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Obama Starts New Push on 'Free Trade' Deals
The Obama administration is reaching out to business-friendly Democrats to win support for free-trade policies that divide the party.
The effort is part of President Barack Obama's push on trade that was launched with his State of the Union address. Obama said he wanted to double exports over the next five years as part of an effort to grow the U.S. economy.
"Trying to boost exports is a fine goal, but until the administration implements President Obama's campaign commitments to reform the trade agreements we now have in place, trade agreements that promote offshoring U.S. investment and jobs and flood us with imports, the possible job gains of export promotion will be swamped by the continuing damage of the failed, old trade deals so many Americans despise," Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, wrote in a statement this week. |
The administration's move was reinforced by a speech this week by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on increasing exports. Locke focused on programs that could help small businesses increase their exports, as well as trade missions led by his department.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk met members of the business- friendly New Democrats Coalition on Thursday to discuss the trade agenda. The Democrats spoke to Kirk about pending trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama that have stalled in the Democratic-led Congress, according to Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
Moving any of those deals will be difficult because of opposition in Obama's own party.
Legislation calling for existing trade deals to be re-negotiated has won the support of half the House Democratic caucus. And administration officials from the president on down have been careful when addressing trade matters.
In the State of the Union, Obama spoke of strengthening "trade relations" with "key partners" like South Korea, Panama and Colombia, but did not call on Congress to pass trade pacts already negotiated with the three countries.
He also didn't explicitly speak of the deals, which were all negotiated by the Bush administration. Striking a similar note, experts from Kirk's speech to the New Democrats posted on USTR's web site did not mention the three agreements, which are all opposed by organized labor.
In November, Obama said he wanted the South Korea trade deal passed in 2010.
"Trying to boost exports is a fine goal, but until the administration implements President Obama's campaign commitments to reform the trade agreements we now have in place, trade agreements that promote offshoring U.S. investment and jobs and flood us with imports, the possible job gains of export promotion will be swamped by the continuing damage of the failed, old trade deals so many Americans despise," Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, wrote in a statement this week.
Wallach supports the legislation calling for the re-negotiating of existing trade deals.
Smith said he believes the Panama deal could be approved this year by Congress, but he described the Colombia and South Korean deals as harder sells.
He said trade supporters, including Obama, must emphasize that the trade deals they are pushing include strengthened labor and environmental rules that ensure the U.S. is getting a better deal than in agreements previously negotiated.
Smith added that Obama's statements in the State of the Union address were helpful, but that the president needs to make those statements more often.
Kirk and the New Democrats also discussed changing rules governing the export of high-tech goods, as well as export programs highlighted in Locke's speech.
A spokeswoman for Kirk said he is working to set up meetings with other groups of Democrats.
Members of the New Democrats sent a letter to Obama on Thursday that said they were "eager" to work with the administration to push forward trade deals that would open markets for U.S. investment.
The letter hailed trade deals as driving more than 50 percent of U.S. exports.
17 Comments so far
Show AllIt appears that Obama, like his predecessors, subscribes to the race to the bottom philosophy, regardless of what he says about creating jobs here. This should serve as a clarion horn for his supporters.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
AAARRRRGH!! This is so wrong on so many levels.
"He said trade supporters, including Obama, must emphasize that the trade deals they are pushing include strengthened labor and environmental rules that ensure the U.S. is getting a better deal than in agreements previously negotiated."
Never any particulars on the same old propaganda about "free trade" deals.
"Legislation calling for existing trade deals to be re-negotiated has won the support of half the House Democratic caucus."
But Obama already publicly flip-flopped on his promise to renegotiate labor and environmental protections in the older "free trade" treaties last year using the same pissed out excuse he gave against universal single-payer: That it would impose too many economic transition costs on our struggling economy.
"Members of the New Democrats sent a letter to Obama on Thursday that said they were 'eager' to work with the administration to push forward trade deals that would open markets for U.S. investment...The letter hailed trade deals as driving more than 50 percent of U.S. exports."
Opening markets for more offshoring of U.S. jobs and manufacturing plants and boosting stock market returns inside the TARP-bubble market for the investor classes is what this is still all about. That bubble must be protected at all other social costs and everyone outside of it is increasingly economically expendable. This article ignores 15 year old figures showing declines in exports relative to "free trade" imports. We don't manufacture enough medium to big ticket items for domestic consumption here in the U.S. let alone for export.
So we'll continue to export 6 real live Keebler elves with every pallet of Keebler cookies while we import seven hundred tons of almost everything from China, 60 tons of clothes from Indonesia, Malaysia and Honduras, 70,000 gallons of processed chemicals from Mexico and 2000 cars from Japan. Our trade deficit figures speak for themselves.
America should have a drool-bib strapped onto it in all the U.S. Geological Survey maps.
The guy is a relentless pimp.
Keep telling us how Social Security is going broke while they've been sending our jobs overseas for the last twenty years and robbing us of the Social Security funds that went along with them. That's how they've been screwing us over and over, from both sides of the coin.
Kill their jobs, bankrupt social security, the results will force us to accept lower wages and privatization of retirement benefits. This way the banks will have access to steal every penny they haven't been able to get their hands on before.
Then it's time to steal the money back from them.
I want a free trade of Obummer for say, Chavez. How much worse could it be; we might even get the Venezuelan oil thrown into the deal (without a #@%&* Bush war)!
I hear the drums of power
Drowning out our cry
Standing wringing hands
Oh my oh my.
The dastard hype
Slew us no dragon
Our betrayed hearts
Ride a runaway wagon.
Shall we ever renew
Shall we soon revolt
Can we find the way out
From idiot and dolt?
We scream from our land
We know no one's here
To ask what we want
To ask what we fear.
They've taken our effort
They've stolen our world
Soon we'll be jailed
For our flags unfurled.
Revolt I say citizens
Pay them no tax
Join hands at the corners
And give them the ax.
Stay home from your jobs
Ignore their vain cries
For taxes and purchase
Til their own voice dies.
Take heart my fair people
The time is now ripe
To blow off the lid
On their bull shit and hype.
Their is complete bipartisan agreement of the ruling elites of both parties that these trade agreements are wonderful. I remember the debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot when Perot said we would hear the big sucking sound of jobs leaving America for Mexico and China and Gore mocking him for this. Who was right? Ross Perot and Ralph Nader were right and both major corrupt political oarties were wrong.
More "free trade", eh? How has more "free trade" worked out for us so far?
Kent,
It's just peachy for the 10% who benefit from it; the other 90% can go to hell!
Will there be one Democrat left who will defend this man?
In the late 90's I was on a short rant about "free" trade and a friend said "What have you got against Persian rugs?" When I explained that this was more about closing carpet factories in North Carolina and moving them to India or points East, his eyes glazed over and he said: "You're always paying attention to that economics crap that no one gives a rat's ass about!" Of course, unfortunately, he was right. And that's how they do it--make people's eyes glaze over--along with demonizing the oppostion (Liberals, Leftists, Luddites, isolationists, terrorist lovers; take your pick).
Does your erstwhile friend still have a job? Or perhaps he has two or three that barely pay the rent and put food on the table.
Any "free trade" policy is designed to flood countries with imports, thereby allowing companies to reduce wages and benefits.
Until or unless a coherent theory supplants Friedman under the rubric of "free trade," we have every reason to assume it means Reagan refrito: violence against labor, collusion with and between the rich, the power of state herding the poor for the rich.
- Here again the nature of the so-called "health" bill.
- Here again the various wars and military expansions.
- Here again the rejection of sustainable and green solutions for nukes and coal.
- Here again the Supreme Court lubing the electoral process for lobbyists.
- Here again the depredations of the so-called "intelligence community," with its mercenary networks.
We have in all of this an irremediable display of Congressional, presidential, judicial, military, and paramilitary allegiance to corporate scamming, with scraps of remaining electoral resistance.
We need to combine electoral form with something outside the electoral process.
"Free Trade" is only free for the Corporations who exploit it. Everyone and everything else gets the shaft.
This guy just doesn't want to be president for more than four years.
It would be great if 1,000 more feet of snow fell on Depravity Central, effectively freezing the government for real as most everything done there worsens the condition of the commonfolk. It's hard to imagine anyone could be a worse performer as president than Bush, but it appears we have a winner with Obama. My 84-year-old, legally blind aunt would be a far better president; the wars would've ended and the recession over already, while BushCo would be on trial.
Sigh....
All this talk by the president about "renegotiating trade deals", in his campaign and in the SOTU. But, typically, he doesn't specify who those changes are meant to benefit. Typically, people during the campaign interpreted this the way they wanted to. But by now, we know that lack of specifics usually indicates nothing will happen, or it will not go in a progressive direction. Actually, in this case, a lot of conservatives hate the trade deals too, since they mostly only benefit the ultra-rich and global megacorporations.
Don't give one more big corp one more dime. Shop local, buy no Chinese crap, stop shopping at SmallWart and Tagyerit, and if you can manage it...don't pay your taxes. Eat beans, not meat. We have 8 trillion dollars in income, in the middle and lower brackets, for our hard work across the country. Aside from spending what must be spent to survive...stop. The rich depend on our pocketbook to survive.