• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    2 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.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 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.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 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.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 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.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            2 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.social
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              2 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