Can the Dem majority fix our suicidal free trade policies?

[Elwood P Dowd]

http://tradealert.us/news_item.asp?NID=2472752


The entering class of Democrats are nearly all fair-traders, demanding much more balanced rules for the trading system. Thirty-nine of the 42 freshman Democrats in the House recently sent a letter to the Democratic leadership warning their leaders off the Bush trade agenda.

In the Senate, five of the six Democrats who picked up Republican-held Senate seats have joined a new populist caucus, insisting on fairer trade rules. Tuesday and Wednesday, business oriented Democrats invited three Clinton veterans, Gene Sperling, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers, to House Ways and Means Committee hearings to defend the old trade agenda, which has produced chronic trade deficits and hollowed out American industry.

These worthies called for a "new consensus" -- more deals to ease off-shoring production, sweetened by a little more public money to help workers displaced by trade. Most Democrats weren't buying it.

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[ulysses]

1. they won't unless we make them.

[brentspeak]

2. A major public rally in D.C. on this issue would be something useful

[ulysses]

3. might help with our in-house free traders.

[ulysses]

4. regional FTAs have had more than enough time

to produce the benefits promised, and they haven't produced them. It's time to rethink how we're doing globalization, wholesale.

[annabanana]

5. It is encouraging indeed to see these CEO's considering

the good of the Country in additon to the cood of the company

[madrchsod]

6. follow the money

always follow the money

[OregonBlue]

7. How can Dems even consider renewing * fast track authority? We have to pressure them

to let it expire (I believe in June). Not just insist on fairer trade rules. This guy has been giving the farm away and he does not deserve Fast Track!!

[rman]

8. It seems there is no majority within the Dem majority

that wants to fix "free trade".

Interesting development though, with these fair traders entering the arena.

[pampango]

9. Are we to trade only with "white" countries?

If fix our suicidal free trade policy, what improvements do we make? The current system can certainly be improved.

Many suggestions that I have seen suggest that we only trade with countries with labor rights, pay scales and working conditions similar to ours in the US. Which countries are included in such a group? Canada, Europe, Australia, maybe Japan (finally a non-white country). Is that about it?

I will suggest that whatever new trade policy we come up with we should call it "fair trade" not "trading with white countries".)

[Skidmore]

11. What an asinine thing to say and a distortion to boot.

Fair trade makes trade contingent upon adopting fair labor practices, reasonable pay scales and working conditions which are safe. It is about extending those practices into whatever nation wants to trade with us. Or, perhaps you are comfortable that workers continue to be exploited or be consigned to de facto slavery.

[pampango]

12. Never comfortable with exploitation, just a little concerned

with the definitions of "fair" labor practices and "reasonable" pay scales and working conditions. Definitions vary from person to person and country to country, but I have seen many plaintive cries that we cannot compete with $5 a day labor. What if the going rate in some Third World country is $2 a day for a 12 hour day and a new factory hires them at $5 a day for an 8 hour day. If one were to assume some definition of decent working conditions, does that paying a "reasonable" amount? Who decides that?

If you believe that $5 or $10 a day in a Third World country can meet the definition of "reasonable" given some culturally sensitive definition of good working conditions, then we are perhaps in more agreement than I thought. I have conversed with many people who think that if the factory in China is not paying $20 an hour with full benefits then the pay is not "reasonable" and we should not have to compete with that. All such a requirement does is make sure that no factory will be built in China based on the US export market. All factories exporting to the US would be in "white" countries.

[Skidmore]

13. Fair trade to me means that companies have to follow the same

labor practices that they do here, which is a cost to them. No child labor, no locking people in to sweatshops, no blackmailing them or threatening them if they don't produce enough or work for subsistence wages, no unsafe work environments, etc. Many of our own corporations (AMERICAN comanpies) are doing this. Why should we reward their inhumane treatment of workers by consuming their products? If they want to us to purchase their products, change their labor practice and level the playing field a bit.

[pampango]

14. We agree, then.

Our corporation should set a high standard overseas. They will not pay as much as they do here (that being the only reason to build a factory in the Third World country far from the market), but we can insist on "No child labor, no locking people in to sweatshops, no blackmailing them or threatening them if they don't produce enough or work for subsistence wages, no unsafe work environments, etc."

[Heywood J]

16. There you go.

Ensure that each country on the approved trading list adheres to certain conditions, spelled out in advance, if they want to trade with the bloc.

Free trade with those who promote equality and fair conditions in their shops, then heavy duties on those who don't comply. Mistreat your workers, pay them peanuts, or run sweatshops? Face a 1,000% duty and fees, if not an outright ban. We'll see about those cheap imports from Myanmar and China then.

[blues90]

10. Maybe some day they can .

Well after tent sales go through the roof and unfenced land becomes cramped with new homeless people .

Until then they will screw around with some lame ass and weak min wage hike over the next two bloody years while this will mean nothing as more and more jobs fade away for fucking ever .

I say we pay the politicians the min wage and remove their healthcare and let them see if they can find low rent housing .

[mdmc]

15. The democrats won't

liberals might, but the corporate dems are down.