Editorial: Free trade agreement

The protesters carrying signs and chanting slogans on Miami's streets and the protesters wearing suits and lobbying inside Miami's hotels for the likes of Big Sugar would alternately have us believe:

Open markets and free trade will hurt agricultural interests in the developing countries of the Americas by giving an unfair advantage to the United States.

Open markets and free trade will hurt agricultural interests in the United States -- specifically growers of sugar cane and citrus -- by giving an unfair advantage to developing countries.

NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Agreement that helped open markets a decade ago between the United States and Mexico -- has run farmers in Mexico out of business by allowing growers in the United States to sell their product at a cheaper price in Mexico.

NAFTA has run farmers in the United States out of business by allowing growers in Mexico to sell their product at a cheaper price in the United States.

Those now-idle farms in Mexico have forced workers to cross the border to seek agriculture jobs in the United States.

Those now-idle farms in the United States have forced workers out of agriculture jobs in the United States.

It's one contradiction after another.

The truth is:

Open markets and free trade can benefit all countries and all citizens.

There is, to be sure, short-term pain as the more-efficient producer replaces less-efficient operations, including those that rely on tariff protection or government price supports.

But, in the long term, open markets and free trade will be a boon, especially to the consumer and to the individual economies of the trading partners.

FTAA, the agreement being negotiated in Miami this week, can be a good thing if it isn't watered down by special interests.

Those who have been protesting the loudest espouse either socialism or protectionism.

The Americas -- from Canada to the tip of Chile -- need neither.