Reply #22: Dems Cut Trade Deal with Bush; Poised to Throw American Workers Under Bus

[Ghost Dog]

http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7524&secID=1152&catID=126
By Lori Wallach and Todd Tucker, AlterNet. Posted May 23, 2007.

Just 100 days after the Democrats rode into Washington on a fair trade mandate, shock has morphed into rage over last Thursday's surprise announcement by the Bush administration, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Ways and Means and Finance Committee Chairs Charles Rangel and Max Baucus, and a coterie of New Democrats and CAFTA 15'ers of a "Deathstar Deal" on trade. The deal could facilitate passage of various awful, pending Bush "free trade agreements" (FTAs), not to mention the danger it may pose to Democrats who go along with its terms. (See here and here for the blow by blow.)

Not one labor, environmental, small business, public health or consumer group supports the deal. Huge corporations praised it -- they see it as essential to the passage of more corporate trade agreements. Among these monied voices was the Chamber of Commerce president, who celebrated the deal's unveiling with a statement in which he said he was psyched about "assurances" he had received that the deal's labor provisions "cannot be read to require compliance" with international labor standards.

Why would Democrats pass a politically poisonous trade deal with the Bush administration instead of launching their own proactive trade agenda? Why not propose a forward-looking strategy that could satisfy public demand for new trade rules that tackle the stability-threatening trade deficit, stagnant wages and other urgent problems?

Most Democrats are asking the same question. The Deathstar Deal was negotiated in secret, legal texts were not made public, and it was abruptly announced without warning to most Democrats or Democratic base groups.

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