bilaterals.org logo
bilaterals.org logo

Geopolitics & human rights

Bilateral free trade and investment agreements are not only economic instruments. They are tools to advance corporate and state geopolitical and “security” interests. Pro-free market journalist Thomas Friedman wrote: “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist — McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, AirForce and Marine Corps.”

Neoliberal globalization and war are two sides of the same coin. Throughout many parts of the world there has been little “hidden” about the links between corporate interests, globalization, and militarization. Under the guise of the war on terror, the war on drugs and “humanitarian” missions, U.S. military forces continue to back U.S. corporate and geopolitical interests from Iraq to Colombia, from Honduras to the Philippines. We can see it in the invasion and occupation of Iraq and how the US Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded “reconstruction” contracts to corporate backers of the Bush Administration. We see it in plans for a U.S. free trade agreement with the Middle East by 2013, based on imposing a network of bilateral FTAs on individual Middle Eastern governments. We can see it in the renewed U.S. military presence in South East Asia, especially in their joint exercises with the Philippine military alongside a continued wave of killings of hundreds of activists linked to movements resisting imperialism. Their mission is to make the world safe for capitalism and the U.S. empire and to crush communities and economies organized around different values and principles. Free trade and free market policies are frequently accompanied by repression of dissent.

Meanwhile human rights is invoked cynically by governments to stave off criticism of FTA negotiations with countries whose human rights record is widely denounced as appalling. Canada, for example, claims that its controversial FTA with Colombia will help strengthen its social foundations “and contribute to a domestic environment where individual rights and the rule of law are respected”. Opponents argue that this deal will benefit Canadian mining and agribusiness TNCs, at the expense of the majority of Colombians who live with daily killings of trade unionists and other activists by paramilitaries linked to the state, while adding legitimacy to the pro-US, neoliberal Uribe regime (see Canada-Colombia section).

While US economic, trade and foreign policy invokes the “war on drugs” in relation to Central America and the Andean countries, Washington has "rewarded" its allies in the "war on terror" (e.g. Australia and Thailand) by negotiating FTAs with them while trumpeting its FTA with Morocco as proof of its support for “tolerant and open” Muslim societies. And it has demanded that the governments of Gulf countries scrap their boycotts of Israeli goods as part of FTA negotiations. Other governments also explicitly link their international trade and economic policy with security and geopolitical interests. For example, the EU-Syria agreement has a special provision committing Damascus to the pursuit of a “verifiable Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and chemical, and their delivery systems”.

Besides the obvious ways in which US geopolitical concerns are embedded in Washington’s pursuit of bilateral trade and investment deals, other countries are also pursuing bilateral free trade and investment agreements to further geopolitical goals. Increasingly, we can see access to energy resources (eg. oil, gas, uranium, agrofuels and water) as a factor in determining the priorities of signing bilateral FTAs for countries such as China and Japan (see Energy & environment).

Photo: Limam Bachir / Western Sahara Resource Watch

last update: May 2012


The right to run their own economy: AIC policy paper on Palestinian trade
Israel is not interested in the supposed “peace dividends” associated with free trade based on the sovereign economic policy of all parties. Israel evidently has other plans, most obvious of which are territorial expansionism and control of the population, both incompatible with Palestinian sovereignty.
Free trade agreements and international investments
Developed countries see free trade agreements as forming part of a two-pronged strategy: to use international law to lay down market rules; and to give the appearance of legality to a system that allows States and their people to be exploited, robbed of their resources and wealth by excluding them from the international community and then legitimizing this exclusion
The Mediterranean Union: Dividing the Middle East and North Africa
The Middle East and North Africa are in the process of being divided into spheres of influence between the European Union and the United States. Essentially the division of the Middle East and North Africa are between Franco-German and Anglo-American interests. There is a unified stance within NATO in regards to this re-division.
El Salvador’s “American-made” Terrorism Act in corporate play
Critics of CAFTA say it was no coincidence that the anti-terrorism legislation was enacted six months after the trade agreement. Update on the case against the Suchitoto 13.
From NAFTA to the SPP: Here comes the Security and Prosperity Partnership, but—what security? whose prosperity?
Designed to shore up the United States’ weakening position as a global hegemon, the SPP’s primary goals are to link economic integration of the three NAFTA countries to US security needs; deepen U.S. access to oil, gas, electricity, and water resources throughout the continent; and to provide a privileged-and institutionalized-role for transnational corporations in continental deregulation. The stakes for labor, the environment, and civil liberties in all three countries couldn’t be higher. Yet because of the SPP’s reliance on executive authority to push the agenda, many of the SPP’s initiatives remain virtually invisible, even to many activists.
Bank of the South: A potential new challenge to hegemonic global finance and its monetary terrorism
Although there are no well-developed models, the possibility of regional banks independent of the agents of monetary terrorism serving what David Harvey calls "vulture capitalism" is becoming a reality.
Malawi’s ’free trade’ revolt
If bickering US presidential candidates are wondering why the Iraqi economy is in disarray, why Chavez is popular in much of Latin America and why so many people in the developing world see US-led globalization and free trade as a form of servitude, they might take a careful look at Malawi’s peaceful and successful economic revolution.
Joining the fold
The US since 2000 espoused even closer links between its strategic interests and trade liberalisation. Europe is not far behind.
Qualified industrial zones: Trade deal with the US and Israel boosts textiles
The deal allows Egyptians to export to the US tariff-free as long as they use a certain percentage of Israeli goods. The US initiative is intended to foster peace through trade. Qiz’s impact on thawing the political relations is questionable. But, for Egyptian garment producers, it has meant a chance to stand up to the competition posed by Asian producers.
Ambassador confirms US trade threat to Chile in runup to Iraq war
Current Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations, Heraldo Muñoz, confirmed Wednesday that, in the run up to the Iraq war, the US government made clear to Chile that it risked jeopardizing the Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries if it did not support a second resolution in the UN Security Council favoring the US invasion of Iraq.