NAFTA

A Possible Change In NAFTA Trade Policy?

Dave Johnson — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:02:23 -0700

This is interesting: US, Mexico, Canada to hold talks on NAFTA.

From the story,

US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement Thursday that he will host Mexico's Secretary of the Economy Gerardo Ruiz Mateos and Canadian Trade Minister Stockwell Day for talks on "ways to ensure that the benefits of our trilateral trade and economic relationship are widely shared and sustainable."

. . . Obama hinted on the campaign trail last year that he might renegotiate NAFTA to include greater labor and environmental safeguards, but Canada and Mexico have expressed wariness at the prospect of reopening trade negotiations.

Seeing the words "shared" and "sustainable" in a statement on trade talks is certainly refreshing -- and promising. Is it possible that they are going to talk about ways to think long term and conduct trade in ways that actually benefit the people and workers in the NAFTA countries, instead of just boosting the short term gain of a few large corporations at the expense of the rest of us?

Less promising is this statement in a Canadian paper, the Winnipeg Sun, Day to meet with U.S., Mexican counterparts,

Curbing protectionism and keeping borders secure but open for business will top the agenda when Trade Minister Stockwell Day meets with his U.S. and Mexican counterparts.

. . . “We need to work, among ourselves, to make sure the costs that we put on the backs of business are as low as possible — especially in light of this global downturn,” he said.

Unfortunately, these days the word "costs" in the context of businesses too often means ... well, us. When big business talks about shedding "costs" they mean pensions, wages, workers, laws against dumoing toxins into the air and water, laws against fleecing customers, laws against just stealing, etc.

So we'll see.

Rangel: Obama Aides Sending Pro-NAFTA Expansion Signals

David Sirota — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:21:10 -0800

In my column last week, I praised the Obama team for suggesting they see the political and policy danger of backing President Bush's proposed NAFTA expansion into Colombia - a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world. But now I see this little tidbit from Inside U.S. Trade:

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) in a wide-ranging interview yesterday (Nov. 20) expressed optimism that President-elect Barack Obama will support passage of the Colombia and Panama free trade agreements during his time in office...

“I did not talk directly with the president-elect over Colombia, but everything that I heard from those people that [are] talking with him, [is] that he thought he could handle that and get it passed during his administration,” Rangel said.

Rangel is the chairman of the committee that oversees trade, so this can't be chalked up to uninformed speculation - this is likely real, though by no means concrete. Team Obama knows 70 new Democratic members were elected on explicitly anti-NAFTA themes, they know Obama campaigned throughout the industrial Midwest promising to change our trade policy; and they know that in the third presidential debate Obama explicitly reiterated his opposition to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

They're going to have to weigh all that against the pressure they're feeling from their corporate donors to pass this NAFTA expansion. If they go forward, we could see a pretty tumultuous battle ensue.

Wash Post Re-Floats Possibility of Lame-Duck NAFTA Expansion

David Sirota — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:26:21 -0800

Glenn Greenwald long ago taught us why we should always look skeptically at the fact-free prognostications of the Washington Post's Steve Pearlstein. That said, this line in Pearlstein's column today caught my eye today (h/t lutton):

"The haggling now [about the automaker bailout] is over the appropriate mechanism. My guess is that the whole thing will be wrapped up shortly after Thanksgiving, perhaps in a holiday package that will include congressional approval (but delayed implementation) of the free-trade agreement with Colombia." (emphasis added)

My last newspaper column explored how the Colombia Free Trade Agreement is about nothing other than serving corporate interests; how poll after poll after poll has shown Americans intensely oppose such NAFTA expansions; how in 2006 and 2008, a total of 69 new congressional lawmakers - mostly Democrats - won on an explicit promise to stop NAFTA expansions; and how therefore, the Republican push for this trade deal is a political ploy designed to fracture Democrats much like NAFTA fractured them in 1993.

Pearlstein admits that his prediction is a "guess" - which, in journalism speak, usually means it is the reporter's wish, but the reporter knows most of the facts align against that wish. That's probably especially true in this instance, considering even NAFTA proponent Rahm Emanuel has said Democrats are not going to support tying any economic stimulus or automaker bailout package to the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Emanuel may support corporate-written trade policies - but he's a political operator first and foremost, and likely understands what I was getting at in my column.

That said, the fact that the Washington Post's top business columnist feels the need to longingly push out this possibility shows us that the fight to reform our trade policy is far from over. The corporate media Establishment has long been one of the most powerful forces pushing mindless free-trade fundamentalism - and that Establishment is not about to let up.

UPDATE: For more on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, check out the Economic Policy Institute's recent backgrounder.

It's a Trick - Get An Axe

David Sirota — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:26:47 -0800

"It's a trick - get an axe." - Ash

This fearful and prescient line, spoken by Bruce Campbell's character in the cult film Army of Darkness, is a good political strategy for Democrats in the final weeks of the Bush administration. All of this media nonsense about Bush being magnanimous and showing a bipartisan spirit of cooperation in the transition is a trick - and Democrats better be ready to get a legislative axe to fight back.

Case in point is what happened this past week. It seemed, at first glance, strange - really strange. Why would President Bush make a massive economic stimulus package and aid to automakers contingent on Democratic support for a relatively tiny trade deal with a Latin American nation that has one of the worst human rights records in the world? Why would our gambling president, who always bets big, ask for something so seemingly small? Those are the questions I examine in my new syndicated newspaper column this week, and the answer is pretty clear: It's a trick...time to get an axe.

Specifically, Bush is looking both to cement the NAFTA trade model, and tear apart the Democratic congressional majority before it has time to unify behind a bold agenda.

In terms of direct economic impact, the Colombia Free Trade Agreement is a drop in the bucket (though because it pits American workers into a salary-cutting competition with foreign workers who can be killed for joining a union, it will put additional downward pressure on domestic wages). It's outsized relevance in this week's high-profile Oval Office meeting between President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama was as a political instrument - not an economic one - a tool to wedge apart the Democratic Party.

There's clear historical precedent for that. Go read Rick MacArthur's timeless book "The Selling of Free Trade" and you'll see how Bush's father dropped NAFTA into the lap of the last new Democratic administration, and it was NAFTA that then fractured the congressional Democratic majority between its Wall Street wing and its progressive wing; thus demoralizing the progressive movement, scuttling health care reform, and helping birth the 1994 Republican revolution.

Fortunately, the Obama team appears to see what Bush is trying to do. In a bit of strange bedfellows, Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel - the same Rahm Emanuel who championed NAFTA as a Clinton staffer - has said Obama will not support linking the Colombia Free Trade Agreement to economic stimulus. That's good policy and good politics - the latter both because of the resounding election mandate against NAFTA-style trade deals, and because it will prevent Bush's last-ditch effort to fracture the Democratic Party.

You can read the whole column here.

The column relies on grassroots support, so if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

TRADE REPORT: Your Weekly Fill of What's Really Going On

David Sirota — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:22:45 -0700

With this week's reemergence of globalization and trade as major 2008 campaign issues, we thought it as good a time as any to launch our regular report on globalization, helping you sort through what is too often an esoteric and inaccessible discourse on one of the most important set of issues we face. We are aiming to have this report out every Thursday - though bear with us as we get this product off the ground. Ultimately, we hope you consider it your one-stop must-read to keep up to date on all the economic rhetoric - and propaganda - that is now filling up the airwaves.

CAMPAIGN '08 - IS OBAMA'S RENEWED POPULISM THE REAL DEAL, OR A WINK AND NOD?

The Hill newspaper reports that the Obama economic adviser Jason Furman issued a particularly scathing statement in response to this week's Commerce Department announcement that the U.S. trade deficit hit $693 million in June.
Since the Democratic primary ended, Obama has noticeably tamped down his criticism of NAFTA-style trade pacts - even giving an interview to Fortune magazine suggesting he may not be as aggressive a fair trader as he once portrayed himself to be.

So this week's announcement, coupled with new evidence that he is focusing on trade in swing states, may signal his campaign's tack back to more populist themes - themes that Washington Post columnist Harold Myerson (and before that, yours truly) says is the best way for Obama to counter McCain's race-tinged cultural populism. Then again, at the same time Furman lashed out at the trade deficit, the Wall Street Journal reports that he "is spending this weekend in the tony Hamptons outside New York, as will many top Wall Street executives" where he will try to court corporate leaders to support Obama's campaign.

CONVENTION '08 - FAIR TRADERS IMPACT THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM

The Wall Street Journal reports that fair traders - led by Steelworkers President Leo Gerard - have used the pre-convention political lull to focus on adding stronger language to the Democratic Party's official platform - and that their efforts were successful. The final document "promises to improve the North American Free Trade Agreement," writes the Journal - a stunning rebuke to longtime NAFTA backers Bill and Hillary Clinton at a time the Denver Post reports that the Democratic convention is being quietly engineered to celebrate the Clinton legacy.

CONGRESS - BAUCUS DEMANDS MORE NAFTAs

Montana Sen. Max Baucus (D) this week told the Associated Press that he is worried that his fellow congressional Democrats are having too much success stopping NAFTA-style trade pacts. The statement follows Baucus's statement a few weeks ago - almost completely unreported - that he officially supports the passage of President Bush's Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Though Baucus is an obscure lawmaker, he chairs the Finance Committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy. As I wrote in my syndicated column last week, that means he will be in a pivotal position to trip up what could end up being a clear election mandate demanding trade policy reform.

BUSINESS - RACE TO THE BOTTOM CONTINUES AS CHINA WAGES RISE

Fortune magazine reports that with China's wages and environmental standards gradually rise, corporations are now looking to move their outsourcing operations to countries where conditions are even more desperate. "China's actions to strengthen its environmental and worker protections are unquestionably good moves for the country, its people, and the global economy," writes the magazine. "But for outsourcers focused on rock-bottom production prices, the search is on for new low-cost countries."

Of course, this race-to-the-bottom dynamic is encouraged by a standards-free U.S. trade policy that allows companies to troll the world for the worst conditions, exploit those conditions, and sell the products of that exploitation back into the American market. Put another way, our trade policy is helping foreign governments manufacture comparative advantages out of their horrific labor, environmental and human rights records.

The good news is an unexpected silver-lining around the energy crisis: Businessweek reports that as energy costs rise, more companies are keeping operations in the United States. As much as Tom Friedmans of the world scoff at blue collar work, the magazine notes that this is "a good time for an American manufacturing renaissance."

The trend directly undermines President Bush's attempt to cite jobs as his reason to oppose the Kyoto Treaty. If carbon controls result in higher prices for fossil fuels, that may actually encourage companies to keep manufacturing operations at home, so as to avoid higher transportation costs. The challenge, though, remains reducing the cost of necessity energy - gasoline, heating, etc. for the middle class - without incentivizing job outsourcing.

McCain's Flea-Market Economy

Tula Connell — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:41:48 -0700

George W. Bush's solution to our nation's economic mess—that his failed policies helped create—is to applaud people who must work three jobs to make ends meet.

Sen. John McCain colors his solution to working families' financial struggles with similar crayons: He encourages us to make a living selling stuff on eBay. As reported on Bloomberg:

McCain, seeking to address voter anxiety about the economy, uses eBay to signal that he is ``fundamentally optimistic about the capacity of the U.S. economy to innovate, for that innovation to give new opportunities for jobs,'' said Doug Holtz-Eakin, the candidate's senior economic adviser. "We shouldn't be obsessed with looking backwards all the time, and saying, 'Gee, where did those jobs go?' "

Why worry indeed? After all, top McCain adviser Randy Altschuler is fond of an India-based company whose mission is to convince U.S. companies to outsource jobs to India. McCain also takes economic advice from a former lobbyist for a bank with interests in the housing market—and then there's Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a top economic adviser to McCain who acknowledges McCain doesn’t want to include labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.

McCain's support for a flea-market economy based on eBay is fundamental to his disconnect from the realities facing working families. Like Bush, McCain recently admitted he doesn't know the price of gas. Guess what? Working families sure do.

Stumping for the presidential primaries, McCain has snubbed America's workers by:

· Promoting failed trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) while standing in front of a failed factory in Ohio.
· Holding a town hall meeting at Worth & Co., a Bucks County, Pa., contracting company investigated by the state Department of Labor and Industry for “intentionally failing to pay the predetermined minimum wage” to its employees. The state has accused the company of cheating employees out of $142,000 in wages for government projects.
· Not bothering to respond to invitations by union members holding roundtables on the economy.

This is how McCain's treats workers when he needs votes. Imagine what a McCain presidency would be like for working families when he thinks he has a mandate to govern.

McCain Pledges Allegiance to NAFTA

Robert Borosage — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:16:55 -0700

Arizona Sen. John McCain continues his rousing campaign tour of the swing states of NAFTA this week. He will celebrate July 3 in Mexico City after a jaunt through Colombia to pledge support for the pending free trade accord with that center of cocaine trade. He surely will increase his margin over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama among business elites in Mexico and Canada. Obama will travel to Zanesville, Ohio, once more exposing himself to McCain's jibes about embracing "protectionist" policies.

No, this isn't a joke. McCain is stumping Colombia and Mexico, a week after his visit to Ottawa, championing the North American Free Trade Agreement to business elites in those countries.

McCain's has a pat routine for these junkets. He piously intones homilies on the benefits of free trade: "We need stand up for free trade with no ifs, ands or buts about it. We let trade and globalization be politicized at our own peril." He repeats a sanctimonious pledge never to "dishonor" America by even contemplating any deviation from the "sacred" NAFTA treaty. He issues stern condemnations of the dangers of "mindless protectionism." And expresses his fervent faith in the ability of American workers to compete with anyone anywhere.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks, goes the old saw. And with McCain, it seems ever more obvious that you can't trust an old salt on a new ocean. He simply doesn't get it. For years, the trade debate featured the above mantra he repeats. Trade, by definition, benefited America. Sure, a few privileged union workers might lose their cushy jobs and padded salaries, but they would find new jobs in the expanding global economy. Americans would prosper from investments abroad, our financial services industry would capture the high end of the expanded world economy, we'd sustain our manufacturing edge by becoming more productive and we'd benefit from lower priced goods imported from abroad. The earth was flat, Tom Friedman taught us, and we're all the better for it.

Except it hasn't quite worked out like that. Productivity went up, but wages stagnated at best and insecurity increased. Corporations clubbed workers with the threat of moving abroad, and cut back on salaries, job security, and benefits like health care and pensions. Families went ever deeper into debt as the cost of basics—education, health care, retirement security, and now food and gas—soared. More and more workers lost good jobs, only to be forced into those that paid less with fewer benefits. And now with the global workforce effectively doubled as China and India and the former Soviet Union joined the global maw, it isn't just industrial workers at risk, but some 30 million jobs that could face offshoring, according to such sober free trade advocates as Alan Blinder. Financial services did prosper, until their greed and gambling blew up in the housing bubble.

The U.S. went further and further into global debt, running up trade deficits that are still $2 billion a day despite the decline in the dollar. Last month, the Chinese announced they were netting $2.5 billion a month—$100 million an hour—in foreign exchange. Their sovereign investment funds are now hunting for good deals across the world.

NAFTA, sold as a source of jobs for the U.S. and a solution to the immigration flows from Mexico, hasn't worked that way either. Our trade deficit with Mexico has soared from a basic balance before NAFTA to an all-time high of $74.3 billion last year. Mexico now exports more cars to the United States than the U.S. exports to the world. Immigration tensions grew as small farmers got displaced in Mexico by subsidized U.S. food exports, and started coming north in large numbers.

Elites found ways to protect themselves. Lawyers, doctors, prescription drug companies use licensing and patent laws to protect their wages and profits, but most Americans worry about how their kids were going to sustain a middle-class life style. Globalization isn't the only reason the middle class is declining—the war on labor, the worship of the CEO and other factors contribute—but it certainly is a significant reason.

And across the world, developing countries discovered the NAFTA model didn't work for them either. The countries that have enjoyed success—the Asian tigers, China—play by a very different set of rules. They target industries, and pursue aggressive mercantilist policies to capture export markets. They run up large foreign reserves to be able to protect their currencies from global speculators. China's bosses have been happy to lend us the money to keep buying the goods our companies were making over there—and will manipulate the value of their currency until they capture the markets they are seeking. But it is hard to argue, as McCain does, that free trade is spreading democracy across the world when the most successful economy is a communist dictatorship.

Now even champions of free trade, like former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers admit this hasn't quite worked out as they hoped. Across the world, the revolt against the corporate trade model is growing. In the U.S., a majority —58 percent—of those polled in a January 2008 Wall Street Journal/NBC survey agreed that "globalization has been bad... because it has subjected U.S. companies and employees to unfair competition and cheap labor."

We face not a choice between "free trade" and "isolationism," as McCain claims, but the challenge of developing a serious strategy for sustaining a robust middle class in a global economy. It isn't a choice between keeping our word and "dishonoring" our commitments, but making a clear reassessment of how we get out of the hole we are in.

Sherrod Brown was elected to the Senate in 2006 through a campaign in Ohio focused on opposition to the trade treaties that have devastated manufacturing jobs in that state. He now has joined with other senators, unions, family farm groups, religious and public interest groups to put forth the TRADE Act. The bill calls for a halt on all new trade accords until the U.S. Comptroller General undertakes a comprehensive assessment of the benefits and the costs of our current agreements, looking at who has benefited—here and abroad—and who has suffered. The legislation then calls for developing a strategy that insures that the benefits of trade are widely shared, that we pursue a policy designed to benefit working people and Main Street, and not simply Wall Street. Obama has laid out elements of an alternative strategy that may form the basis of a new course.

McCain's response to this is like an Inquisition priest discovering free thinking in the pews. Doctrine is sacrosanct. Questioning it is dishonorable. He calls upon Americans to sustain the course we have been on, like lemmings marching stolidly to the sea.

He pretends this is an American tradition, claiming that "every time the United States has become protectionist... we've paid a very heavy price." But this ignores the entire history of this country's rise—with sharp eyed mercantilist trade policies behind tariff walls—to a world economic power with a broad middle class. "Yankee traders" were famed for cutting a tough, practical deal, not for sacrificing their interests for ideological principles.

Nor is McCain such an innocent. He says we mustn't "politicize" trade accords, but trade accords are already heavily politicized. Every trade agreement—particularly NAFTA—features fierce lobbying over every clause. McCain knows this because his entire campaign is staffed from top to bottom by corporate lobbyists, many of whom have earned a hefty buck lobbying to influence and pass trade accords. If McCain is elected, their clients know that they are in line to be first to the trough.

Saint John doesn't sully his rhetoric with these unseemly realities. He seems to want to make trade policy a centerpiece of his election campaign, and doing so will surely help him raise some dough. Obama should take him up on it. Let McCain stump the business elites of Mexico City, Bogota and Ottawa. Obama can join Sherrod Brown championing the concerns of working people in Zanesville and Flint and Pittsburgh. Let voters decide which candidate has his priorities right.

This post originally appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.

McCain's Long Strange Trip South of the Border

Bill Scher — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:34:23 -0700

The McCain campaign gets ... stranger.

The American economy has been battered on multiple fronts, including the loss of 3.4 million manufacturing jobs. The current trade strategy has not only contributed to the offshoring of jobs, but helped harm the lives of workers abroad. NAFTA in particular has disrupted the agricultural economy in Mexico, displacing peasant labor and driving illegal immigration. Even the pro-NAFTA Heritage Foundation concedes that stark inequality still plagues Mexico.

In turn, public anger with trade agreements written by and for multinationals, protecting the interests of corporations but not workers, is on the rise.

And McCain decides to campaign ... across the border, where the jobs are being sent.

And he releases a new ad, standing by the delusion that the current strategy is creating good jobs for everyone.

MCCAIN: To fuel our economy, we must create more jobs for Americans and for our neighbors to the south. With better jobs, more of them will be able to stay in their country.

We can't go back on our word on free trade promises with Mexico, Canada, Central America or anyone else. We must encourage more trade agreements to create more jobs on both sides of the border. That's why I'm behind the Colombian Free Trade Agreement.

These were the same arguments made 15 years ago to get NAFTA passed. And yes, for our own economy's sake, we must support our neighbors so they will have healthy economies too.

But NAFTA didn't work. Period.

To not even acknowledge that, when it's quite clear to American workers hurting from the impact, is simply strange

To haul out the same musty arguments, and ignore the lessons from what has failed in the past, is only evidence of being out-of-touch with what's going in America and the world today.

This is not a question of trade vs. no trade. There will always be trade.

This is not a question of free trade vs. protectionism. There is no such thing as free trade. Trade agreements like NAFTA are chock full of trade rules, just rules slanting the economic playing field towards multinational corporations.

This is a question about what makes a smart global economic strategy -- with fair trade rules, strong labor and environment standards and forward-thinking public investment -- so workers in America and across the globe will thrive in a changing world.

The Growing Power of the Fair Trade Uprising

David Sirota — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:32:19 -0700

LOUISVILLE, KY - I spent yesterday in Ohio's three biggest cities - Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. With the Buckeye State among the hardest hit by lobbyist-written trade policies, it wasn't surprising that NAFTA was at the center of discussion at events for THE UPRISING in Ohio (you can listen to my Ohio NPR interview from yesterday here for a taste).

Over the last few years, polls show the public has moved to something of a consensus position on trade: full-on opposition to NAFTA-style pacts. That's for good reason as this Associated Press report shows. Tearing down tariffs and protections without regard for the consequences is not only a dangerous departure from the policies that built America's economy, but also a deliberate way to force American and foreign workers into a wage-cutting, environment-destroying, union-busting race to the bottom.

The AP story shows the destructive domino effect of NAFTA and the subsequent NAFTA-style agreements like China PNTR. When multinational corporations shift jobs to Mexico, right-wing trade fundamentalists in Washington offer up a "let them eat cake message" telling workers in Ohio that the shift at least helps impoverished workers south of the border. Then, of course, those workers in Mexico are forced to slash their own wages to compete with desperate workers in China. When the jobs inevitably shift to China, Mexico is left in shambles, and then Chinese workers are forced to slash their own wages to make sure jobs don't go to Vietnam or North Korea, where corporations are angling to employ enslaved labor.

Meanwhile, many of these trade fundamentalists like Tom Friedman and Fareed Zakaria flaunt their supposed environmentalism and humanitarianism by publicly worrying about issues like global warming and the erosion of human rights in the developing world - even though the domino effect they cheer on creates pressure on governments to reduce their pollution controls and human rights in order to retain foreign investment.

The problem, of course, is that it's hard to argue with NAFTA backers because they aren't interested in facts. It was none other than Friedman who admitted he vigorously backed a recent NAFTA-style trade deal without even bothering to read it. He, like every other reporter and commentator in Washington, calls NAFTA-style pacts "free trade" - despite the fact that they include thousands of pages of protectionist provisions for corporate profits, despite the fact that even the original architects of NAFTA have long admitted that these agreements aren't free, but instead create "managed" trade. That's the big problem - these deals are managed to enrich the elite at the expense of the rest of us.

Just like it's impossible to argue about reality with deranged religious fundamentalist terrorists, it's impossible to argue with deranged trade fundamentalists who cloak economic terrorism in the language of enlightenment. It gets to the point where Limousine Libertarians in wealthy enclaves like Boulder take to the websites of major newspapers to cite charts showing the decimation of Americans' wages as proof that NAFTA works for Americans.

Left for dead, of course, is a place like Ohio.

Wealthy pundits from New York and Washington drop into the Buckeye State every four years to berate the occasional Democratic presidential candidate who dares to question NAFTA at the quadrennial photo-op at an abandoned manufacturing plant. In the general election, those Democratic presidential candidates then inevitably hire teams of Wall Street insiders who back NAFTA as their top economic advisers, and then scurry to business publications to reassure corporate lobbyists that no, they aren't really serious about reforming our trade policy. Their Republican opponents, meanwhile, head to places like Colombia to tell the right-wing regime there that America - that purported beacon of freedom to the world's masses - will be helping murderous developing-world governments continue to brutalize workers.

But this quadrennial cycle of deception may finally be changing - and not because of the benevolence of any presidential candidate, but because the political tectonics of trade have shifted so dramatically thanks to those who are doing the unglamorous - but critical - work of leveraging real power.

Groups like Public Citizen and the Citizens Trade Campaign have ignored the Partisan War Syndrome that plagues parts of the blogosphere and the progressive left, and used this election as an instrument of the uprising - rather than seeing the election as an objective unto itself. They have, for instance, used the hard-fought Democratic primary to elicit concrete commitments on trade policy from the candidates - including nominee Barack Obama. Those efforts have been supported by a group of industrial state lawmakers, who have similarly leveraged the election as a way to force a conversation about trade into the national political debate. That conversation has been so intense it even wedged its way into the Republican presidential nomination through the candidacy of Mike Huckabee - a candidacy that won Republican primaries in some of the most conservative states based, in part, on his fair trade message.

These moves around trade suggest the emergence of true movement thinking out of the tumult of the uprising I describe in my book. This fair trade movement may continue to be ignored by the media (and, frankly, much of the blogosphere), but it represents one of the most encouraging transpartisan developments of the last few years. Out of the shadows of the crumbling factories that I have driven by here in Ohio may indeed come real change - if this movement continues to coalesce.

This is an ongoing series from the national tour for THE UPRISING. You can order The Uprising at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore.

Trading Away America: Time For a Trade Policy That Works for Main Street, Not Just Wall Street

Isaiah J. Poole — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:38:10 -0700

THE POLITICS

Today, Sen. John McCain will travel to Canada to celebrate the North American Free Trade Agreement and pledge to pursue more of the same corporate trade agreements. He will criticize Sen. Barack Obama for calling for renegotiating NAFTA and similar agreements. This echoes the position of President Bush and most Republicans in Congress.

Americans, however, overwhelmingly believe that current trade policies have "subjected American companies and employees to unfair competition and cheap labor" [Rasmussen Reports; NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll]. They are looking for a different course. This is a golden opportunity for progressives to speak out against the unfair trade policies of Bush, McCain and their congressional enablers, and to lay out a progressive trade strategy that works for working people.

THE FACTS

America has lost millions of jobs due to trade policies designed for multinationals, not for the nation. Every year, about 400,000 American jobs are lost because of our foreign trade policy—and that number takes into account employment created by increased exports [Dean Baker, The American Prospect; Associated Press]. The manufacturing sector has been hit the hardest, with 3.4 million jobs—one out of every five manufacturing jobs—shipped overseas over the past seven years. Under current policies, as many as 40 million more jobs will be at risk over the next 10 to 20 years [Associated Press].

America's trade deficit has nearly doubled during the Bush presidency. Last year's trade deficit was $711 billion compared to $365 billion in 2001 [U.S. Census Bureau]. In 2007, the trade deficit with China alone hit a record $256 billion [U.S. Census Bureau]. Almost half of our trade deficit—$327 billion—is attributable to oil imports [Petroleum Intelligence Weekly]. To finance this debt, we must either borrow from countries like China or sell off American assets at the rate of $2 billion every single day.

The American economy is increasingly in hock to foreign governments. Led by Japan, China, the United Kingdom and the oil exporting nations of OPEC, foreign governments now own more than $2 trillion in American debt. China and the OPEC nations are setting up sovereign investment funds to buy up pieces of America. China recently bought a $5 billion stake in Morgan Stanley. Abu Dhabi bought $7.5 billion of Citigroup. Singapore paid $4.4 billion for a part of Merrill Lynch [The New York Times].

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 [USA Today].

THE ARGUMENT

The current Wall Street trade policy has undermined our economic security. These trade deficits cannot be sustained. Those who call for more of the same have to explain how they plan to get us out of the hole we are in. Platitudes about level playing fields aren't enough anymore. We need a new national strategy to sustain America's middle class in a global economy. Without a new strategy, we simply cannot compete successfully against foreign businesses that pay their workers less than one dollar an hour [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics].

More of the same will only continue to benefit multinational corporations at the expense of working families. The current global economic strategy was designed by and for the multinational corporations and banks-a strategy for Wall Street, not for Main Street. Our laws and trade agreements encourage companies to ship our inventions, technologies and jobs abroad where they can take advantage of minimal safety, environmental and labor standards. That needs to change.

It isn't about free trade or protectionism. It's about whether our trade strategy is designed to benefit global corporataions or to help secure a broad middle class. As Barack Obama points out, "allowing subsidized and unfairly traded products to flood our markets is not free trade." Opening our markets to countries like China and Japan that manipulate their currencies and control access to their own markets is not free trade. America's trade deficits have driven down the value of the dollar in Europe, so our exports are rising there. But our deficits with China are still rising, because the Chinese policy is to control the value of its currency to sustain its export-led growth strategy. Thus, "free trade" doesn't work. The only way to achieve a relative trade balance is by adopting an aggressive national strategy.

PROGRESSIVE SOLUTIONS

No more flawed trade agreements like NAFTA. When you're in a hole, stop digging. It's time to stop approving trade agreements modeled after NAFTA. It's time to renegotiate our current trade agreements so that they work for American workers.

Move to energy independence and capture the green markets of the future. The cost of imported oil now amounts to about half our trade deficit. We need to launch a concerted drive for energy independence, investing in conversation and renewable energy, developing the new machines and appliances of the future. We will create jobs now, reduce our trade deficits, limit the transfer of wealth to often hostile oil producing nations, and capture the lead in the green industries that must grow in the future.

Invest in America. In order to restore our position as the best country in the world for both business and labor, we need to invest in ourselves. That means fixing our nation's bridges and roads, expanding mass transit and broadband access, becoming energy independent, developing new "green" technologies. It means major efforts to provide every child with high quality education, and every worker with the opportunity for advanced training. To sustain a high wage policy, we need to insure that our country is the most efficient, and our workers the best educated.

Champion new global rules that lift standards up, not drive them down. We need rules that help raise up safety, environmental, and labor standards abroad, rather than driving them down here. In addition, we need to pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce existing rules against export subsidies and import barriers that foreign governments use against the U.S. And we must repeal federal laws that give tax breaks to multinational corporations that move jobs abroad.

LINKS

For Robert Borosage's article about a progressive strategy for global trade, click here.

For Damon Silvers' article in The American Prospect on how to turn around the economy, click here.

For more progressive trade policy, click here.

To subscribe to future CAF Making Sense 2008 talking points, click here.

June 20, 2008