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Bush Administration Backpedals on Trade Statement |
It didn’t take long for the Bush administration to start backpedaling on statements it would change the labor provisions in some already completed bad free trade agreements.
Yesterday, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) John Veroneau conceded that “substantive adjustments” to the labor chapters of the recently negotiated free trade agreements with Peru, Colombia and Panama will be needed to gain bipartisan support in Congress.
But within hours after Veroneau’s statement, USTR spokeswoman Gretchen Hamel issued a statement “clarifying” the situation:
In the case of the agreements that the U.S. has already signed, but which have not yet been approved by our Congress, we believe these adjustments can be made through some binding instrument and it is not necessary to reopen the text of the agreement.
These “binding instruments” can be side letters or side agreements, which are not covered by the same enforcement mechanisms as the rest of the agreement when it goes to Congress. The administration is contradicting itself, says AFL-CIO Policy Director Thea Lee. On the one hand, it’s calling for “substantive adjustments” to the texts of the agreements, while on the other, denying need for renegotiation.
These side agreements often are ineffective. For example, the labor side agreement in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) does not contain any enforcement mechanisms protecting the basic rights of workers to form unions and includes much weaker enforcement provisions over all than the commercial provisions in the agreement.
Bush’s backtracking on labor rights comes just as newly elected members of Congress are turning up the heat to change the nation’s trade policies. Recognizing that trade was a key issue in the 2006 elections, 39 freshmen members of the House wrote Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, urging new trade policies that save jobs and communities.
The letter, which comes on the eve of Rangel’s meeting with Trade Representative Susan Schwab, says, in part:
Vital to our electoral successes was our ability to take a vocal stand against the administration’s misguided trade agenda, and offer our voters real, meaningful alternatives to the job-killing agreements, such as CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) that the majority of our opponents supported.
Misguided U.S. trade policies have caused the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs. The Economic Policy Institute pegs more than one million new manufacturing jobs lost directly by NAFTA trade and the U.S. trade deficit is approaching $800 billion.
It is very important that we not only reverse the troubling results of the
administration’s trade agreements and trade policies, but also that we are
able to deliver on the promise we made to our constituents to move our
nation in a new and improved direction on trade.
Reps. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) and Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), the principal authors of the letter, say voters want trade policies that encourage investment in our communities, support our local businesses, workers and their families and protect the environment.
Meanwhile, AFL-CIO Legislation Director William Samuel also wrote Rangel, saying the federation is concerned that “the Bush administration has made little, if any, serious change in its rhetoric and policies regarding trade.”
The AFL-CIO continues to join you in insisting that all trade agreements negotiated by our government include enforceable international labor and environmental standards in the core text, with effective enforcement mechanisms that provide remedies and penalties that are the same as those available for violations of the commercial provisions.
Last March, members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council called on Congress and the Bush administration to declare a moratorium on all free trade agreements modeled after NAFTA and impose temporary fees on imports to drive down the trade deficit, which hit new records in 2006.
In its statement, “Time for Bold Action on Trade,” council members say it’s time for a big change.
While every new trade deal is sold as a market-opening agreement, the reality is that each new agreement just digs us deeper into the hole we’re in. Our trade deficit with our NAFTA partners has grown fourteen fold since we entered into NAFTA in 1994, our deficit with China has more than doubled since the grant of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) in 2000. At some point, the rhetoric has to come face to face with the reality that these policies have simply failed. These deals reflect precisely the wrong model for trade: excessive protection of corporate rights and a flimsy fig leaf for workers, farmers and the environment.
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