George

I stayed with an American businessman named George who exports beef from Costa Rica to the U.S. and learned some interesting things about the economic situation here in Costa Rica. One thing that probably merits posting is a little about CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Basically, it's a U.S. attempt at opening markets and eliminating tariffs in the name of free trade. Unfortunatly Costa Rican farmers will not be able to compete with American corporations and in San Jose there was anti-CAFTA graffiti all over the walls.

What I didn't realize until talking to George was how bad the consequences would be if Costa Rica votes not to ratify the treaty. Basically the U.S. government would slap big taxes on all imports coming from Costa Rica and all of the major American companies with factories in the country would move to Nicaragua, eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs in a country with only a couple million people to begin with.