September, 21 2010, 02:02pm EDT
In Advance of Corporate Services Summit, Public Citizen Points to Slower Services Export Growth to Trade Deal Partners
Statement of Todd Tucker, Research Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
WASHINGTON
This week, global services firms will descend on Washington to push
former President George W. Bush's leftover, flawed trade deals.
Financial corporations and other large firms have long told Americans
that the service industry is their lunch ticket to the future, and we
should pass more NAFTA-style deals to secure America's place in the new
global division of labor. In fact, whether you look at goods or
services, U.S. exports to our trade deal partners have grown more slowly
than to other countries, as new research from Public Citizen shows.
Moreover, concerns are growing that the services provisions of trade
deals promote the deregulation behind the financial crisis. For
instance, our bilateral trade deals replicate and go beyond some World
Trade Organization (WTO) rules that constrain nations' ability to
prevent and respond to financial meltdowns. Bans on dangerous financial
instruments, policies to stem destabilizing capital floods and flights,
and even size limitations on large banks - all these policy options are
on the trade deal chopping block. Absent revisions, bilateral deals like
Bush's Korea trade pact or the WTO Doha Round proposals would only give
more room for attacks on financial stability policies.
We would be in a much better place if President Barack Obama would
simply begin to implement the trade reforms promised during his
campaign, rather than push flawed trade deals that fail even on their
own terms.
* Todd Tucker is research director for Public Citizen's Global Trade
Watch, and co-author of the new report, "Lies, Damn Lies and Export
Statistics: How Corporate Lobbyists Distort Record of Flawed Trade
Deals." He is available throughout the week to discuss the summit and
Public Citizen's new report.
Public Citizen's report is available at https://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=4398.
For more information on deregulation provisions of trade deals, visit https://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=783.
For information on the Global Services Summit 2010, see https://www.uscsi.org/ServicesSummit2010.html.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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