Trade Agreement and Fast Track Updates

August 2007

New Agreement on Trade

On May 10, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY), joined by the White House and legislators who work on the trade agenda, announced a bipartisan compromise on trade. Among its chief provisions:

• enforcement of stronger labor and environmental standards
• limitation of monopoly rights given to pharmaceuticals, which let them raise prices on drugs needed by impoverished people.

These provisions represented no small achievement since they had been consistently hard-sought in previous trade agreements. Yet, they did not completely address the demands of unions, consumer organizations, environmental groups, interfaith coalitions, and those members of Congress who have long been committed to a comprehensive overhaul of the post-NAFTA trade policies. Among these were freshman Members of Congress elected by voters disenchanted by current trade policies and hoping for substantive change. These groups were not involved in the development of the final agreement and only learned of it through a hastily generated press conference.

Fast Track

In the midst of this questionable period, blessedly, the president’s Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), or Fast Track, expired on June 30, and there is no indication that Congress will renew it.

Not granted to President Clinton, but accorded to President Bush, TPA meant that Congress relinquished some of its constitutional authority over “commerce” by empowering the president to negotiate trade agreements with individual nations and bring them to Congress for an up-or-down vote without debate. This congressional relinquishment also denied the electorate a voice in trade negotiations through their elected representatives.

More Balanced Trade Policy Needed

Now, its power restored, Congress can act to develop a comprehensive trade policy. But it is not yet sure whether the Democratic majority can overcome their internal differences and enter into dialogue with their Republican counterparts in order to develop more just and balanced trade policies.

Background

Trade is described as a vehicle of development for the trading partners. However, since passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the 1990s, over three million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost as businesses moved overseas. In their place has been a rise in lower-paying, lower-quality, temporary contract jobs. An increasing number of U.S. families live on the edge as corporate profits grow.

At the same time, many of our overseas trading partners are denied labor rights and forced to accept low wages. Too, farmers in these countries have faced the dumping of U.S. subsidized crops, and a substantial number have eventually relinquished their farms. As a result, many workers and farmers migrated north.

The coherence of trade, investment and migration is a given.