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McCain Adviser: No Labor Standards in Trade Deals |
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Sen. John McCain has embarked on his general election campaign, and we’re learning more and more about how he would set policies related to trade and jobs if elected president.
In an interview with the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, acknowledges McCain doesn’t want to include labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.
McCain would reject the use of labor and environmental issues to block trade, says Holtz-Eakin.
But McCain is missing the point. Labor and environmental rules are just as much a part of the trade equation as copyright protection or investment rules. It isn’t a question of blocking trade but of making sure that trade deals are fair to workers, don’t trash the environment and provide the right incentives to businesses and governments. McCain’s trade policy would serve only one constituency: multinational corporations.
This comes as no surprise: McCain, after all, is a strong advocate of trade deals likes the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and has never met a trade agreement he couldn’t vote for. He’s a strong supporter of the anti-worker U.S.-Colombia FTA, asserting that America’s discontent with the direction of the country is because the Colombia deal hasn’t passed. (Where did he get this idea from? Maybe from a major fundraiser who was a lobbyist for the Colombian government?)
Colombia is an incredibly dangerous place for workers, with dozens of unionists murdered this year alone, and dozens of legal obstacles to workers’ right to organize. It’s a prime example of why we should not negotiate trade deals with governments that cannot or will not protect the interests of their own workers.
In rejecting environmental and labor standards outright, McCain has gone even farther than Bush, who agreed to include labor and environmental standards in future trade negotiations.
To find out more about McCain’s record on trade, check out McCain Revealed.
McCain needs to listen to what working families care about. He needs to set a trade agenda that respects and protects workers and good jobs in America, not ignores them.
2 Comments
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To call it “free trade” when workers are not free to organize and protect their environment is straight of George Orwell’s 1984. The way some politicians abuse the English language as they abuse the working class always amazes me.
Bob Simpson
The BobboSphere
If your contention that McCain listened to a lobbyist for the Colombian government rather than look at the facts then he would not be the first American politician to hurt the USA by doing so. President Clinton started Plan Colombia despite drug experts telling him it was a waste of taxpayer money.
Prior to that and because of weak cooperation from the Colombian government, Colombia had twice been decertified to receive money to fight drugs. A survey showed that 76% of Americans believed the Colombian government to be corrupt. To get the USA money Colombia hired a PR firm and paid them over $3.1 million in commissions to change the view of politicians. That lead to Clinton starting Plan Colombia that has made Colombia the 3rd largest recipient of US taxpayer money and cost over $5 Billion so far.
International authorities have called Plan Colombia a failure. Part of its intended purpose was to reduce drugs by a minimum of 50% and to strengthen the Colombian judicial system. Drugs from Colombia have not been reduced. In fact the number of districts in which drugs are grown have almost doubled. Every single report, including those by the US State Department show that the Colombian judicial system is understaffed and under funded. Just the fact that less than 3% of the murders of union members have had arrests says that Plan Colombia has not met that part of its job. A 2007 report by the Strategic Studies Institute states, “Colombia did contribute to the Plan, but the amounts also were disappointing. Colombians, especially the elites, seem unwilling to sacrifice to strengthen their own country.”
Former Ambassador to Colombia, Myles Frechette wrote, “Although President Uribe has high approval ratings and has improved Colombia’s sense of self-confidence, he has not mobilized the Colombian people or asked them to sacrifice to strengthen their nation.”
Rather meaning Colombia is NOT helping the USA in the fight against drugs and the result is just a waste of American taxpayer money. It is no wonder that many Colombians state they do not want American money because it only continues the corruption by their government and fuels the drug trade.
Rather than just giving Colombian more from America including potential American jobs, McCain should ask why all this is a failure. The answer is simple. The PR firm changed only the perception. THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT HAS REMAINED MASSIVELY CORRUPT.
The proof lies in the fact that so far in 2008 the country again leads the world in deaths of union members. It is still the #1 supplier of cocaine to the world. Despite so-called demobilization of the paramilitary (note this group has been linked to the government on several levels) and claimed great success in fighting the FARC, Colombia remains the most violent country in the Western Hemisphere and has the greatest human rights abuses in South America.
In regards to labor standards, even if written into the FTA, it is the Colombian Corruption that keeps them from being enforced. In the blog titled “The U.S. Must Not Reward Murders,” GPZ commented about a stadium in the town of Tabio. That seems to be an example of how the people suffer corruption and abuses of their rights under the Colombian government. And the government officials get impunity. Again to quote Frechette, “…Colombia’s two traditional parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, now perceived as corrupt and unresponsive to the citizen needs.”
McCain should also consider that over 30% of Colombia’s congress is being investigated for ties to the terrorist paramilitary and that 90% of those congress members are supporters of Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe, a man that McCain calls a friend and ally of the USA. McCain is going against the workingman who has made America great and the morals and respect for the law those workers cherish. The USA should not betray its own values in the rule of law and justice in the name of more profits for the rich.