• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      3 months ago

      Among the new announcements on Monday, Target committed to increase its spending in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras by $300 million this year while Columbia said it would purchase $200 million in products in the region, creating more than 6,900 jobs over five years.

      Backstopping Coca-Cola and the United Fruit Company. Feel like I’m telling Sam Adams that we got a big new investment from East India Tea.

      • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialEnglish
        31·
        3 months ago

        It’s crazy to me that ‘convincing American businesses to move some production to an underdeveloped nation’ is being thrown around like it’s a good thing.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          3 months ago

          I mean, the Marshall Plan was kind of a good thing. Rebuilding Japan and the half of South Korea we hadn’t completely flattened a good thing.

          But are we talking about developing enormous new blocks of housing, schooling, transport, and hospitalization in these countries? Or is Target just expanding the sweatshops?

          Imagine the North coming in after the Civil War and building more plantations…

          • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialEnglish
            31·
            3 months ago

            Oh, if they proposed something like the Marshall Plan I’d be fucking pleased.

            This is just convincing US companies to take advantage of the cheap labor, as if they really needed that much convincing.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
              31·
              3 months ago

              Labor is cheaper overseas. The Philippines, Indonesia, and Bangladesh have people working in what amount to little more than slave camps. Latin American governments struggle harder to keep their populations in line, as evidenced by socialist uprisings in Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia, and Venezuela.

              • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialEnglish
                31·
                3 months ago

                I think we’re in agreement. “Kamala leads a 4.5 gagillion dollars in private investment in central america” might as well read “American companies exploit central-American destabilization by securing their cheap labor”

                It’s not a policy we should be celebrating as a success.

                as evidenced by socialist uprisings in Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia, and Venezuela

                What a crazy coincidence that the policy in question specifically excluded Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela lol