Asia Times: US critics assail fast track supporters claims


	October 25, 2001	atimes.com

Global Economy

US critics assail 'fast track' supporters' claims
By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON - The advertisement in the weekend newspapers was unequivocal - "Trade Promotion Authority Works for America", it declared - but not immune to debate.

The Business Roundtable, an influential corporate lobbying coalition, sponsored the ad as the US House of Representatives moves toward a floor vote on President George W Bush's request for "trade promotion authority", also known as "fast track", considered essential to the signing of new commercial pacts with other countries.

"In challenging economic times, we need to adopt policies that allow us to expand markets for American goods and services," said the ad, which also featured quotes from newspaper editorials touting the benefits of the free movement of goods and services across borders. "This is not the time to slam the door on opportunities that could help renew our growth."

Arrayed in opposition to the administration and corporate trade agenda is a mosaic of labor, environmental, and other grass-roots groups which vow to continue their struggle against fast track. These groups long have maintained that fast track amounts to license to kill labor, environmental, and social rights and protections. They also argue that the powers it bestows on the president to negotiate trade deals are authoritarian in essence.

"We refuse to accept a status quo that continues to marginalize vast sectors of our populations and to degrade our environments," the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from throughout the Americas, said in a statement. Alliance members' efforts to block passage of fast track will face a severe test in coming days as Bush seeks to capitalize on his surge in popularity and a renewed sense of bipartisanship in Congress since last month's terrorist attacks.

He also is counting on legislators to back him on trade amid fears of a prolonged recession. Republicans who had opposed fast track before September 11 are now widely expected to rally behind their president. They and the administration are trying to push the bill before next month's World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, where Western governments aim to resuscitate a new round of comprehensive multilateral trade negotiations, something they failed to do at the 1999 ministerial in Seattle.

If approved by legislators, the bill also would advance talks to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the rest of the hemisphere under a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The United States and 33 countries already have established a timetable for negotiations to form the FTAA by January 2005 despite pleas from civil society groups to avoid replicating throughout the hemisphere what they see as NAFTA's harmful effects on, among other things, employment and labor rights, dispute resolution, market access, and environmental protections in the three North American states of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. NAFTA was passed under fast track authority, which expired in 1994.

Opponents also say the bill would reduce the US Congress' role in trade affairs to that of little more than a rubber stamp.

Under the proposed bill, Congress would not be able to amend trade pacts inked by administration officials. Representatives and senators would have only 20 hours to debate each deal and would be expected to complete a simple, yes-or-no vote on each pact within 60 days of its introduction to them. At present, legislators are at liberty to debate - and amend - all details. Many Republicans, some Democrats, and corporate lobbyists contend that some potential foreign partners have balked at signing trade agreements with Washington for fear that these would later be vulnerable to modification by legislators with diverse domestic political motives.

Fast track proponents also argue that the modified legislation, like a reworked FTAA draft published in July, includes concessions on trade rules originally deemed detrimental to labor and the environment. Opponents, however, insist the modifications were a sleight of hand.

The latest proposal contains no binding language on labor or the environment and would do little to address poverty, says Sarah Anderson, an analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies here. By failing to hold countries to internationally recognized labor standards, and by merely asking that the United States seek assurances that partners will uphold local labor laws that often are inadequate, Washington remains intent on ignoring international law and labor rights, Anderson says.

Core labor standards, as defined by the International Labor Organization (ILO), include the right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. While many US free-trade opponents score their governments for failing to take a more energetic and supportive stand on these issues, others score developing countries for resisting their inclusion in trade pacts.

"There's one thing that developing countries seem to all agree on," says Thea Lee, assistant director for international economics at the biggest US trade union federation, the AFL-CIO. "That is repressing their labor rights and labor unions."

Alberto Arroyo, of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade, says the value of real wages in manufacturing has dropped about 21 percent in his country, despite a sharp increase in productivity after NAFTA. NAFTA undermined food production in Mexico by exposing it to imports targeted primarily at urban and middle-income markets. Agricultural workers - particularly women and indigenous people - have been forced to switch to cultivating cash crops for export. Paid less than a living wage and faced with less access to home-grown produce, their food security has suffered. Living conditions remain squalid and women often are subjected to sexual harassment, NAFTA critics say.

Making matters worse for the female labor force, long working hours strain their family ties and limit their educational opportunities, says Marceline White, an analyst with Women's EDGE here.

The United Nations estimates that, since NAFTA began, the ordinary Mexican's purchasing power has decreased 39 percent and the number of people living on less than US$2 per day - which the world body calls "severe" poverty - has increased by some 4 million.

David Waskow, of Friends of the Earth, warns that without adequate mandatory safeguards, fast track would enable Washington to push through provisions, such as those in NAFTA, that allow corporations to influence local and state environmental and health standards, and enable them to sue governments for enforcing such standards as they may deem impediments to profit-maximization. Developing countries could be at special risk, he says, because of their fierce competition for foreign investment.

(Inter Press Service)

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