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May 16, 2007 5:47 AM
SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 6: Senator Says K Street Getting "Wink & Nod" From Bush
This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration. Six days after the press conference announcing a secret free trade deal between Democratic congressional leaders and the Bush White House, a full-scale revolt appears to be brewing on Capitol Hill. Rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers have demanded an immediate debate about the deal, and Democratic leaders have responded by rejecting such a request. A top Democratic senator says K Street is receiving a "wink and nod" from the White House that the final legislative language - which has not been made public - will allow the Bush administration to avoid enforcing any of the much-touted standards in the deal. GOP leaders, meanwhile, are signaling that the deal will not be incorporated into the core text of trade agreements at all. And, of course, almost every news outlet has refused to report that top K Street lobbyists have said they have received "assurances" that the deal's provisions on labor and the environment will be unenforceable. Here's today's full news report.
EMANUEL NIXES DEMS' DEMAND FOR OPEN DEBATE ON THE SECRET DEAL: As first reported on this website yesterday, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) nixed a bid by rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers to hold a Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss the secret trade deal. The request, first made by lawmakers in a letter to Emanuel last week, was initially "rebuffed," then accepted, and then at the last minute, Emanuel pulled the plug. Emanuel was one of the key players in pushing NAFTA through Congress as an aide to President Clinton in the early 1990s. Responding to the reporting of this story, a spokeswoman for Emanuel's office this morning emailed me to say that the cancellation of the trade debate occurred because of "time constraints" and that Emanuel has now promised the caucus "we would continue with our plan to have a trade-focused caucus meeting soon." He did not set a date certain for that meeting.
GOP AND WHITE HOUSE SAY TRADE DEALS WILL NOT BE RE-WRITTEN AS PROMISED: Yesterday afternoon, industry newsletter Inside U.S. Trade reported that House Ways and Means Ranking Member Jim McCrery (R-LA) "said it is his preference and that of U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab that the new obligations for free trade agreements announced last week not lead to a reopening of the Peru free trade agreement." This follow's McCrery's claim yesterday that the secret deal can be completed "in a way that does not require Peru's political system to revisit the deal all over again." In laymans terms, the enforceability of the promised labor and environmental provisions hinge on the Peru and Panama free trade agreements being reopened so that their texts can be modified. As NAFTA has shown, so-called "side agreements" that are not written into the text of the actual trade texts have proven entirely unenforceable because they are not part of the core agreement. If the Peru and Panama deals are not, in fact, going to be reopened and renegotiated, then the highly touted promises of adding enforceable labor and environmental provisions to the core texts of trade agreements appear to be in question. This may explain why the Bush-connected head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has told reporters he has received "assurances that the labor provisions [in the deal] cannot be read to require compliance."
KOREAN GOVERNMENT SAYS IT WILL REFUSE TO RENEGOTIATE: The Korea Herald reports that "South Korean negotiators are not going to give in to a possible request by U.S. trade negotiators for renegotiations of their recently concluded bilateral free trade agreement." The secret deal would supposedly require South Korea to add labor and environmental provisions to a previously negotiated - but not yet ratified - trade agreement with the United States. But "the Korean government firmly says renegotiations are out of the question." An official with the Korea-U.S. FTA Negotiation Division at the Korea Trade Ministray said, "The Korean government is adamant about having no renegotiations." Korea currently abides by just one of the seven ILO core provisions. Will the U.S. back down in the face of such bullying?
BROWN - K STREET IS GETTING 'WINK AND NOD' FROM WHITE HOUSE: In an exclusive interview with CNN's Lou Dobbs on Tuesday, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) said he is most concerned with the secret deal's lack of teeth, saying "I see no sign yet that [the Bush administration] wants to enforce" the labor and environmental standards supposedly included in the deal. Responding to comments by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers who have said the stasndards will be unenforceable, Broown said "they're kind of getting a wink and a nod" from the White House that the standards "are not going to be enforced." Brown is the author of the book "The Myths of Free Trade" and ran his successful Senate campaign against lobbyist-written trade deals. He is considered one of Congress's top leaders on trade, yet was kept in the dark about the details of the deal.
WSJ - FAIR TRADERS "LOST" IN THE DEAL: The conservative editorial board of the Wall Street Journal applauded the secret deal, saying it represents a major defeat for the progressive movement. Fair traders ""wanted the U.S. to abide by the core principles of the International Labor Organization" and "wanted third parties -- such as the AFL-CIO -- to be able to file trade complaints" but "they lost on both counts." The deal asks the White House "to abide only by...general aspirations about curtailing forced labor and the like, rather than specific legal obligations." International tribunals, which have the power to overturn U.S. local/state/federal environmental and consumer protection laws when corporations file suits, will "have no power to alter U.S. law" when similar complaints are brought up on labor concerns.
MSNBC - OBAMA "SOUNDS WARY OF THE DEAL": MSNBC reports that in public appearances this week on the presidential campaign trail, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "sounded wary of this deal." He said, “We haven’t actually seen the details…. I want to wait and see what exactly the language is” and make sure the union provisions are strong and enforceable.
MACHINISTS OPPOSE DEAL, SLAM SECRECY: In a press release, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) announced "it will vigorously oppose any trade deal that fails to fully incorporate internationally recognized labor standards as defined by the International Labor Organization." IAM President Tom Buffenbarger said, “The actual text of the agreement has not yet been made available and widely varying reports of its contents raise serious and troubling questions." IAM said it "is highly suspicious that the trade deal is seriously deficient" not only because of its potentially unenforceable standards, but because of other "procurement and investment issues." The Politico reports that "several unions are already mobilizing to defeat" the deal.
CITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION SIGNALS CROSS-OVER OPPOSITION TO CURRENT TRADE POLICIES: Public Citizen reports that the Hermiston, Oregon City Council unanimously passed a “Resolution to Retain Local Jobs” last night, in a vote of 7-0. The resolution calls on Congress to “oppose international trade agreements that facilitate to the offshoring of Oregon jobs” and to replace Fast Track trade promotion authority with “democratic” and “inclusive” trade policymaking procedures. Area residents, many of whom had lost jobs when the Simplot processing plant moved abroad under the North American Free Trade Agreement, testified in support of the resolution at last night’s City Council meeting. Loaded Orygun notes that "Hermiston is nestled in Umatilla County, which is a very RED area of Oregon" represented by archconservative Rep. Greg Walden (R) - "a willing participant in voting yes for these free trade agreements." Could 2008 be another year where complicity in our current trade policy proves to be a critical election issue?
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Discussion
This "Trade Deal" is just one more reason I do not support the DNC. These Democratic Leadership Council types seem to me to be "Republicans wearing Democratic clothes" - kind of like the "Big Bad Wolf." Rahm Emmanuel is a real horse's ass! He and his ilk have no use for working people. These phonies will force me to vote Green or for Nader or for Socialists. If the Democrats won't stand up for working men and women, Fuck 'em!!!
RIGHT ON. aardvark! I never envisioned that I would so totally agree with an earthpig.
And Praise God, Yahweh and Allah for these supertremendous Sirotablogs that Dave puts out.
Jesus, he is Someone Special!
Why does Rahm Emmanuel (the Joe Lieberman of the House) have so much power? Anybody could have run the DCCC in 2006 and had the same or a similar result and with better candidates. Now he owns the place to the level of calling the shots on one of the most important issues to his party's rank and file and concerning the U.S.'s image in the world as a ravager of other, poorer nations potential wealth and an instigater or misery. Don't blame ONLY the DLC, blame the irreparable ethos of most the party insiders, too-- and "progressive" enablers enough of whom cave on this issue in exchange for concessions on smaller issues by the powers-that-be.
I think the demand of U.S. working men and women should be direct and uncomplicated. The demand should be that no corporation can outsource work unless U.S. workers have full employment. Any corporation that wants to outsource work should lose their corporate charter, should be assessed enormous tariffs on any goods or service they import to the U.S., and should have all their trademarks and patents cancelled. They can all move to China, and the people in the U.S. can create new corporations to take their place.
I have problems with the extremely indirect current situation by which U.S. labor demands that when our jobs are taken to third world countries, the corporations should be required to pay a decent wage and observe environmental standards. That is such an indirect way of trying to accomplish what we really want: keep the jobs here. U.S. working men and women are wage slaves, not philanthropists, and their efforts should be clearly focused on what it is we really want: keep jobs here, keep wages and benefits up, reinstate the pension system, protect our environment.
In other words, instead of being passive and indirect, I think we should demand reinstatement of the previous conditions of employment: a minimum wage that is fair; job security and protection from unreasonable firing; absolutely no outsourcing by any U.S. corporation; management caps on salary of $250,000, with no compensation beyond that being tax deductible (meaning it basically could not be allowed because it would be a breach of duty to the shareholders); reinstatement of full medical benefits including through retirement years, and reinstatement of pensions (all of which have been redirected into management's pockets).
What is all this nonsense of labor and environmental provisions? Are we supposed to feel content and go along with the Democrat's wheeling-and-dealing? The provisions in the agreements apply to workers in other countries, NOT American workers. In what way do these provisions help working folk in America today????? It's a real joke and a sick one at that. It's almost as absurd as kerry's idiotic statement in 2004 regarding outsourced jobs that we should have the right to ask the person at the other end of the phone what country they are in! OK so we ask and then hear they are from say India. So what then? Does this make our lives any better? Does this mean that we are more likely to find jobs here in America?
I think Kmarx and NABNYC are spot on - we need to concentrate on keeping jobs here, not making sure foreigners get better paying jobs, which to me is plain nuts.
What gets me is that various progressive groups like PSN pushing for these labor and environmental provisions don't get that they should be fighting for Americans and their livelihoods not supporting a kinder and gentler form of off-shoring.
We need to be upfront about keeping jobs here in the U.S. and not tap dancing around it like the way Sirota and other progressives have been doing it. It doesn't help working class Americans one bit, all it does do is give a green light to corporate America that off-shoring is ok as long as you pay folks a decent wage.
Rob Immanuel is a Wall St. AIPAC Republican for all intents and purposes. I suggest he join Joe Lieberman's staff. The DLC was a disgrace in '94, and it is now.
If Gore gets "drafted" (and the pundits are speculating that he will enter, if Obama fails to catch fire enough), I want him to be questioned vigorously and repeatedly about his very strong campaigning for NAFTA in '93. Larry King has attributed its passage to his vigorous "trouncing" of Ross Perot in the debate on his show in '93.
Gore may have the ecological health of the planet in mind - I've no doubt about that, but what about the economic health of the planet, both of which are utterly intertwined, of course?
Let's see if he defends NAFTA and other "free trade" agreements now.
Free trade, global economy, globalizaton, Nafta, Cafta, are all just synonyms for screw the American worker. Wall Street is doing well, corporations are making more money than ever, but real wages for working Americans has been declining since 1970.
The politicians get their money from Wall St. they no which side their bread is buttered. Both Democrats and Republicans have caved to the corporations. The Republicans have done so because they are the corporations and the Democrats have done so because they have had to to get elected.
Every day the American public is presented with a host of insipid and banal candidates to vote for. The corporate owned media chooses this field for us and then lets us know which of them are viable.
Why is anyone surprised when these clowns never produce anything anybody wants. Joe Lieberman is a ganster with ties to organized crime in New Haven. Rahm Emmanuel is the Likud representative in Congress. Joe Biden is completely beholden to the banking and credit card industry. Hillary Clinton has not introduced one piece of progressive legislation and voted to the right of many Republicans. The reason that people don't like Hillary Clinton is not because she is a woman, or a progressive, it is because she misrepresents herself as progressive and comes across as a phoney and a political opportunist. Her voting record is a testament to that.
Hillary Clinton does not stand alone in the duplicity category. With the exception of just a handful of legislators all of our senators and congresspersons are leading two lives the one that's phoney and presented to the public and the one that is real. The real one is the one that is anti worker, the one that is enabling Bush and keeping him in office, the one that is eroding the civil liberties of Americans, the one that is chummy with the war industries, the one that pretends the CIA, the NSA, and all of the other three letter acronymed spy agencies that get 60 billion dollars from the taxpayer are something other than protectors of the wealthy and their influence in the world. They certainly don't protect us from terrorism, they in fact are the cause of it.
The job of our elected officials is to disinform the people, protect the privilege of the wealthy and the powerful, extract as much money as they possibly can from those who are not wealthy and distribute it to those who are. How is it possible that so many Bushes, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Romneys or what have you find their way into the highest offices of the land unless the fix is in. How is it possible that someone as unexceptional as George W. Bush becomes President of the United States in a democracy of informed voters. How is it possible that the same failed bureaucrats from administration to administration keep having the reigns of power handed to them in a democracy of informed voters. The answer is we do not live in a democracy and we are not informed.
In an open and transparent government there should be no such thing as a "secret trade deal" the arrogance of these Machiavellians in Congress is simply astonishing. Their actions are the actions of a powerful elite that has been far to long divorced from the vast majority of the people in this country. I say throw the bums out one and all and start over.
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