CAFTA: The looming disaster

Tuesday, May 03, 2026

It always makes you wonder when the person youÕre talking to tries to change the subject in the middle of a discussion. And thatÕs whatÕs happening now with the Central America Free Trade Agreement. We started out talking about trade-and the benefits free-traders thought wide-open markets would bring to U.S. manufacturers and marketers. Now itÕs about, well É something else. CAFTA backers say we need to thank Central American cattle producers for keeping their herds healthy, or that weÕre counting on trade to keep the regionÕs tyrants in check.

ÒIt wasnÕt long agoÉthat we had some very unsavory characters in that part of the world,Ó Gregg Doud, chief economist for the National CattlemenÕs Beef Association, told a Wyoming newspaper in March. ÒNow, we have democracy É and we want to do everything we can to help that blossom.Ó

The NCBA number-cruncher continued: ÒI want beef producers in Wyoming to appreciate how hard Central American beef producers have worked to keep very dangerous diseases out of the United States.Ó

As Wyoming beef producers ourselves, weÕve got firsthand knowledge of how hard ranchers work to stop disease. And weÕre glad those Central American strongmen have been overthrown. But U.S. ranchers and Central American farmers shouldnÕt have to pay for these benefits with their homes and livelihoods.

LetÕs stick to the topic: the damage this deal would do to ranchers and farmers-and the rural communities that depend on them-in the United States and throughout Central America. Thanks to more than a decade of experience with the North American Free Trade Act, the model for CAFTA, we donÕt have to guess what the fallout will be.

Like NAFTA, CAFTA would eliminate or phase out tariffs on all kinds of agricultural products while relaxing health and environmental standards on imports. Like NAFTA, CAFTA would allow investors and corporations in the other participating countries-Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua-to sue our government if they felt theyÕd been treated unfairly.

And like NAFTA, CAFTA would be another devastating blow for rural areas throughout the region. U.S. beef producers, for example, have already been hit hard. The U.S. Department of AgricultureÕs National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that more than 100,000 ranchers went out of business in this country between 1997, when NAFTA had fully taken hold, and 2002. ItÕs no mystery why. The trade agreements open our borders to cheaper products from abroad, while the foreign markets opened up to us simply canÕt absorb our output.

Some provisions of these trade deals only rub salt into the wound. For instance, Uncle Sam rightly slapped restrictions on Canadian beef imports in 2003 after tracing a case of mad cow disease in Washington state to a farm in Alberta. But now, a group of Canadian cattlemen has filed a legal action under NAFTA seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from U.S. taxpayers.

This action underscores both the legal absurdities and the health concerns raised by trade deals like NAFTA-and like CAFTA. Religious leaders, labor organizations and environmental groups all have similar worries about these trade agreements. We can do better. Our national trade negotiators should work to develop agreements that allow needed safeguards for essential basic industries-those that put food on our tables, shirts on our backs and roofs over our heads. They should insist on trade pacts that honor national health and safety concerns, and that offer farmers, ranchers and workers abroad a chance to get ahead. And they should not ask U.S. ranchers like us to give up our homes and businesses. ThatÕs already happened too often under the North American Free Trade Agreement. If this is free trade, we canÕt afford it.

Wyoming natives Robert and Nancy Sorenson have ranched near Arvada, Wyo., for 31 years.
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