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Sign from a NAFTA protest on January 1, 2012. (Photo: Billie Greenwood/Flickr)
Meet the New NAFTA, Same as the Old NAFTA?
Aug 17, 2017
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for protection of jobs. Did he mean tariffs or other measures to keep employment in the United States? Or was he talking about stronger labor protection, such as the right to organize? The renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, which began August 16, mean the cards will soon be on the table.
Given that many of the new proposed provisions lack specific language and effective enforcement mechanisms to protect labor rights and the environment, critics say, the new NAFTA risks being much the same as the old NAFTA.
One party that would seem to have strong incentive to alter the existing NAFTA agreement is Canada. As of 2015, the government had been sued thirty-nine times under the existing investor-state dispute mechanisms, which allows companies to sue governments for alleged trade discrimination. Canada has had to pay out some $215 million.
Given that many of the new proposed provisions lack specific language and effective enforcement mechanisms to protect labor rights and the environment, critics say, the new NAFTA risks being much the same as the old NAFTA.
Two days prior to the reopening of the negotiations, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, gave a speech in which she extolled NAFTA but also called for changes to the controversial investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in particular.
"Canada's economy is 2.5 percent larger every year than it otherwise would be, thanks to NAFTA," she said. She also called for "reforming the Investor-State Dispute Settlement process, to ensure that governments have an unassailable right to regulate in the public interest," along with strengthened labor and environmental protections at the core of NAFTA.
The Trump Administration's negotiating objectives, meanwhile, are similar to those in the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. They call for bringing what had been side agreements into the core provisions, including recognition of the right to collective bargaining, protection from forced labor and child labor, and laws governing acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health.
The problem, critics say, comes when you examine the specifics closely. Sujata Dey, trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians, explains that the text of the TPP includes language that looks "really nice . . . but doesn't say what standards are." So if you are a right to work state with no minimum wage, he tells The Progressive, "that's your standard, you can keep it."
Ben Beachy, director of the trade program at the Sierra Club, concurs, explaining in an interview that the standards were essentially lifted from recent free trade agreements with Latin America, where they have failed to protect either workers or the environment.
"The Trump Administration's negotiating objectives indicate that they want to just copy and paste the weak labor and environmental provisions of the TPP and other past deals, which have consistently failed to curb blatant labor and environmental abuses," Beachy says. For example, he points to a provision in the TPP that governments "should protect sharks," but no guarantee that they actually shall, making it a suggestion that is not legally binding. Beachy argues that the problem lies in the way such agreements are negotiated. When language is written in private with corporate input, it fails to include much actual protection.
Keep reading...Show less
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Ethan Goffman
Ethan Goffman is associate editor of Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. His publications have appeared in E: The Environmental Magazine, Grist, and elsewhere.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for protection of jobs. Did he mean tariffs or other measures to keep employment in the United States? Or was he talking about stronger labor protection, such as the right to organize? The renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, which began August 16, mean the cards will soon be on the table.
Given that many of the new proposed provisions lack specific language and effective enforcement mechanisms to protect labor rights and the environment, critics say, the new NAFTA risks being much the same as the old NAFTA.
One party that would seem to have strong incentive to alter the existing NAFTA agreement is Canada. As of 2015, the government had been sued thirty-nine times under the existing investor-state dispute mechanisms, which allows companies to sue governments for alleged trade discrimination. Canada has had to pay out some $215 million.
Given that many of the new proposed provisions lack specific language and effective enforcement mechanisms to protect labor rights and the environment, critics say, the new NAFTA risks being much the same as the old NAFTA.
Two days prior to the reopening of the negotiations, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, gave a speech in which she extolled NAFTA but also called for changes to the controversial investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in particular.
"Canada's economy is 2.5 percent larger every year than it otherwise would be, thanks to NAFTA," she said. She also called for "reforming the Investor-State Dispute Settlement process, to ensure that governments have an unassailable right to regulate in the public interest," along with strengthened labor and environmental protections at the core of NAFTA.
The Trump Administration's negotiating objectives, meanwhile, are similar to those in the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. They call for bringing what had been side agreements into the core provisions, including recognition of the right to collective bargaining, protection from forced labor and child labor, and laws governing acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health.
The problem, critics say, comes when you examine the specifics closely. Sujata Dey, trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians, explains that the text of the TPP includes language that looks "really nice . . . but doesn't say what standards are." So if you are a right to work state with no minimum wage, he tells The Progressive, "that's your standard, you can keep it."
Ben Beachy, director of the trade program at the Sierra Club, concurs, explaining in an interview that the standards were essentially lifted from recent free trade agreements with Latin America, where they have failed to protect either workers or the environment.
"The Trump Administration's negotiating objectives indicate that they want to just copy and paste the weak labor and environmental provisions of the TPP and other past deals, which have consistently failed to curb blatant labor and environmental abuses," Beachy says. For example, he points to a provision in the TPP that governments "should protect sharks," but no guarantee that they actually shall, making it a suggestion that is not legally binding. Beachy argues that the problem lies in the way such agreements are negotiated. When language is written in private with corporate input, it fails to include much actual protection.
Keep reading...Show less
Ethan Goffman
Ethan Goffman is associate editor of Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. His publications have appeared in E: The Environmental Magazine, Grist, and elsewhere.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for protection of jobs. Did he mean tariffs or other measures to keep employment in the United States? Or was he talking about stronger labor protection, such as the right to organize? The renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, which began August 16, mean the cards will soon be on the table.
Given that many of the new proposed provisions lack specific language and effective enforcement mechanisms to protect labor rights and the environment, critics say, the new NAFTA risks being much the same as the old NAFTA.
One party that would seem to have strong incentive to alter the existing NAFTA agreement is Canada. As of 2015, the government had been sued thirty-nine times under the existing investor-state dispute mechanisms, which allows companies to sue governments for alleged trade discrimination. Canada has had to pay out some $215 million.
Given that many of the new proposed provisions lack specific language and effective enforcement mechanisms to protect labor rights and the environment, critics say, the new NAFTA risks being much the same as the old NAFTA.
Two days prior to the reopening of the negotiations, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, gave a speech in which she extolled NAFTA but also called for changes to the controversial investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in particular.
"Canada's economy is 2.5 percent larger every year than it otherwise would be, thanks to NAFTA," she said. She also called for "reforming the Investor-State Dispute Settlement process, to ensure that governments have an unassailable right to regulate in the public interest," along with strengthened labor and environmental protections at the core of NAFTA.
The Trump Administration's negotiating objectives, meanwhile, are similar to those in the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. They call for bringing what had been side agreements into the core provisions, including recognition of the right to collective bargaining, protection from forced labor and child labor, and laws governing acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health.
The problem, critics say, comes when you examine the specifics closely. Sujata Dey, trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians, explains that the text of the TPP includes language that looks "really nice . . . but doesn't say what standards are." So if you are a right to work state with no minimum wage, he tells The Progressive, "that's your standard, you can keep it."
Ben Beachy, director of the trade program at the Sierra Club, concurs, explaining in an interview that the standards were essentially lifted from recent free trade agreements with Latin America, where they have failed to protect either workers or the environment.
"The Trump Administration's negotiating objectives indicate that they want to just copy and paste the weak labor and environmental provisions of the TPP and other past deals, which have consistently failed to curb blatant labor and environmental abuses," Beachy says. For example, he points to a provision in the TPP that governments "should protect sharks," but no guarantee that they actually shall, making it a suggestion that is not legally binding. Beachy argues that the problem lies in the way such agreements are negotiated. When language is written in private with corporate input, it fails to include much actual protection.
Keep reading...Show less
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