TRADE REPORT: Will Dems Expand NAFTA In a Lame Duck Congress?

[1]In this week's edition of The Trade Report, Democrats consider passing NAFTA-style trade deals in a lame duck session of Congress, just after campaigning against that trade policy in the fall campaign. Political analysts, meanwhile, suggest that if pressure isn't kept on Obama, he could end up backing off his own promises and passing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. And during a week that saw Wall Street meltdown, some in Congress are trying to quietly pass a bill that would further deregulate the financial and insurance industries.

One note from the arts and entertainment world - the new film "Battle In Seattle" [1] is out this week. Starring Charlize Theron, it looks back on the 1999 WTO protests. You can watch a Daily Show interview with Theron about the interview here [2] and use the film's website to get in touch with your local movie theater to ask them to screen it. Also, check out the picture at right - it is (from left to right), Theron, me and director Stuart Townsend at a screening of the film at the Democratic convention. This film is absolutely terrific.

WHITE HOUSE: SOURCES INSIST OBAMA WOULD BE MORE LIKELY TO PASS NEW NAFTAs THAN MCCAIN

Though John McCain is an outspoken advocate of unpopular NAFTA-style trade deals, and Barack Obama has - at times - publicly criticized the trade model, the Hill newspaper [3] reports that both labor officials and corporate lobbyists
believe a controversial NAFTA expansion into Colombia "has a better chance of passing next year if Barack Obama is elected president." Indeed, "Labor leaders also think that Obama, who at times talked tough against trade agreements during the Democratic primary, could seek to move the deal if elected president."

That suspicion is rooted in news this week that Obama's top aides are subtly shifting his campaign's position on the issue after originally using a populist tact to win the Democratic primary. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune [4], Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee downplayed the significance of trade in the widespread job outsourcing and wage cutting that has ravaged the American economy for the past decade. Even as Obama airs new television ads trumpeting his more progressive positions on trade, Goolsbee called trade merely "an issue of symbolic importance." Likewise, the Bureau of National Affairs reports that Obama's Latin America aide, Dan Restrepo, told reporters that far from opposing the Colombia trade pact as he promised, Obama now wants "to work to make it possible." [5]

For McCain's part, he has dispatched top ally Sen. Joe Lieberman to reassure corporate donors that he continues to support lobbyist-written trade pacts. Lieberman this week penned a long editorial [6] in Investors Business Daily beating the drum for the NAFTA expansion.

CONGRESS: DEMS PLANNING NAFTA SLEIGHT OF HAND IN LAME DUCK SESSION?

Reuters [7] reports that congressional Democrats may be considering passing a package of NAFTA expansions in a post-election "lame duck" session of Congress. Quoting Charles Rangel, who chairs the House committee overseeing trade, the news service says "many lawmakers are loathe to vote on trade deals just before facing voters at the polls" - especially considering their populist, anti-NAFTA pledges. But that may not stop Democrats from ramming the deals through Congress immediately after the election.

To that end, Inside U.S. Trade reports that original NAFTA architect Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) "is actively advocating that Democrats would be better off having the votes on pending [trade deals] this year" because "there are likely more Republican members in this Congress than there will be in the next, which would mean that fewer Democrats would have to take a potentially divisive trade vote now." Emanuel, a former investment banker, is the House Democratic Caucus chair, yet is allegedly seeking a vote now because he knows his own party would be even more apt to reject it in 2009. In an email, an Emanuel spokesman insists Inside U.S. Trade "doesn’t have their facts straight."

The new declarations from Democrats come as the Washington Times [8] reports that corporate lobbyists and foreign diplomats have "opened an intense Capitol Hill lobbying campaign to urge Congress to approve free-trade deals" as soon as possible. That urgent push coincides with yet another poll - this one from the Democracy Corps [9] - showing intensifying public opposition to NAFTA-style trade policies.

WALL STREET CRISIS: WTO AS EXCUSE FOR MORE DEREGULATION

Public Citizen [10] and a coalition of consumer groups is sounding the alarm on a stealth measure being pushed in Congress this week - yes the same week of the AIG insurance meltdown - to use the veneer of trade enforcement to further deregulate the insurance industry. According to a letter sent to lawmakers this week by consumer groups, Democratic congressional leaders are considering passing a bill - HR 5840 - that "would allow the Department of the Treasury to interpret or enter into international agreements regarding insurance policy and regulation, and then preempt state insurance laws and regulations." The bill would empower "an executive agency to become international trade and commercial agreement 'enforcer' against U.S. state consumer regulatory policy."