| An impending (as of 2001) trade agreement between almost all of the nations of the Western Hemisphere that would seriously undermine labor, environmental, and health standards, engendering a dramatic 'race to the bottom' in these areas as nations compete for investment. The proposed agreement also may contain ridiculous 'investors rights' provisions, similar to Chapter 11 of NAFTA, that would allow corporations to sue local governments to recover profit loss resulting from regulations, as well as a hemisphere-wide instant patent system that would privatize and control the distribution of seed crops that have been in the public domain for centuries.
This agreement seems custom tailored to make subsistence farming in Central and South America even more impossible, thus ensuring a pool of unskilled exploitable labor desperate to take sweat shop jobs, which of course it is.
The agreement is known under the acronym FTAA, where a full discussion is available.
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