Amy Goodman: Trading Secrets (Truthdig)

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Trading Secrets

Posted on May 22, 2007
By Amy Goodman

The Democratic Party leadership is stabbing its base in the back with secret “free trade” deals made behind closed doors with the White House. Now congressional Democrats may be on the verge of a significant split. While Democratic leaders and President Bush do the hard sell on bipartisan immigration reform, they are now pushing secret, anti-worker, anti-environment trade agreements that will only exacerbate U.S. immigration problems.

The contentious agreements are bilateral trade deals between the U.S. and Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea. The deals were announced in a bipartisan press conference on May 10, with principal credit going to Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee (long dubbed by some as the “Ways to be Mean” Committee). According to Inside U.S. Trade, as noted by blogger David Sirota, House Democrats admit that the White House is drafting the legal language of the trade deals.

Rick MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book “The Selling of ‘Free Trade’: NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy,” calls these agreements “a fundraising gambit by the House leadership.”

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The corporate Democrats and their Republican allies are promising labor and environmental protections. But 13 years after NAFTA passed, with President Clinton orchestrating pork-barrel payouts to buy the vote, promised safeguards have proven unenforceable: Workers, especially in Mexico, earn low wages with little or no security, while companies crush union-organizing efforts and pollute with impunity. As jobs move to Mexico, China and other low-wage havens, the U.S. is the loser. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, knows it all too well: “We see that kind of job loss in the thousands ... devastates communities. It hurts the local business owner, the drugstore, the grocery store, the neighborhood restaurant. It hurts communities. It hurts schools. It hurts police forces. It hurts fire departments.”

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., also slammed the trade deals, saying it was as if “the foxes and wolves had reached a deal on guarding the henhouse. “ He went on: “I wish I could lay the blame at the feet of our colleagues in the other party. But Members of both parties have aided and abetted these flawed policies.”

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When the rules are rigged to allow money to move freely across borders, then people will follow. Falling wages south of the border, caused by “free trade,” drive people north—no matter how high the wall or how many detention facilities are built to contain them. Make no mistake about it—trade and immigration are linked. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070522_trading_secrets/