The Colorado Coalition for Fair Trade (CCFT) is an association of organizations, each of which have their own stake in the effects of trade policy and border enforcement. As a broad umbrella for diverse opinions, the unifying principle of CCFT is Fair Trade over current Free Trade Agreements.

Many of the issues that we struggle with at the local level are caused directly or indirectly by the corporate exploitation of the border through trade policy, which is enforced by structures of violence funded by tax-payers. Trade and exchange, especially international exchange, is a global issue that effects all of us on a day-to-day basis. Current “Free Trade” agreements include policies that drive people on both sides of national borders into poverty, increase border tensions and related state-sponsored violence, proscribe efforts to protect the environment, enshrine exploitative labor policies, and funnel wealth into the hands of the few through their corporate projects.

CCFT’s first goal was to address ongoing conversations regarding the Revised NAFTA Agreement, sometimes called NAFTA 2.0. We mobilized aligned organizations to demand that Colorado Members of Congress commit to stronger language around labor and environmental protections, removal of all instances of ISDS tribunals (including loopholes for extractive industries), ensuring the enforceability of progressive elements of the agreement, removal of increased patent and copyright protections for Big Pharma, addressing climate change, and fixing the numerous elements of the Revised NAFTA Agreement that are either unenforceable regulations or that would cause direct harm to people and the environment. The Coalition continues to build on this work to promote a vision for trade, specifically for Fair Trade rather than Free Trade, which privileges people and the environment over corporations and profits.