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TechnoratiIn Following a Campaign Rite, Scorn Is Heaped on Accord By Some of Those Who Praised Its Creation
WASHINGTON-When U.S. President George W. Bush stood beside Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week extolling the benefits of NAFTA, he was pumping up a trade pact that is under increasing pressure here.
It has become a convenient target for those seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination who are following a campaign rite of demonizing trade deals to appease the party's labour base before moving to the centre during the general election.
But in 2007, the North American Free Trade Agreement is under more concerted attack than perhaps any time since it was signed at the beginning of 1994, and Democrats have high hopes of regaining the White House they lost in 2000 to Bush and the Republicans.
Those who are now raining scorn on the deal were among those who heaped praise on it when it was being negotiated 14 years ago.
"I had said for many years that NAFTA and the way it's been implemented has hurt a lot of American workers," says Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who was the country's first lady when her husband, Bill Clinton, signed the deal.
Clinton had turned to a key Democrat ally of the day, Bill Richardson, now New Mexico governor and a 2008 contender for the presidential nomination, to get Democrats onside to back the deal.
"We should never have another trade agreement unless it enforces labour protection, environmental standards and job safety," Richardson says now.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton's main rival for the Democratic nod, says he would "immediately call the president of Mexico and the president of Canada" - betraying a lack of knowledge of the Canadian political system - to amend NAFTA to get more favourable labour language in the deal.
Former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who has sought to fashion himself as labour's Democratic presidential hopeful, devoted an entire speech to trade deals and their harm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, earlier this month.
"NAFTA was written by insiders in all three countries and it served their interests, not the interests of regular workers,'' Edwards, the Democrats' 2004 vice presidential candidate, said.
He said the deal gave unprecedented rights to corporate investors, but no protection for labour or the environment.
"Over the past 15 years, we have seen growing income inequality in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
"Well, enough is enough.''
While Edwards and Obama would seek revisions or amendments to the tripartite trade agreement, only long shot Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, would pull the U.S. out of the deal.
What does the trade trash talk mean for Canada?
"They're playing to their base, or their base instincts,'' says Elliot Feldman, a Washington-based trade expert.
Feldman wishes to inject a bit of reality into this debate, suggesting the Bush administration's commerce department is the most protectionist he has encountered in years of trade law, turning the traditional wisdom that Republicans are free traders and Democrats are protectionists on its head.
Neither Canada nor the U.S. is respecting the terms of NAFTA right now, he says, pointing to the U.S.-launched arbitration of the softwood lumber deal before the London Court of International Arbitration. It is the first time two countries have argued a dispute before a court that handles private commercial disputes.
Feldman also maintains that NAFTA was working in the softwood lumber negotiations and Canada would have ultimately won every dispute under NAFTA rules.
"Harper gave it all away in his determination to make nice with the Bush administration,'' he said.
"He gave away $1 billion.''
He was referring to the $1 billion (U.S.) Harper allowed the United States to keep as its share of the $5 billion (U.S.) it extracted in tariffs from Canadian companies under terms of the 2006 deal.
Although most trade analysts believe there is little danger in talking to a new administration about improvements or reforms to the deal, they fear the entire pact would unravel if it was formally reopened.
Under NAFTA, Canada boasts a $96 billion (Canadian) trade surplus with the U.S., a gap that rankles opponents here.
Bush told reporters after this week's NAFTA leaders' summit in Montebello, Que., that the accord had boosted Canada-U.S. trade from $293 billion (U.S.) per year to $883 billion (U.S.) per year.
"Now, for some those are just numbers, but for many it's improved wages and a better lifestyle, and more hope,'' Bush said.
The key for the deal is increased prosperity for all three countries in the North American "neighbourhood,'' Bush argues.
His trade representative, Susan Schwab, told a meeting of ministers of the three countries earlier this month in Vancouver that trade between the U.S., Mexico and Canada tripled since NAFTA took effect.
The U.S. has free trade agreements with 14 countries, 11 since Bush took office in 2001, and 42 per cent of all its exports go to free trade partners. But many Democrats argue only big business benefited from the deals.
Two more free trade deals, with Peru and Panama, still require congressional approval this fall, but Democrats were successful in inserting labour and environmental standards, the language they say NAFTA lacks.
International Trade Minister David Emerson attempted to calm Canadian nerves following the Vancouver meeting.
"People are basically trying to appeal to their party roots,'' he said.
"Until you get into a general election ... you don't have the same kind of moderating impact that perhaps one once saw.''
© 2007 The Toronto Star
19 Comments so far
Show Allkinkygntlmn August 25th, 2007 1:51 pm
""NAFTA was written by insiders in all three countries and it served their interests, not the interests of regular workers," Edwards, the Democrats' 2004 vice presidential candidate, said."
kinkygntlmn,
Edwards is right, though I understand he voted for it. NAFTA was written by "insiders" to serve their interests and not the interests of workers. The document contained so many hundreds of pages that most of our Congressional leaders would never have taken the time to read it and were relying on committee members involved with NAFTA to summarize for them what it was "supposed" to have accomplished. Needless to say, it has undermined workers and created job loss in every country involved while corporate profits have skyrocketed and the super-wealthy have gained more money, power and control over governments.
I might add that Presidential Candidate, DENNIS KUCINICH, voted against this predatory trade agreement.
Lillulu--I was reying to put a Texas pig farm accwnt on the term! But no matter how you spell it Dubya is still a p___k!
Poet, I guess you mean Viagra? .........LOL
Lillulu writes:
Looks like the Chimp has his elevator shoes on in the picture with the two humans. When Britain's PM Gordon Brown visited a few weeks ago, in the first picture taken of the two, the Chimp was shorter than Brown.
**********************
Someone slipped some Vagra in his drink!
jungleboy has identified the most important and relevant sentence in this article:
"It has become a convenient target for those seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination who are following a campaign rite of demonizing trade deals to appease the party's labour base before moving to the centre during the general election."
Why bother to read the rest of the article after this? Doesn't this just say it all?
Why is anyone bothering with politics anymore? The first paragraph of your newspaper article says "Here's how the politicians are playing The Game (the game of fooling the electorate in to thinking they're all about "the people" so the people will continue to put them in power)."
After that, it doesn't really matter what Hillary said about NAFTA while playing The Game during her husbands presidency.
It doesn't really matter which role in The Game John has "...fashioned [for] himself..." by using the phrase "Well, enough is enough."
And it doesn't really matter whether Barak would play The Game International Version (C) by calling up the Prime Minister or Canada's OFFICIAL head of state, the Queen of England!
These people aren't changing their system! It works too well for them. If we want to participate, it's our problem!
The only way things are going to change is if the people of the world simply stop recognizing the members of governments (and corporations) as their "leaders" and start leading themselves!
We don't need leaders! We don't need people to certify our lives by telling us what we can and can't do!
"NAFTA was written by insiders in all three countries and it served their interests, not the interests of regular workers," Edwards, the Democrats' 2004 vice presidential candidate, said.
That's bullshit! Part of the agreement was to better working conditions and pay scales to keep a level playing ground in competition. The work went to these countries and they continued as was. That's why we are/have lost our manufacturing infrastructure. And what we haven't lost, now 60+% owned by foreign companies. Which down size and send the jobs back to their counties as they stolen our technologies. Trade of products is one thing. I don't believe anyone informed us it meant trading off our jobs and manufacturing infrastructure also. I really kind of liked Edwards, but the more I see and hear his beady eyed bullcrap, the more he pisses me off. I got his number now. Everytime his eyes all but shut while listening to a question, I know he's going to beat around the bush and avoid answering it. "here's what I think" then off subject he goes. This is just another prime example of not enforcing agreements as signed. Just like not enforcing the laws when they break them.
jungleboy
NOT true of D.K.!
it has become a convenient target for those seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination who are following a campaign rite of.............. demonizing trade deals to "appease" the party's labour base "before" moving to the "centre" during the general election. and then to the right for the slaughter.
Well said, dolkar! The sad thing is--who heard you???
"His trade representative, Susan Schwab, told a meeting of ministers of the three countries earlier this month in Vancouver that trade between the U.S., Mexico and Canada tripled since NAFTA took effect."
The trade debt that the U.S. has incured since NAFTA and other trade agreements has tripled too!
Is there any good news except for the super-wealthy who are the prime benefactors of these trade agreements?
On NAFTA as well as a multitude of other issues, if progressives would pay attention, really pay attention, they would observe that there is only one progressive candidate running for President ... the good news is there IS one!!! Kucinich had it right on NAFTA along with everything else from Iraq to health care to Dept. of Peace, from the get-go. Let's stop looking where the beef isn't, folks.
NAFTA really is good for little except creating billionaires. Even Canada has nine or ten now.
We were all promised that NAFTA would result in "human prosperity." But it's not clear how much more of this human prosperity Canadians can take. Since the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1985, wage growth in Canada has been almost flat and the majority of jobs are non-unionized and part time. Since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994, the bottom 20% of Canadian families saw their incomes fall by 7.6%, while the top 20% saw their incomes rise by 16.8%. In 2004, the average earnings of the richest 10% of Canada's families raising children was 82 times that earned by the poorest 10% of Canada's families. This is despite the fact that most households are clocking in almost 200 hours more than nine years ago. Similarly in the US, according to Forbes Magazine, the largest employer is Wal-Mart, whose average wage is $7.50 per hour.
In Mexico, the number of Mexicans living in severe poverty has grown by four million since NAFTA and the real value of the minimum wage has dropped by 23%. The costs of environmental degradation have amounted to 10% of the annual GDP. With the rise in agribusiness, more than 50,000 Mexican farmers are expelled from their lands annually. Many of these 1.5 million displaced Mexican farmers have migrated to the US to work either as "illegal aliens" for less than the minimum wage, or in low-paying sectors such as construction, agriculture and factories.
We -- all of us REAL people in North America -- need to get out of this deal.
HEY!!! TIM HARPER!!! How come NO MENTION of Dennis Kucinich who has been against NAFTA since before it passed and promised to do away with it his first week in office???!!! Nice going, media puppet!
Looks like the Chimp has his elevator shoes on in the picture with the two humans. When Britain's PM Gordon Brown visited a few weeks ago, in the first picture taken of the two, the Chimp was shorter than Brown. Then magically in the later pictures taken, he grew a few inches and was the same height as Brown.
I like that idea, canuckchuck. Right now we don't have a level playing field.
there should be a tariff on all imports equal to the value of the labour, health and safety and environmental protections that are missing from the exporting country.
IF an item is traditionally manufactured here in 5 manhours, for $15/hr in labour, $2/hr in health and safety costs, and $1/hr in environmental protections cost, and the exporting country pays 50 cent/hr labour, and zero OH&S & zero environmental protection costs, then a tarrif of $87 per item should be added, plus a buck for administative costs.
blobber,
I have to agree that Richardson and Hillary are the two most pro-corporate Democrats, and that's why if I were to wager on it I would bet that Hillary would choose Richardson as her running mate (though I still think she might choose Wesley Clark).
The good news is that even though the corporate media has already nominated Hillary there are more than four months before the first vote is cast. Could it be that in that time the Democratic voters get bored with Hillary, and grow tired of Obama's platitudes (and start asking him "Where's the beef?"), and the race begins anew, and anybody can win? We can dream, can't we?
Richardson!
He clawed his way to where he is now by pushing NAFTA for Clinton. He shared the majority House whip position with David Bonior and Richard Gephardt who both refused to have anything to do with NAFTA. They knew that "side agreements" were not worth the paper on which they were printed. Only Richardson would go to work for this (increasingly) horrible piece of legislation. It was only after NAFTA's passage that Richardson began to get plum appointments from Clinton - ambassador to the UN and then head of DOE. He has never really denounced NAFTA when given the opportunity. His first act as Governor in 2003 was to fly with several of his cabinet officials to address the Davos Conference and I'm quite sure he didn't tell those big boys that we just need labor and environmental agreements. He also was working for Kissinger at that time.Sorry to say that he and Hillary are both corporate candidates of the first water.
$96 Billion in surplus is a non-productive number when we keep in mind how much of that surplus is Oil and Natural Gas.
Canada's manufacturing sector has been decimated in tandem with the USA's and both countries have to keep in mind that the WTO's (no tariff) agenda and Globilization are the truer enemies of economic stability in these 2 countries and perhaps Mexico (but mexico has a lot of internall cleansing to do first).