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To the editor and Idaho Farm Bureau members regarding IFBF policy for 2019. IFBF policy contains a multitude of sound well-thought-out positions on many different issues. I especially like its position on the Constitution and its denunciation of the centralization of power into world government.

This very sound position is totally reversed by the paragraph entitled “ fair trade,” however. which states “ we support strict adherence to bilateral and multilateral trade agreements to which the United States is a party ...”

To start with NAFTA, USMCA and all other recent trade agreements violate Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. USMCA was drafted by a team appointed by Obama and headed by a globalist by the name of Robert Lighthizer. The USMCA sets up regional arrangements and a supranational bureaucracy. This amounts to a loss of sovereignty. The following are just a few examples of that. Chapter 17 deals with migrant workers. Chapter 23.9 addresses equality in the workplace with regards to a gender identity and subjects employers to World Trade Organization and International Labor Organization standards this includes LGBTQ standards. Chapter 26 deals with economic integration of North America. Chapter 30 sets up a Free Trade Commission which has the authority to change the agreement after it is approved by Congress. Chapter 24 deals with enforcement of environmental laws ie. ozone depletion endangered species global environmental challenges, strengthening environmental governance, etc.

Farm Bureau is taking the position of being both for and against the Constitution of the United States, also both for and against globalism. Would someone please explain how you can be on both sides of an issue at the same time?

We can have trade with other countries without gutting the Constitution. We have been trading with other countries for hundreds of years without trading our sovereignty for a globalistic North American union.

We can have trade with other countries without regulating emissions which are supposedly causing global warming, global cooling, global changing, or global staying the same. Please contact Congressman Russ Fulcher and Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch and ask them to please oppose the USMCA and support withdrawing from NAFTA.

ROBERT VICKARYOUS

Bonners Ferry