CAFTA’s Tragic Legacy in Central America: Failed Trade Policy That Drove Millions From Their Homes
By Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
After more than a decade of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the region has seen hardship for workers and farmers, corporate attacks on health and environmental laws, and political instability leading to deplorable human rights conditions. President Trump is scapegoating Latin American immigrants for the economic insecurity facing many Americans with his racist attacks and xenophobic obsession with building a wall along our southern border. But it is the same U.S. trade policies that harm working people in the United States that also have left many in Central America with no option but migration as they struggle to feed and care for their families.