THE COMING SHOWDOWN ON TRADE!

[Joanne98]

ROBERT KUTTNER
The coming showdown on trade
By Robert Kuttner | February 3, 2007

GET READY FOR a revolution in trade politics. This week, President Bush reiterated his call for authority to make more trade deals, which expires June 30. He went on the road for a photo-op at a Caterpillar Tractor plant, arguing that trade deals promote exports. But in the new Congress, extension of current "fast track" negotiating authority is a dead letter.

The entering class of Democrats are nearly all fair-traders, demanding much more balanced rules for the trading system. Thirty-nine of the 42 freshma n Democrats in the House recently sent a letter to the Democratic leadership warning their leaders off the Bush trade agenda.

In the Senate, five of the six Democrats who picked up Republican-held Senate seats have joined a new populist caucus, insisting on fairer trade rules. Tuesday and Wednesday, business oriented Democrats invited three Clinton veterans, Gene Sperling, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers, to House Ways and Means Committee hearings to defend the old trade agenda, which has produced chronic trade deficits and hollowed out American industry.

These worthies called for a "new consensus" -- more deals to ease off-shoring production, sweetened by a little more public money to help workers displaced by trade. Most Democrats weren't buying it.

In the past, just enough congressional Democrats have gone along with trade deals such as NAFTA as long as the executive branch threw them a bone, such as NAFTA's so-called side agreements on labor environmental standards, which have proved worthless. But any trade negotiating authority approved in the current climate would have to get much more serious about what's in the deal for America.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/03/the_coming_showdown_on_trade/

Notice how the "business oriented" Democrats (aka DLC) are STILL trying to defend the OLD trade agenda! grrrr!

[BayCityProgressive]

1. of course they are trying to defend

the old policies. These politicians are just pigs at the corporate trough.

[Joanne98]

2. Exactly!

[Fovea]

3. I am just curious

Has there been anything between the Minimum wage increase and the last increase like the family leave act 0f '93 that actually was specifically done for working Americans?