NAFTA contained chapters that created new privileges and protections for foreign investors; required the three countries to waive domestic procurement preferences, such as Buy American; limited regulation of services, such as trucking and banking; extended medicine patent monopolies and limited food and product safety standards and border inspection.

After twenty years of NAFTA, we can measure its actual outcomes. The grand promises made by proponents remain unfulfilled. Many outcomes are exactly the opposite of what was promised. Many U.S. firms used the new investor protections to relocate production to Mexico to take advantage of its low wages and weak environmental standards and to attack NAFTA countries’ environmental and health laws in foreign tribunals. Over $340 million in compensation to investors has been extracted from NAFTA governments via these “investor-state” challenges.

The US Trade agreements crafted by investor-class plutocrats that we continue to send to “represent” us continue to make money for them while destroying the middle and working classes of the US and the countries with whom they make these trade agreements.

Congress blathers on about debt and the deficit, but we don’t hear them talking about TRADE deficits, do we? They are all such liars–from both sides of the aisle. It is mind-boggling! Last year’s federal budget deficit was 12 percent lower than in 2009, according to the Office of Management and Budget.The deficit is projected to shrink even more over the next several years and this is even if the do-nothings do nothing.

NAFTA is among the worst of the worst of these trade agreements. In 1993, the United States had a net export deficit with its NAFTA partners of $18.2 billion (all figures in inflation- adjusted 1987 dollars). From 1993 to 1998, this deficit increased by 160% to $47.3 billion, resulting in job losses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Under Obama we have the Korean Trade Agreement–another one-side trade agreement for the American people that will ship no less than 169,000 jobs out of the USA and will increase the trade deficit by $16 billion dollars. All members of Congress had this report from the Congressional Budget Office BEFORE they voted on the trade agreement.

THEY KNEW THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE KOREAN TRADE AGREEMENT AND THEY STILL VOTED FOR IT–WHY? BECAUSE PERSONALLY, AS WALL STREET INVESTORS, THEY MAKE MONEY OFF THESE TRADE AGREEMENTS. WAKE UP FOLKS! STOP SENDING THESE PEOPLE TO REPRESENT YOU.

THEY DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOU OR “DEMOCRACY” OR THE MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASS.

The U.S. government argues that it needs the “flexibility” of different foreign policy tools to maneuver successfully in this increasingly complex global society.

Really?

July 3, 2014

Information Notice of ACE Capabilities for Trade Users:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is working to complete the development of core trade processing capabilities in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and decommission corresponding capabilities in the legacy systems by the end of 2016. CBP has posted the ACE Development and Deployment Schedule to CBP.gov which details the deployment of new features in ACE. New features will be spread across 7 Deployments (A-G), which began in the fall of 2013 (Deployment A), and will culminate in the summer of 2016 (Deployment G).
In order to deliver useful capabilities to stakeholders earlier, CBP has broken down the capabilities in Deployment D into three releases: July 12 and October 18, 2014; and January 3, 2015.

Who is impacted by the July 12th Deployment?

Filers
Software Developers
Unified Filing of Cargo Release and Importer Security Filing (ISF) Data
Entry Summary System Validations

What are the impacts of the July 12th Deployment?
Unified Filing of Cargo Release/ISF Data: With this release, ACE will allow for submission of ISF data together with Cargo Release/Entry data on the same record. Only 6 shipment types will be allowed in conjunction with ACE Cargo Release; anything outside the below shipment types will need to be filed as a stand-alone ISF transaction:

 Standard or regular filings
 To Order Shipments
 Military, Government
 U.S. Goods Returned
 International Mail Shipments
 Outer Continental Shelf Shipments

This capability will be initially launched through expansion of the existing ACE Cargo Release Pilot Ports | U.S. Customs and Border. After successful completion of initial processing, this capability will be expanded to additional eligible ocean filers. ( If you are an interested ocean filer, please contact your assigned Client Representative or call 571-468-5500.)

With the combined data submission, ACE will return notifications to the filer for the Entry and ISF submission. If either is rejected, it will be handled individually, and will not result in an automatic rejection of the other. Please ensure your software packages are updated and in compliance with ACE interface standards. The Cargo Release CATAIR Chapter is available on CBP.gov/ACE.
System Validations for Entry Summaries: With the July release, CBP has enabled additional entry summary system validations. Users will see new system error messages related to processing of validations for the following:

 Informal Entry Restrictions
 Charges Restrictions
 Taxes
 Other Fees

KEY DATES
Reminder, our 3 mandatory dates are on the horizon. May 1, 2015 Mandated use of ACE for all electronic manifest filings. November 1, 2015 Mandated use of electronic Cargo Release and associated Entry Summary filings. October 1, 2016 Mandated use of ACE for all remaining electronic portions of the CBP cargo process. 10 Months To Go as of July 2014! 16 Months To Go as of July 2014! 27 Months To Go as of July 2014!

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that “Deployment D” will have three releases: July 12, October 18, 2014 and January 3, 2015.

The July 12, 2014 deployment will allow for submission of Importer Security Filing (ISF) data together with Cargo Release/Entry data on the same record. Only 6 shipment types will be allowed in conjunction with ACE Cargo Release; anything outside the below shipment types will need to be filed as a stand-alone ISF transaction:

• Standard or regular filings
• To Order Shipments
• Military, Government
• U.S. Goods Returned
• International Mail Shipments
• Outer Continental Shelf Shipments

This capability will be initially launched through expansion of the existing ACE Cargo Release pilot. After successful completion of initial processing, this capability will be expanded to additional eligible ocean filers.

Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement

Date modified:: 2014-07-02

Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act
- 1 – SHORT TITLE
- 2 – INTERPRETATION
- 3 – GENERAL
- 8 – PART I – IMPLEMENTATION OF AGREEMENT GENERALLY
- 23. to 45 – PART II – [Repealed, 1995, c. 29, s. 18]
- 23. to 45 – PART III – AMENDMENTS TO THE SPECIAL IMPORT MEASURES ACT
- 46. to 148 – PART IV – RELATED AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS TO IMPLEMENT THE AGREEMENT
- 149 – PART V – TRANSITIONAL AND COMING INTO FORCE
  - 149 – Transitional
  - 150 – Coming into Force
- Footnote ^*SCHEDULE — PART A
- SCHEDULE — PARTS B AND C
- CUSTOMS ACT
- Regulations made under this Act
- Procurement Review Board Regulations (SOR/89-41)
- NAFTA Marking Rulings Issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Transparency:

Transparencia – Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores

The Government of the Republic we believe that transparency and access to information play a vital role in building governments more open to public scrutiny, able to promote increased participation of civil society in the design and evaluation of policies governmental public and therefore greater public accountability.

Therefore, the transparency policy of the Government of the Republic aims not only to guarantee the right of access to information of Mexicans, but also to provide timely information to improve decision making by citizens and improve confidence and certainty regarding government action.

In this section you will find basic information about the transparency policy of the Government of the Republic, its objectives, scope, the main results of its implementation, and the challenges that still lie ahead.