Toxic Trade

Toxic Imports

Armand Biroonak — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:20:06 -0700

American consumers are at risk from toxic imports. Just last year: 20 million toys from China were recalled, including more than 1.5 million toys covered with lead paint; 450,000 unsafe tires were recalled; four brands of toothpaste were recalled because of a toxic ingredient; and 5,300 product lines of pet food were recalled because they contained deadly chemicals that killed more than 4,000 pets.

Safe Toys, Edible Food, Smart Globalization

Eric Lotke — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:08:44 -0700

Why is it that people who question globalization are treated like Neanderthals?

You’re a protectionist, critics charge. Globalization is here to stay; you can’t turn back the clock, you Neanderthal! Besides, look at all the great stuff we get for cheap!

Well, we can get a lot of great stuff. A lot of it is cheap. But sometimes the low price just hides costs elsewhere. Smart globalizers want to manage the process and make sure the price reflects the reality.

The Campaign for America's Future recently published two reports that reveal the seamy underside of globalization. Toxic Toys is about Halloween candy buckets and Barbie doll accessories imported from China and coated with lead-based paint. It’s about drinking cups with 39,000 parts per million of lead when the legal standard is 600 parts per million. Why the worry? The budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is half what it was in 1974 in real dollars. It’s staffed by former lobbyists and industry cronies who deny there’s a problem and obstruct efforts at reform.

Even people who don’t use toys tend to eat. Our second report, Eating Dangerously, examines the food industry and finds the same disregard for health. Since 1973, agricultural imports have increased by 78 percent while inspections decreased exactly the same 78 percent. Yet the FDA’s own research indicates that pesticide violations and infections from shigella and salmonella occur roughly three times as often in imported food.

The stories are painfully familiar. A million pounds of Chinese seafood sold in the U.S with carcinogens and antibiotics not approved for use in the U.S. Half a million pounds of cantaloupes consumed from Mexico and Costa Rica with salmonella contagion. Even cats and dogs aren’t safe. Melamine, a nitrogen-rich chemical used to make fertilizer and plastic, made its way into 60 million cans and pouches of pet food.

Tomatoes are today’s trouble. Are they from Mexico or Florida? Eventually we’ll find out. The problem remains the same.

If we were serious about global trade, we would charge something for the price of admission to U.S. markets. We can still open our doors to global trade. But trading partners need to take the melamine out of the pet food, the lead out of the children’s toys, and the pesticides out of the cantaloupe. Those are the standards we hold U.S. manufacturers to; if you want access to our market, you need to play by our rules.

That’s not Neanderthal. That’s smart.

Smart globalizers want to draft standards into trade agreements. They want to inspect enough cargo to provide a credible risk of detection or hold U.S. companies liable for distribution and sale.

The U.S. isn’t doing enough of that. Free market conservatives are in charge. Spellbound by the ideology of the marketplace, they ignore the obvious fact that markets need grown-up supervision. Historically, that’s the role of government. To create collective institutions that protect shared interests in ways that individuals can’t. Lead testing. Pesticide testing. Evaluating the carcinogenic properties of fertilizer.

We can build a government to serve our interests, or we can leave it to the logic of the market and race to the bottom.

Progressives want to evolve. Who’s the Neanderthal?

China Still Corporate Favorite

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:18:03 -0800

According to China's Ministry of Commerce, multinational corporations have set up 1,160 research institutions in the country, as of late 2007. A survey conducted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) says that 62 percent of global companies rated China as the most attractive location for prospective research & development.

Toxic Trade

Terrance Heath — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:17:54 -0800

As American consumers buy a sharply increased share of their goods from overseas, the American government has been cutting back its ability to regulate and inspect imports. Americans consumers are thus exposed to increasing numbers of products that were neither produced in America nor subject to American safety standards. The results put people at risk.

Our report, "Toxic Trade: Globalization and the Safety of the American Consumer," documents these two trends. Government statistics show that imports have increased by 338 percent since 1974, the year the Consumer Product Safety Commission was created. Yet the budget for that agency today is less than half what is was in that year. In effect, we have been disarming our ability to protect ourselves, even as the need to do so has been soaring. Our report concludes that it is past time for a change.

Toxic Trade

Terrance Heath — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:48:54 -0800

Globalization and the Safety of the American Consumer

Our report, "Toxic Trade: Globalization and the Safety of the American Consumer," documents these two trends. Government statistics show that imports have increased by 338 percent since 1974, the year the Consumer Product Safety Commission was created. Yet the budget for that agency today is less than half what is was in that year. In effect, we have been disarming our ability to protect ourselves, even as the need to do so has been soaring. Our report concludes that it is past time for a change.

Download this report (PDF)

TAKE ACTION: Ask your member of Congress to back a law that will help shut down the flow of dangerous consumer products into our stores.

The Toxic Trade Challenge

Our report calls for several areas where leadership is needed:

The Consumer Product Safety Commission needs a budget and staff proportional to the challenge of protecting consumers in a global economy. It also may need additional statutory authority, such as that contained in legislation currently being proposed by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.

The federal government should be called upon to collect and maintain information on the scale of imports and the ability of regulatory agencies to monitor these imports and keep consumers safe.

Corporations should be held responsible for the products they sell, and the federal government should set meaningful minimum standards for those products.

Future trade agreements should not sacrifice the health, safety, labor and environmental standards that Americans demand and expect.

High Imports, Low Defenses

These two charts show what has happened in the years since the Consumer Product Safety Commission was founded. As the level of imported goods coming into the American market increased, the CPSC’s budget (above), when adjusted for inflation, has not even come close to keeping pace. And the agency’s staff (below), which at its peak had nearly 1,000 employees, now has 420. And the budget President Bush sent to Congress this year would have cut the staff even further.