Labor has hopefully learned the lesson that merely improving the language in trade agreements that claims to protect workers will not protect labor, will not prevent the loss of jobs and will encourage the downward decline in wages. Environmentalists must have learned that trade agreements will encourage extreme energy extraction, ecology-destroying mining and destruction of the oceans and other waterways. The USTR knows the political importance of environmental protection and has been caught lying about the issue. People concerned with the power of big corporations must now know that rigged trade makes corporations more powerful than governments and will undermine democracy, food security and safety, clean water and air as well as health care among other basic necessities.
Senator Ron Wyden, the chairman of the Finance Committee, has signaled that he will be pushing for what he calls "Smart Track," an embarrassingly obvious false marketing term designed to fool people. This is a trade authority that if enacted is very likely to allow the TPP, TAFTA and Services Agreement to become law. Wyden has been told by his constituents as well as tech companies, who are a key part of his base, that they oppose any form of Fast Track. People are not falling for this re-labeling and Wyden-marketing.
We need a new form of Trade Promotion Authority, but we cannot negotiate a new trade regimen until the current agreements: TPP, TAFTA and the Services Agreement are defeated. If the so-called "Smart Track" becomes law, what happens to these three agreements that have been negotiated for years? A new approach to trade cannot retroactively apply to agreements that are so far along in negotiation.
New Trade Era
What would appropriate trade look like? The goals of trade must be clearly stated. The first priorities for trade are meeting the necessities of people and benefitting their lives. This means trade must reduce wealth and income divides, raise wages and the standards of working conditions and ensure people have access to clean water, safe foods and high-quality healthcare. Second, trade must benefit the planet. The world needs to move toward clean, sustainable energy sources and stop the extreme energy extraction of carbon polluting energy as well as uranium for nuclear energy. Trade needs to be designed to move the planet to a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy economy. Ecology protecting trade means there should be less trade so that local communities can be self-sufficient, with small family farms thriving instead of being overcome by highly subsidized crops that allow large agribusiness to destroy traditional agriculture. Relying on transporting foods thousands of miles when they can be grown locally is bad for local economies as well as for the environment and climate change.
And, the process of negotiating trade must be very different. While each country has different legislative and executive processes, the basics must be transparency in the negotiations and participation by the public and elected representatives throughout the process. In the United States this could mean that as trade is negotiated chapters are shared with responsible committees and the public so we can weigh in on whether the chapter is supported. It also means that when the full agreement is reached, it is published with sufficient time for the public and legislators to read and review it. Further, the Congress should be able to hold hearings and make final amendment suggestions that the USTR will then bring back to other countries before the agreement is signed by the president.
These are transformational changes in the goals, purposes and process of trade agreements. To achieve these changes the movement of movements must show solidarity and defeat the TPP, TAFTA and Services Agreement. This show of political power is the only approach to bringing Congress and the president to our perspective.
The next steps for the movement are to organize locally to broaden the movement. We urge people around the world to put in place "Trade Justice Zones" where local governments pass laws and resolutions that make it clear -- we will not obey trade agreements that are negotiated in secret without a democratic process. Local communities need to keep control of their sovereignty so they can protect the environment and people in their communities. See e.g. actions taken by Madison and Los Angeles.
The next big push by the Obama administration and Congress will come around the G-20 summit being held in Sydney, Australia on November 15 and 16, during the lame duck session of Congress. This is an opportunity for the world's citizens to tell the leaders of the world -- we oppose rigged corporate trade agreements and want a new approach to trade that puts people and planet before profits.
No doubt, some in Congress will take action to strengthen President Obama's negotiating position before the G20, perhaps by promising Fast Track will pass during the lame duck or making it look like Congress is moving in that direction. Civil society must take united action across the Pacific and Atlantic just before the summit to show our opposition to rigged corporate trade; and during the summit with a worldwide day of action opposing globalized trade for transnational corporations. People of the world must unite against corporatization and in favor of real democracy.
In the United States, opposition to rigged corporate trade has made these trade agreements increasingly toxic. That toxicity needs to continue to build so that no elected representative thinks they can get away with supporting TPP, TAFTA or the Services Agreement, no matter how good they try to make it sound.
The movement has shown it is capable of educating each other despite a corporate media blackout of these corporate trade agreements. By sharing articles like this one widely we can educate and mobilize a growing mass movement for a new form of trade. To stay informed, take the pledge at our campaign, FlushTheTPP.org.
Now is the time to recommit to not compromising with the corporate-dominated governments that ignore our interests. If we do so, we can stop Fast Track, defeat corporate trade, transform it to a people and planet form of trade and begin to build the new economy essential to humankind and the planet.
This article is produced by Popular Resistance in conjunction with AlterNet. It is a weekly review of the activities of the resistance movement.Follow us on twitter @PopResistance and sign up for our daily news summary here.
Kevin Zeese, JD and Margaret Flowers, MD are organizers of Popular Resistance; they co-direct It's Our Economy and co-host Clearing the FOG. Their twitters are @KBZeese and MFlowers8.
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