May 10, 2007 11:56 AM

BREAKING: Sources Say Rangel About to Sell Out to Bush & K Street On Trade

Democrats won their congressional majority in 2006 by running against lobbyist-written trade deals - this is not a newsflash. Now, my Capitol Hill sources tell me that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D) is on the verge of undermining the entire election mandate by capitulating to White House and K Street demands for a package of new NAFTA-like trade agreements.

Rangel, as many regular readers of this site know, is negotiating with the White House over Democratic demands to include basic International Labor Organization standards in pending trade deals with countries like Peru and Colombia. Rangel has received repeated letters from rank-and-file congressional Democrats demanding that he not budge in the face of lobbyist demands that such standards not be applied to U.S. labor laws (even though, as noted previously, U.S. regulatory laws are subject to corporate lawsuits under international trade pacts).

The details of the "deal" Rangel is negotiating with the White House have not been made public, but according to my sources on Capitol Hill, it appears like it may be a near-complete capitulation, not only leaving labor standards weak, but ignoring other critical issues like reforming restrictive patent provisions that inflate drug prices and measures allowing corporations to sue in unaccountable international courts to overturn American state and federal consumer and environmental protection laws. This kind of wholesale capitulation, of course, would not be a surprise, considering that Roll Call reported yesterday that Rangel is aggressively leveraging his Ways and Means chairmanship to court big campaign contributions from K Street lobbyists.

Let me reiterate - the details of the "deal" have not been made public, and it could very well change. But if my sources are correct and the "deal" is a massive capitulation, things could get very ugly. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have to decide whether to push it forward, in the words of one Clinton supporter during NAFTA, "over the dead bodies" of the progressive movement. Pelosi's key role in this should make fair traders a bit nervous considering the Financial Times recently reported that "The Democratic leadership in Congress has turned to old-school Clintonites to help persuade the freshman class of ’06 to moderate the militant critique of globalization that helped get them elected." Then again, she is a politician, and she must see the data showing that the trade issue was one of the key issues helping Democrats win red seats in Congress. and that selling out that fair trade campaign within months of taking office could bring on a NAFTA-era redux whereby a Democratic president campaigned for office against unfair trade, then rammed NAFTA through Congress and then immediately lost the congressional majority.

Similarly, the freshman Democrats who were elected on platforms opposing lobbyist-written trade pacts will have to decide whether to roll over and play dead, or stand up and fight for what they promised voters. And, of course, national labor leaders will have to decide whether they are going to uphold solidarity, unify in opposition to Rangel's plan and stand up for their members, or buckle out of deference to Washington power brokers inside the Democratic Party.

Many people respond with disbelief that a supposedly good "liberal" like Rangel, who represents low-income neighborhoods in Harlem, would even consider so brazenly selling out on such a bread-and-butter issue like trade. But remember, Harlem is only a limo ride away from Wall Street.

Stay tuned - I'll update the situation as I continue to learn more.