Free trade experiment a failure for workers
Orginally published in The State
Free trade experiment a failure for workers
By DENNIS KUCINICH
Guest columnist
My campaign is all about bringing back democracy. And today, one of the biggest threats to American democracy is the system of corporate-managed trade that has been imposed on the backs of workers and the environment here in America and throughout the world.
For a decade, we have been subjected to a grand experiment called NAFTA. When that agreement was signed in 1993, it was enthusiastically supported by big business, Republicans and all too many Democrats. Now it is clear that this experiment has failed. We’ve lost close to 3 million manufacturing jobs since July 2000. Over one-half of a million of these are directly attributable to NAFTA. Our trade deficit grew to $418 billion last year and continues to climb.
The sovereign authority of all governments is at stake. Taxpayer dollars are at stake. A NAFTA case brought by a foreign-owned steel fabrication company is trying to overturn “Buy America” laws that require using American steel in highway projects. NAFTA allows foreign-owned companies to challenge our Constitution, our Congress and our right to enact American laws.
And because of the World Trade Organization, corporations have been granted unprecedented powers to sue the government in closed trade courts anytime laws designed to protect workers or the environment are deemed to infringe on corporate “rights.”
Because of the WTO, so-called “intellectual property” agreements can restrict poor countries’ ability to produce and obtain desperately needed medicines for AIDS and other epidemics.
The WTO forbids developing nations from regulating multinational corporations that operate within their borders.
The Bush administration wants to extend NAFTA throughout the Western Hemisphere through the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. This proposal is being pushed by the administration and its Republican allies in Congress and the corporate world. It is opposed by genuine progressive leaders throughout Latin America, including Brazilian president Lula DaSilva.
Like NAFTA, the FTAA will put limits on the ability of elected representatives to legislate consumer and other protections. The current draft establishes a bias against regulations in the public interest, such as safety, equity and environmental quality.
FTAA will also have a chilling effect on essential public services, such as drinking water. FTAA would establish a bias in favor of privatizing essential public services. Experience with privatization has demonstrated that costs rise for consumers. This has an especially hard impact on people with low incomes.
The only way to undo the damage these trade deals have caused is to end them. The NAFTA and WTO treaties include legal clauses permitting the signatory countries to withdraw from them at any time, following a routine notification period. As president, I will invoke these withdrawal clauses and, once and for all, take America out of an unfair system of corporate trade.
We will return to bilateral trade conditioned on workers’ rights, human rights and environmental quality principles. This will provide security for American workers and for workers worldwide. We must work to create a world where peace and prosperity are possible and mutually inclusive.
Mr. Kucinich is a Democratic candidate for president. His Web site is www. kucinich.us.
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