TRADE AGREEMENTS PAST AND PRESENT

ABSTRACT: Past trade agreements have not lived up to their promises of new, good jobs for Americans and increased exports. While they have provided cheaper goods for us to buy, they have reduced jobs and put downward pressure on wages in the U.S., while increasing our trade deficit. [1] They have undermined U.S. laws protecting workers, the environment, and public health.

The currently under-negotiation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) appears to be taking all of this a step further. TPP negotiations are being kept secret, although corporate representatives are fully involved. The big winners under past trade agreements and the TPP (as drafted) are multi-national corporations. The TPP negotiations and draft documents must be open to the public and Congress. This will ensure that various interests are appropriately balanced and that corporate interests don’t dominate.

FULL POST: First, a little history. NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was signed in 1993. The best estimates are that NAFTA has resulted in the loss of almost 700,000 jobs in the US. Our trade deficit with the other participants, Canada and Mexico, has increased from $9 billion to $101 billion. [2][3] In the 20 years since China joined the World Trade Organization, 2.9 million jobs have been offshored to China, many of them well-paying manufacturing jobs. “[S]tate-subsidized Chinese production [has] decimated American industry and reduced the incomes of American workers.” [4] Our trade deficit with China has grown from $13 billion in 1991 to $295 billion in 2011. [5] “[I]n the past, the U.S. trade imbalance has widened after each new agreement. … U.S. businesses … profit immensely from outsourcing and offshoring … Nor is there any apparent economic benefit to the United States.” [6] “Historically, trade deals like NAFTA … are associated with economic displacement and instability, the erosion of labor and human rights standards, and the subordination of national sovereignty to foreign investors.” [7]

The current Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations (13 negotiating meetings over two years) involve Australia, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and other countries. TPP is actually much more than a traditional trade agreement and the negotiations have been conducted in secret because US Trade Representative Ron Kirk has indicated that he believes the only way to complete the deal is to keep it secret. (Negotiators have agreed not to release negotiating documents until four years after the deal is completed or abandoned.) Although 600 corporate representatives serve as official US trade advisors and have full access to the negotiations, the US Senate committee with jurisdiction over TPP has been denied access to the negotiations. [8][9]

Recently, two of the 26 chapters of the draft agreement were leaked. The TPP draft text includes:

• International rights for pharmaceutical corporations that would prohibit generic versions of drugs in developing countries, dramatically increasing drug prices and reducing access [10]
• Further financial industry deregulation
• Prohibition on controlling the flow of money among countries and other measures designed to limit negative effects of financial speculation
• Increased protection for foreign investors
• Incentives for US firms to offshore jobs and investment
• Provisions that favor foreign corporations (including government subsidized ones) over domestic ones
• Provisions allowing corporations, including foreign corporations, to assert control over natural resources
• Expansion of NAFTA’s international tribunals where corporations can sue governments if laws or regulations that protect the public interest (e.g., health, safety, and the environment) might have a negative affect on profits (More on this in my next post.)

Wallach sums up TPP with these words: “Countries would be obliged to conform all their domestic laws and regulations to TPP’s rules – in effect a corporate coup d’état.” [11]

We need to know more about the TPP draft. And we need to apply what we’ve learned from past experience with trade agreements so intended results are achieved and various interests are more appropriately balanced. The US is a democracy; therefore the TPP negotiations and draft documents must be open to the public and to Congress. Then, there can be open discussion and debate about its provisions and its balancing of various interests – those of the public, workers, corporations, investors, local communities, and countries. We need to ensure that corporate power doesn’t run roughshod over other interests.