Years Late But A Sign

    The crumbling of so-called "free trade" has got to be near when you read The Wall Street Journal and learn that "Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain will use his campaign's first big economic speech today to talk about downsides of free trade." Apparently, McCain will "acknowledge that open markets have resulted in pain for some individuals whose jobs are being eliminated or sent overseas..." Of course, McCain's response is classic: retraining.

     Retraining has been a bi-partisan failure. The problem is that retraining has simply set people up for a failure because they can't find jobs that pay anywhere near what they made before. The solution is not retraining--it's a different conception of how to set up the rules of the global economy. But, it does say something that McCain feels compelled to even acknowledge that something is amiss.

Free Traders In A Knot

    You have to maintain a sense of humor when you read the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Though I tip my hat to the quality of the writing, the writers come up just short of self-parody. Today, the wing-nuts have two hand-wringing editorials about trade.

    The first deals with the tariffs slapped down on Chinese coated paper products. The editorial page is, to put it mildly, not happy with these awful "protectionist" measures. One interesting nugget in the editorial, though:

The White House also hopes that a show of "toughness" on trade will make it easier for Democrats to support an extension of trade promotion authority.

    That may, in fact, have some truth to it. The real game is the effort to ram through the renewal of "fact track."  Actually, you'd almost wonder if the Journal and The White House are planning this little propaganda push together. After all, why get so ripped over something that has a small economic impact, in relative terms? White House does something small, right-wing goes ballistic...presto, "fast track" gets renewed. It's not going to be that easy, let me tell you, even as the Journal ends its editorial with a comical slam of "Big Labor."

Rather than be appeased by these China tariffs, Congress, Big Labor and various business interests are far more likely to claim policy vindication and demand more. The Bush Administration is playing with matches, and we hope the economy doesn't get burned.

    The "economy" is getting "burned" not because of "protectionism" but because people can't find jobs that pay them enough money.

    Not content to end the heavy breathing with China, the editorial goes on to slam the Teamsters for working to block access to U.S. roads by Mexican long-haul truckers, who were going to get access to U.S. highways under a provision included in NAFTA. The Journal claims that "...Mexican long-haul truck record is as good as America's..." but it ain't so.

    The fact is that Mexico has virtually no enforceable safety requirements for tractor-trailers and almost no inspection program, which is rife with corruption. Uh, and who will make sure the truckers are up to code? I gather U.S. inspectors at the border. Does that make you break out in laughter? The border is so porous and inspectors so over-worked simply trying to check U.S. trucks that it would be impossible to have a serious inspection program for Mexican trucks.

    But, I wait for tomorrow because it will bring another round of amusing editorials to read.

The Times Spoils The Day

    Oh, you know, I thought I'd have a nice quiet morning, work out at the gym, read a bit...and, then, I had to look at The New York Times' editorial page, and it was all downhill from there, forcing me to fire up the computer to post this...

    The Times continues its rant in support of so-called "free trade," lamenting the possible loss of "fast track" authority. Here's some of the first paragraph:

Unless Mr. Paulson and the administration do a lot more to counter that public anxiety — and growing opposition on Capitol Hill — President Bush stands to lose his fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals, which will be up for renewal soon, and will find it increasingly hard to block protectionist laws.

    It's hard to understand how a paper that fancies itself as a believer in the balance of powers in government and a staunch defender of civil liberties can, at the same time, support "fast track." Way back, when I was participating in the efforts in the 1990s to stop the granting of "fast track" authority for Bill Clinton, one of the most powerful arguments, then, and still today, is that "fast track" gives way too much authority to the executive branch and takes away the rights of the people to have a say, via members of Congress, on how trade agreements are shaped. In other words, it should be declared unconstitutional or, at least, be seen by defenders of the separation of powers as quite a dangerous delegation of authority to the president.

    It is also simply false to suggest that so-called "free trade" agreements can't pass without "fast track." Nonsense--they have passed. What The Times really doesn't like, apparently, is the notion that those awful "protectionists" would have a say in the shape of trade agreements.

    I don't mind calling myself a "protectionist"--if one embraces the real meaning of the term: to protect.  Indeed, the epithet "protectionist" is simply another version of trying to intimidate people and shut down debate, if you're inclined to wither like too many political people do when they are tarred with the, oh, no, label of being a "liberal." The whole debate about trade is not about "free trade" nor about "protectionism"--it's about the rules. THE RULES. What rules do we believe should govern the relationships between countries and cultures? Right now, it's one sided: pro-investment and pro-capital. Us awful "protectionists" want rules whose basic principles set out the idea that trade is, first and foremost, designed to advance the lives of people in communities, not just profit the few.

    But I digress...sort of. To say something nice about the editorial. It does make two interesting points in a round about what after conceding that the American people don't have much faith in so-called "free trade" because of their insecurity:

Also long overdue is a plan to guarantee all Americans health care. Education is also important, although Mr. Paulson is overstating the case when he describes it as a silver bullet for making Americans more competitive.

    It's quite interesting that the editorial is tying health care to trade. It's a recognition, again with the framework that so-called "free trade" is good, that one of real economic problems facing the nation is not that we don't have enough so-called "free trade" but that we spend 15 percent of the gross domestic product on health care. Insane.

    And I am particularly interest in what I detect is a slight--very slight--cracking of the dominant notion that somehow education is a panacea. Today, I'll take The Times argument that the case is being overstated as a good beginning to the day when, perhaps (sure, I'm dreaming) The Times leads with an editorial that accepts the idea that education is not at all the solution to the global work crisis (psssst...it's wages).

    Okay, back to my Saturday (and grumbling that U.C.L.A.'s game tonight is not televised).

Falling, Falling, Falling

    Part of the reason the president is off to South America (maybe it's to see if he can find a country where support among the people is stronger for him than in the U.S.) is to bolster support for so-called "free trade" agreements pending with Colombia and Peru, among other trade deals. He's not going to find much support here in the U.S., according to a new poll:

By 46%-28%, Americans say trade deals with other countries have harmed U.S.; a 42% plurality of conservatives agrees.

    The public is as clear as it can be that so-called "free trade" is a disaster for the country. Hopefully, Democrats will hear that and act accordingly.

Charles Rangel, Don't Make Bad Deals on "Free Trade"

    Wily and experienced negotiator that he is, I have to think that Charlie Rangel believes that sometimes no deal is better than a bad deal. I hope he keeps that mind as he plunges into talks over a compromise over so-called "free trade" agreements. Charlie, there is no deal to be made here, within the framework being discussed. And this issue is one of the most crucial issues for the future of the Democratic Party.

   I have argued here numerous times that there is no such thing as "free trade." It is simply a marketing phrase, and, admittedly, one that has stuck within the minds of the mainstream media--reporters and editorial page editors, who learned in Economics 101 in college about the virtues of "free trade." The truth is that what the public is sold as "free trade" is nothing more than a set of rules that is primarily, if not entirely, about protecting capital and investment. There is nothing free about these deals. I've actually read them--they are a bore but try it sometime: all you will read are essentially page after page of standards and exceptions and protections for corporate trading.

    Which brings us to the current debate. As The New York Times reports today:

When the Democrats swept to victory last fall, after a campaign fueled partly by attacks on President Bush’s trade policies, trade deals promoted by the administration seemed doomed in the new Congress. But that was then.

In the last week, the administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have signaled a new willingness to work with Democrats to try to secure their support for three pending trade deals — with Panama, Peru and Colombia. The focus of their talks has been guarantees for the rights of workers in countries with which the United States has negotiated trade accords, including a ban on child labor and forced labor.

   Now, on the face of it, this should be good news. Who wouldn't want to have the rights of workers protected?

   But, the problem is that this is only a small fix to the bigger problem of the structure of these so-called "free trade" deals. You can see a little bit of the problem revealed in the story over the debate about where labor rights should appear in a so-called "free trade" agreement:

Another issue is whether any guarantees on labor rights would be incorporated in the body of the three pending trade agreements, requiring them to be renegotiated, or adopted as a side letter as Republicans want. Democrats say only embodying them in the negotiated accords would make them enforceable.

    If the labor rights protections end up as side letters, they will be meaningless--unenforceable and quickly forgotten. That's how the Clinton Administration dealt with labor and environmental rights in NAFTA--a complete disaster for our workers and Mexican workers (the latter have seen their standard of living plummet--at least the vast sea of migrant and factory workers). And it should speak volumes that REPUBLICANS are open to the idea of side letters with labor rights--that should tell us how weak these side letters truly are.

    But the framing of the choices tells us a lot about the ultimate outcome: even if the labor rights end up as part of the body of the deals, it would only improve conditions at the margin.

    The central problem to so-called "free trade" agreements is that they start out from the wrong premise: that trade agreements should be primarily about protecting investment and capital and, then, only as an afterthought, do the agreements wrestle with how workers and the environment should be treated.

    In the instance of the Columbian so-called "free trade" agreement, for example, foreign investor rights—-a typical pro-corporate, so-called "free trade," measure—-would tighten the grip that large corporations have on the country’s natural resources and launch a large-scale plundering of those resources such as timber and minerals. The so-called "free trade" deal would likely displace hundreds of thousands of poor rural Colombians from their lands, sending them into far deeper economic despair—and forcing many of them to work for paramilitary forces aligned with drug growers--the very groups that violently displaced them from their lands. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs conducted a study of the effects of the 1990s economic "liberalization" and concluded that the grand "opening" of the economy led to a 35 per cent drop in employment. You can be sure that the proposed so-called "free trade" deal will wreak similar havoc.

    The American people get the problem: in the past election, Public Citizen clearly showed that the new Democratic majority was won in large part because dozens of candidates ran on a platform of fair trade and opposed to so-called "free trade." Yes, Iraq was the main issue but the economic anxiety facing millions of people across our nation bubbled up as well.

    Making deals on so-called "free trade" puts Democrats at great peril--perhaps not in 2008 but in a longer time frame. If we don't oppose the very economic policies that are threatening workers here and abroad, voters will become disenchanted. I'm not arguing that they will, then, rush into the Republicans' arms. But, many will stay home and become demobilized. The Party can't afford that--no, our democracy can't afford that.

    So back to my congressman, Charles Rangel. Rather than make a bad deal that simply perpetuates so-called "free trade, I would hope that he and the other leaders of our party decide, once and for all, to end a destructive mindset that chooses corporate investment and capital rights over the rights of people to have a fair wage and decent working conditions. We need a new template for trade based on two principles:

  1. The ultimate goal for trade is to improve the lives of communities around the world.

  2. If you believe in #1, then, any trade agreement should have at its core, not as after thoughts and "side letters," the principals of democracy, safe and fair-waged work and the preservation of the environment—for the people of all the countries involved in the deal. Once those principles are laid down as the underpinning of a trade deal, then, we ask how do corporations fulfill those goals. Right now, it’s the exact opposite.

U.S. Labor Standards Worse Than The World?

    This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. In today's Wall Street Journal, there is a story about on-going negotiations between the Administration and Democrats to try to resolve differences on pending so-called "free trade" deals. As I wrote recently, the Columbia so-called "free trade" deal is being held up because of labor rights problems (I'll come back to that in a sec), as are other deals.

    But, here's the amazing paragraph to me:

A problem that especially worries Republicans and the administration is how to ensure new labor commitments don't unintentionally rebound at home, where American businesses already have high workplace standards under U.S. law. Some officials fret about the limits imposed by U.S. law on the ability of government workers to organize and worry that putting ILO principles in a bilateral trade deal might lead to legal actions over whether the U.S. itself fully complies with the basic international rights.

    Now, if there was an acknowledgment on how poor labor rights are here--that the right to organize is effectively absent--that has got to be it.

    Generally, the rest of the article is quite troubling. It reaffirms that Democrats, particularly House Ways and Means Chair Charles Rangel are looking for ways to make deals to pass the so-called "free trade" agreements by improving labor rights provisions. I continue to argue that those deals should not be passed because their basic structure--framing trade as corporate and investment issues first and, then, tacking on social concerns as an after-thought--are flawed.

U.S. "Free Trade": Death, Drugs and Despair in Colombia

    Pedro Arenas is not a person that most of the elites in the U.S.—in the mainstream media, inside the Beltway think-tanks, and in elected positions on Congress—would meet in order to understand the real crime of so-called “free trade.” For the elites, so-called “free trade” is an unassailable concept, something that is as natural and obvious as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. But, for hundreds of thousands of Colombians like Arenas, so-called “free trade” is a question of life and death. And, in our name, our government—Republicans and potentially key Democrats—is pushing to sign death warrants for Colombians in the guise of a so-called “free trade” agreement between our two countries.

 

    This might strike some as a bit hyperbolic. But, the proposed deal would, at the very least, push thousands of farmers off their lands. And, as likely, empower the paramilitary death squads that have flourished, in part through the U.S. financing of the “war on drugs, but also via the strengthening of the powerful business interests who fund some of the most violent political forces in Colombia. Here is the tale, in relative brevity, of the intersection between so-called “free trade,” political violence, economic violence and drug cultivation.

    Background: In 2003, President Bush announced negotiations for something called the Andean Free Trade Agreement, which was supposed to be negotiated with Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. But, new, populist governments in Ecuador and Bolivia ( in November 2006, Ecuadorans elected Rafael Correa as their new president; Evo Morales was chosen to lead Bolivia in December 2005), rejected any further NAFTA/CAFTA-style, so-called “free trade” agreements. So, Colombia and Peru forged ahead on their own. Bush signed the deal with Colombia last November—just two weeks after the elections in which dozens of new Democratic members of Congress were elected, partly on economic platforms that rejected NAFTA-type so-called “free trade.”

    Colombia is the most dangerous place to live if you are a union leader, activist or member: 3,000 have been murdered since 1985, according to an annual survey of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

    But, as Pedro Arenas demonstrated to me when I met him in my office in New York, you don’t have to be a trade unionist to be targeted for death. Arenas isn’t a union member but he has been hounded by the para-military death squads a number of times over the past decade. Why? He has worked for many years organizing peasants in the south-central Guaviare region of Colombia—he hails from the town of San Jose, which is at the frontier of the Amazon. He has been at the forefront of the criticism of U.S. military policy in Colombia. He was elected to the San Jose City Council as an independent in 1992, ran and was elected to regional assembly in 1995 and, then in 2002, was elected to Colombia’s National Congress.

    But, he is not running for re-election. Why? Because of the threats from the para-military right wing. He simply does not want to endanger his wife and child. It is the only time in our long conversation that his shoulders dropped, he looked down at the table and his voice changed from firm and animated to weary and solemn.

    The Colombia Free Trade Agreement. What would it do? The FTA’s grant of duty-free U.S. access for flowers and certain other commercial-scale agri-export crops will certainly put pressure on Colombia to expand agribusiness plantations for such exports. These plantations have been a disaster for the regular farmer. Indeed, under pressure in the 1990s from international lending organizations, Colombia implemented a program of “economic openness,” which unleashed a tide of traditional cereals, rice and oats pouring into the country. As a result, 1.1 million hectares of cultivated land were lost. Arenas says that 300,000 farmers, then, turned to cultivating coca. “So, now, with FTA, they want to lower every tariff to zero which will devastate every farmer and make them grow coca,” says Arenas.

    Foreign investor rights—a typical pro-corporate, so-called “free trade,” measure—would tighten the grip that large corporations have on the country’s natural resources and launch a large-scale plundering of those resources such as timber and minerals. Without a government willing to nationalize such resources or, at the very least, make sure that the benefits of the commercial exploitation are widely spread, you can be sure that huge riches will flow to a handful of people, while most of the population is left with pennies.

    The upshot: the so-called “free trade” deal would likely displace hundreds of thousands of poor rural Colombians from their lands, sending them into far deeper economic despair—and forcing many of them to work for the very groups that violently displaced them from their lands. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs conducted a study of the effects of the 1990s economic “liberalization” and concluded that such a move led to a 35 per cent drop in employment. You can be sure that the proposed so-called “free trade” deal will wreak similar havoc.

    As Public Citizen notes:

“Increased Drug Production is Linked to Past NAFTA-style Agricultural Trade Policies on Which the Peru and Colombia FTAs are Based: We do not need to rely on experts’ opinions regarding how the proposed FTAs will lead to increases in drug production. Unfortunately, there is a factual record demonstrating the phenomena. After NAFTA drove down commodity prices in Mexico and eventually 1.3 million Mexican campesinos were driven out of the business of growing corn and beans, many Mexican farmers turned to illegal drugs to compensate for lost income. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office reports that in NAFTA’s first decade, marijuana seizures doubled at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

    Let’s not forget the drug companies. Pharmaceutical companies will get exclusive patent rights, getting 20-year monopoly rights to market drugs in Colombia—the very kind of provisions that have driven up drug prices in the U.S. Generic drugs will effectively be banned for ten years—putting tremendous economic pressure on the health care system in Colombia.

    Put simply, the deal would benefit business and political interests tied to the paramilitary forces. If you have any doubts about the links between the government and these right-wing paramilitary forces, check this out. In November 2006, two powerful senators and two members of Congress—allies of President Uribe – resigned because of evidence they had conspired with paramilitary groups. The Uribe government was rocked this past Monday when its foreign minister resigned: 

The foreign minister of Colombia resigned Monday as the government of President Álvaro Uribe, the Bush administration’s closest ally in South America, struggled with a scandal that has disclosed ties between paramilitary cocaine-trafficking squads and some of Mr. Uribe’s most prominent political supporters.

The resignation of Foreign Minister María Consuelo Araújo came days after Mr. Uribe expressed support for her. But fallout from the arrest last week of five politicians, including her brother, Senator Álvaro Araújo, on charges of working with paramilitary squads in a kidnapping case related to the scandal, made her presence in the cabinet untenable.

Hours after the resignation, the president appointed Fernando Araújo, who recently escaped after six years in rebel captivity, to replace Ms. Araújo. The two are not related.

    This corruption is clearly a threat to the FTA, as well as additional U.S. military support for Colombia.

But the support for Mr. Uribe’s government is coming under fresh scrutiny as the United States Congress weighs approval of a trade agreement and a request from the Bush administration for $3.9 billion in military and antinarcotics assistance for Colombia, which is the largest recipient of American aid outside of the Middle East and Afghanistan.

   

The State of Play: since the November elections, there has been a sense that the Colombia deal was in some trouble, partly due to the Uribe government’s growing scandal regarding ties to drug traffickers and partly due to the election of many new U.S. Democratic Party members who are skeptical of so-called “free trade.” In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab that focused mostly on the lack of labor standards in the pending so-called “free trade” deal with Peru, a number of House and Senator members also said that, “Our concerns apply to the Columbia agreement as well.” Human rights organizations believe that the Colombia so-called “free trade” deal will worsen the plight of already besieged citizens.

    The opposition also comes from Afro-Colombian representatives, who wrote to Rep. Charles Rangel:

In Colombia, the problems associated with trade go far beyond labor rights. As the Washington Post recently reported, members of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe’s own political party have been arrested for coordinating massacres of rural communities with illegal armed paramilitary groups. These massacres are directly related to trade. In many cases, these deeds have served to accelerate the concentration of ownership of the best lands in the hands of paramilitary leaders or their front groups and to significantly weaken land rights, facilitate natural resource exploitation, weaken our communities’ environmental rights and facilitate the advance of development projects into our territories.

In the Colombian context, politically powerful export industries such as “African” palm oil, timber, mining and oil interests are directly benefiting from, and undoubtedly funding and coordinating, the systematic use of violent force to displace Afro-Colombian communities from their traditional territories in order to expand their exports to the U.S. Side agreements on labor will not protect us from these abuses.

If the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement were to be ratified without a complete overhaul, including the renegotiation of the agriculture and investment sections, the situation will deteriorate even more rapidly. The investment provisions would embolden export-oriented natural resource extraction corporations, while the agricultural rules would undermine rural economies. This lethal combination would result in the displacement of millions of poor rural Colombians from their lands, worsening their economic and social conditions and leaving them with no option other than to work for those groups that have violently displaced them from their lands and appropriated their natural resources, or to become involved in the informal or even illegal economic sectors. We must break this cycle.

    A coalition of Colombian organizations—the Colombian Action Network in Opposition to Free Trade and FTAA or Recalca) also wrote to Rangel in January  making clear that, “The pitfalls of the agreement cannot be remedied merely by the incorporation of  “side letters” or by a partial renegotiation. We have indicated, and continue to insist, that we oppose seeking competitiveness in world markets at the expense of the deterioration of labor standards and environmental degradation, as the Colombian government is proposing.”

    As chair of the Ways and Means Committee, Rangel plays a central role in the fate of trade deals. To his credit, he has pushed Schwab for stronger labor rights provisions. They agreed to have their staff try to work out an agreement by February 19th—but, according to Inside U.S. Trade (a very pricey subscription-only newsletter), the negotiations collapsed.

    But here is where this gets tricky. Rangel (FWIW, he’s my Congressman) also made clear, according to Inside U.S. Trade that “he sought language on labor rights that would not “damage” the existing U.S. trade agreements, and would set minimal standards to show the United States wants to protect the rights of minors and women. Beyond that general comment, Rangel did not specify what he would consider an acceptable compromise on labor, but he made it clear it would have to be between the positions staked out by business and labor groups.”

    In my opinion, Rangel is seeking a middle position for a situation that does not warrant compromise. You can not make this so-called “free trade” agreement--or any other such deal--better by tinkering around the edges. Pedro Arenas says, “we have to completely reopen the negotiations of the agreement.” Arenas views the deal with Colombia as much worse than NAFTA or the Central American Free Trade Agreement because it is far more sweeping in the invasion of the country’s sovereignty, as I’ve detailed above.

    Is Colombia an extreme example? Advocates of so-called “free trade” will no doubt say, “well, we don’t support death squads but Colombia is not typical.” The problem is that Colombia’s conditions can simply be plotted on a spectrum of bad to worse when it comes to the consequences of so-called “free trade.” There may not be roving paramilitary death squads in Mexico (though political violence is still a fact of life there, too), Guatemala, Honduras, or other countries. But, the underlying dynamic for so-called “free trade” is corrosive: driving down wages and seeking the lowest cost, compliant labor pool possible. Period. And, so, it is troubling that Rangel would be arguing for an approach that does not "damage" existing U.S. trade deals. These are damaged deals--if you are one of the millions of workers here and abroad who have suffered the loss of jobs, declining wages and a work environment where all the power rests with corporations.

    It’s the reason that, as Democrats, we need to drive a stake through so-called “free trade” and engage in a totally different trade policy. Don’t be fooled by the nonsense of the marketing phrases like “free trade” (it doesn’t exist) and “global economy” or the attacks by the economic elites against “protectionists.”

    There is nothing new about trade—we’ve traded among countries and civilizations for the entire course of human history, sometimes by delivering goods that took weeks and months to reach their destination, whereas today such trade can happen in the blink of an eye. What the economic, political and media elites want us to believe is that somehow something magical has happened requiring that we accede to economic realities that are natural and unavoidable.

    But, that is utter nonsense. Economics is not nature. It’s a question of power and politics. And the central question is: what are the rules under which trade takes place? This is not difficult to figure out, if you accept, as I do, two basic principles:

1. The ultimate goal for trade is to improve the lives of communities around the world.

2. If you believe in #1, then, any trade agreement should have at its core, not as after thoughts and “side letters,” the principals of democracy, safe and fair-waged work and the preservation of the environment—for the people of all the countries involved in the deal. Once those principles are laid down as the underpinning of a trade deal, then, we ask how do corporations fulfill those goals. Right now, it’s the exact opposite.

 

    I do not minimize how difficult it will be to reverse the current economic rules. But, if you take a look at what happened in our elections in 2006 and, then, look at the election of many populist leaders in Central and South America who were chosen, in large part, in response to the economic plundering, poverty and inequality that so-called “free trade” and “liberalization” leads to, I am optimistic that we are making some progress in reshaping the debate.

    That is why we must oppose the Colombia so-called “free trade” pact and push for Democrats to scuttle the deal. Not just for the sake of our country’s citizens but in defense of our brethren in Colombia.

Corruption in Colombia--FTA Doomed?

    The government of Colombia is apparently riddled with people tied to the para-military forces and death squads. Or so it appears from the resignation of a top Colombian official:

The foreign minister of Colombia resigned Monday as the government of President Álvaro Uribe, the Bush administration’s closest ally in South America, struggled with a scandal that has disclosed ties between paramilitary cocaine-trafficking squads and some of Mr. Uribe’s most prominent political supporters.

    This episode, and others surfacing almost daily in Colombia, may slow down the rush to cram another so-called "free trade" agreement down the throats of another country in the Americas. We can only hope.

The Times Still Flogs "Free Trade"

    The New York Times editorial writers will never get it when it comes to trade (I'm not even going to mention how wrong Tom Friedman is on this issue...I've flogged his nonsense enough so I'll pass today). Today, the Times has a lead editorial entitled "A Bipartisan Trade Policy." Ah, yes, I knew it was coming: the well-educated elites are giving us the rap that so-called "free trade" is one of those wonderful things that we should embrace across the political divide (echoing the mantra regarding "national security"). This editorial is important simply because of the window it gives us on the thinking of the elites who want to continue the current disastrous system of trade.

    The Times asserts:

Over all, trade has been very good to the United States, which is still the world’s largest exporter of goods and services. The trade liberalization measures put in place after World War II produce now, by one estimate, an additional $1 trillion in income for Americans annually, and millions of new jobs. The inexpensive foreign goods that arrive here because of free trade keep prices down. Low prices are good for consumers, and by keeping inflation and interest rates in check, they encourage economic growth and job creation.

    The first puzzling and troubling fact is that The Times, which claims to be vigilant about sourcing, doesn't tell the reader who is the producer of the "one estimate." Is it the Oracle of Delphi? Or perhaps one of the pro- so-called "free trade" shill groups like the International Institute for Economics (that would be the group that predicted wonderful results for American and Mexican workers from the passage of NAFTA--and was dead wrong)? No one knows. We don't know what the bias is of this hidden group.

    But, the figure cited by The Times is just as important--the fact that trade, if you want to accept the figure, produces $1 trillion in extra income does not tell you much about HOW THAT INCOME IS DISTRIBUTED!!! We are seeing the most intense divergence between rich and poor in at least a century, where the top one percent of the population is reaping a growing portion of the nation's income. The Times itself reported in June 2005, in an excellent article by David Cay Johnston, that, "From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000." In other words, the fact that total national income went up as a whole is not telling us much of the story--and, certainly, is not something to justify the toll being exacted by so-called "free trade."

    Is does not tell the reader, to take the other point of job creation, what kinds of jobs have been created. Inflation may be in check (that's debatable, given how inflation is measured and how families are being squeezed regardless of the official inflation rate because of stagnant incomes and health care costs, to mention just two factors) but does that do anyone much good if the jobs--need I say the word "Wal-Mart"--are low-paying and lack benefits? In fact, it's not by chance that Wal-Mart loves so-called "free trade": it could not survive without the cheap labor (made possible by a controlled labor market in China) that is the essence of so-called "free trade."

    A note about low prices: we wear different hats in society. Yes, one is as a consumer. But, we also are workers, citizens, parents and neighbors. Americans love low prices BUT I have also sat behind a one-way mirror and watched focus groups of Americans, who say that they would pay a few more pennies or a dollar or two more if it meant that our entire society could have a decent of living. We are like drug addicts: big corporations have us hooked on this mania to drive prices even lower, and, yet, deep inside, people are increasingly seeing that there is a steep and hurtful price to pay for Wal-Mart-like models.

       So, now, The Times really gets revved up. The editorial acknowledges that hundreds of thousands of workers have gotten axed because of trade (no mention that many of the jobs were good-paying jobs, with decent benefits--the very jobs that created a strong middle-class). But, wait, we can have it both ways:

Now that the Democrats control Congress, they can champion both free trade and the rights of American workers. They should push to improve the social safety net, especially access to health insurance. And they should promote increased retraining and wage assistance for displaced workers.

    This is a sleight of hand that is, frankly, dishonest. As some readers will know, I have maintained that there is no such thing as so-called "free trade." These so-called "free trade" agreements are simply deals that set the rules of the game. In the current environment, they set the rules in favor of large corporations by effectively driving competition based one major factor: wages.

    What the passage above effectively says is: tough luck, workers. Trade deals have been structured for the benefit of corporations. That's life and you just have to accept the way the world is--and we'll make it a little easier by throwing in some retraining classes and improve the safety net a little. But, this is the framework you will live with. I wonder: would a New York Times editorial writer be willing to accept a little wage assistance and retraining in return for the wonder of lower prices?

    The Times also urges the Democrats to support, as part of giving us more of the wonders of so-called "free trade," the extension of fast track negotiating authority. Fast-track allows the president to cut a so-called "free trade" deal, and submit it to Congress for an up or down vote--members of Congress are not allowed to amend the legislation. Whenever I write that explanation, I am shocked anew by the blatantly anti-democratic nature of fast track: your rights as a citizen to have your representative give you a voice on these matters is effectively killed!

    And to that I say our challenge is to get Democrats to say: HELL NO! I have disagreed with my colleagues who work hard and valiantly to force these so-called "free trade" deals to include provisions on labor and the environment. For this reason: those provisions are effectively throwing us crumbs in return for people accepting a system that is dooming millions of people around the world to a life of struggle and economic insecurity.

    What we need is to junk the current system. We have to begin putting together a trade regime that benefits people first. In fact, The Times lamely tries to make that point at the very end of the editorial:

Democrats are right to insist that the trade agenda advance the interests of all Americans, not just large corporations. But they need to acknowledge that putting the brakes on global growth is still the surest path to losing American job.

    But, the truth is it's the very global growth being pursued that is the surest path to Americans losing their jobs--and, for that matter, forcing people around the world to work for low wages. If it means fighting to end so-called "free trade," to heck with "bi-partisanship." To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, partisanship in the name of a decent living for workers and against abusive corporate power is desired, required and most urgently needed.

Why Fast Track Is Bad

    If you needed a quick primer on the downsides of "fast track"--that would be the legislation that allows the executive branch to negotiate trade agreements and, then, submit the deals to the Congress, which can only vote up or down on the whole package...meaning no amendments--this testimony is worth reading.