The TRADE Act, or Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act, will soon be introduced in the Senate this session. One of the key elements in this bill, beyond our usual labor and environmental standards is an analysis of the economic impact of each trade agreement on the United States and most importantly it's workforce.
Public Citizen is launching a grassroots campaign to alert the general public of this bill and contact their representatives to get it passed. They have also written up a one page fact sheet.
Here is Lori Wallach with her request for help to get this legislation passed and (finally) signed into law:
A U.S. trade accord with Panama, which is opposed by labor unions, won’t be submitted to Congress for approval until President Barack Obama offers a new “framework” for trade, an administration official said.
The decision, announced by Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Everett Eissenstat at a Senate Finance Committee hearing today, is a reversal from statements in March that the U.S. wanted to pass the accord soon. Eissenstat said today the administration wants to outline how trade fits with other priorities such as assistance for unemployed workers and health care.
Fair Trade Democrats are piping up (hat tip Sirota) about the Obama administration pushing yet another labor arbitrage, badly written NAFTA style bad trade agreement:
an increasingly agitated faction of Democrats is warning party leaders of ugly economic and political consequences if they try to move the Panama agreement.
Not only will it hurt the economy, critics say, but action on a Bush-negotiated trade deal endangers freshman Democrats in 2010 since many ran on a trade reform agenda. In addition, critics say, it doesn’t bode well for Obama to anger a bloc of Democrats early on when he needs their support for his ambitious domestic agenda.
The corporate wing of the Democratic party hasn't lost any of its strength. If we can't even TALK about updating NAFTA then we are lost when it comes to agreements like GATT.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said on Monday that it had no plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to revise its labor and environmental provisions, as then-Senator Barack Obama promised to do during his presidential campaign.
“The president has said we will look at all of our options, but I think they can be addressed without having to reopen the agreement,” said Ronald Kirk, the United States trade representative.
I am so used to the New York Times refusing to acknowledge the reality of bad trade deals, this article clam as a shock.
“A new phenomenon has grown up under Nafta — high-productivity poverty,” said Harley Shaiken, chairman of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Low wages means low purchasing power. “It is not a successful strategy for globalization,” Mr. Shaiken said.
Even Nafta’s greatest success — exports — has become a liability, as Mexico feels the full brunt of declining consumption in the United States. The auto industry, for example, which has flourished under Nafta, has ground to a virtual standstill. Over all, Mexican auto exports fell more than 50 percent in the first two months of this year compared with 2008, and production dropped almost 45 percent.
While the free trade religious agenda pundits scream from the roof top, oh that's protectionist and it is conveniently ignored that pouring trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to financial institutions is the ultimate protectionism, this little headline blips across the news aggregators:
Global trade will plunge 9 percent this year, the most since World War II, as the recession deepens, the World Trade Organization said.
“Economic contraction in most of the industrial world and steep export declines already posted in the early months of this year by most major economies -- particularly those in Asia -- make for an unusually bleak 2009 trade assessment,” the Geneva- based WTO said in its annual assessment of world trade.
It never ends and we do not have inspections at ports and lord knows what is in our products anymore since they are made overseas.
The latest? toxc drywall causes houses to smell, make people sick and even destroy their home appliances.
shipping records indicate tens of thousands of residences in the United States, with a good chunk of them in Florida, may have drywall from the manufacturers
"tens of thousands" can be 10,000 to 1,000,000 properties.
The drywall was imported in 2005, 2006. God knows what else or shoddy goods were going on during the height of the housing bubble.
the drywall has caused them to suffer health problems such as headaches and sore throats and face huge repair expenses.
When is the United States going to make it clear, once and for all, U.S. jobs and workers are not for trade?
Because Congress finally stopped Mexican trucks from entering the United States, which obviously would labor arbitrage U.S. truckers in addition to security and safety issues, Mexico is retailiating by tariffs.
Mexico slapped tariffs on 90 American agricultural and manufactured exports on Monday in retaliation for Washington's move to block Mexican trucks from using U.S. highways.
Mexican Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz said about $2.4 billion worth of exports from 40 U.S. states would be affected and that his government would soon publish a list of them.
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