General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Keith Ellison: [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Yes, Trump used this cynically, yes, there was xenophobia...but if the Upper Midwest had been prosperous, if those states had had full-employment economies run on New Deal values, the xenophobia would never have taken root and Trump would never have gained votes on this. Hate and fear always grow in times of want and recession.
BTW, a lot of people of color opposed TPP(look at the economic justice section of THIS document, for example: https://policy.m4bl.org/platform/) . A lot of Mexicans see NAFTA as a tragedy for their country.
It's not as simple as "white folks against NAFTA/GATT/TPP-POC for NAFTA/GATT/POC".
We can have global trade without things like tribunals in which corporations can get laws passed by elected governments thrown out...tribunals that have no representatives from communities of color, or labor, or environmental groups.
There was no way to get things like that added to TPP, because Congress agreed to a "fast track" take it or leave it)vote. Had that passed, TPP would have been in place forever and any changes to it would have been impossible.
We can do better trade policy than that. It doesn't have to be a race to the bottom, and it doesn't have to drive anyone's wages down.
Let's do trade deals from the bottom up...not the top down. On human terms, not corporate terms. Is that asking so much?