Another Free Trade Agreement Passed by the House
Bruce W. Cain
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I'm really quite surprized that no one has picked up on the fact that the US House just passed the (PFTA) Peruvian Free Trade Agreement (e.g., another NAFTA) yesterday. At any rate we still have time to stop this when it goes to the Senate, however, why nothing from NumbersUSA etc? PFTA indirectly relates to the problem: the loss of manufacturing and jobs to other countries. Whether they come here to take our jobs, or we allow the US Multinationals to outsource our jobs to 3rd world countries, the result is the same: Americans are getting screwed.
So I have placed a link below so you can find out how your state house whorers voted on this one. I've also appended to articles so you can read up on this. But you might want to give some of these groups a call -- and your representatives -- and let them know that they both need to wrap thier arms around the bigger problem: the utter destruction of the American working class.
I was also surprized at how understanding Lou Dobbs was last night (11/08/2007) when he interviewed Rep. Charles Rangle, a supporter of the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement. A better responce would have been to ask why he insists on selling out the American People.
I don't want to see a 2nd American Revolution. But if we don't act soon that will be our only alternative.
Yours in Freedom,
Bruce W. Cain
Editor, New Age Citizen
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Link to Peru Free Trade Vote in the House
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-House-RollCall-US-Peru-Trade.html?ref=washington
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Democrats Divided as House Passes Peru Trade Bill
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN Published: November 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/washington/08cnd-trade.html?hp_
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 - Defying appeals from labor leaders, environmentalists and foes of free-trade, nearly half the Democrats in the House joined today with the Bush administration's backers to support a trade liberalization agreement with Peru that the White House hopes will lead to the approval of future trade deals.
House Roll Call: US - Peru Trade Agreement The vote came this morning and followed several hours of debate that exposed a deep fissure among Democrats. On one side were veterans from declining industrial areas of the Northeast and Midwest and younger critics of globalization.
On the other was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other leaders arguing that trade brings benefits to many Americans and that the deal was worthy of Democratic support because it requires Peru to protect labor rights and the environment.
Voting for the trade agreement were 109 Democrats and 176 Republicans. Voting against it were 116 Democrats and 16 Republicans. (Eight members from each party did not vote.)
The Senate is expected to take up the agreement soon and is likely to approve it.
The Bush administration was elated by the outcome in the House.
"The conventional wisdom last fall was that the president and Congress could not come together to make progress on a pro-trade agenda," said Susan C. Schwab, the United States trade representative. "Today, the hard work and risk-taking of many are bearing fruit."
The large number of Democrats voting for the Peru deal does not necessarily pave the way for other agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea that President Bush is seeking. Ms. Pelosi and the Democratic leadership have not endorsed these deals, arguing that they have defects.
The House vote for the Peru deal was seen as significant because it came a year after Congress was recaptured by the Democrats following a campaign in which many Democratic candidates criticized the Bush administration's trade policies.
Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, Democrats have been extremely reluctant to support trade agreements negotiated by his administration. Organized labor argues that since 2000, the United States has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs, though some labor officials concede that it is difficult to tell whether these jobs were lost because of cheap imports, technology or other factors.
The labor movement also argues that trade and the export of jobs overseas has flattened American wages.
The administration, on the other hand, says that only about 300,000 unemployed Americans can trace their loss of jobs to trade and that wage stagnation cannot be countered by raising barriers to trade.
The requirement that Peru adopt labor and environmental protections was negotiated last May by Ms. Pelosi and two senior Democrats, Representatives Charles B. Rangel of New York and Sander M. Levin of Michigan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and the committee's trade subcommittee respectively.
While some Democrats concede that trade has cost some American jobs and perhaps flattened the wages of some workers, they also argue that it is impossible to reverse the trends of companies looking for cheaper labor overseas and that the United States must respond by trying to negotiating lower tariff barriers and exporting more overseas.
Democrats from the prosperous areas of the East and West Coast have become especially responsive, many Democrats say, to the desire of Wall Street and the high technology, health, pharmaceutical and entertainment industries to expand their sales overseas. These industries have also become major Democratic contributors.
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House Approves Peru Trade Deal: Senate yet to vote
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-peru-trade.html
By REUTERS Published: November 8, 2007 Filed at 2:40 p.m. ET
Skip to next paragraph WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a free trade pact with Peru, bringing President George W. Bush to the brink of his first trade victory since Democrats took control of Congress.
The House voted 285-132 to approve the agreement, which was revamped earlier this year to include groundbreaking labor and environmental provisions. The final tally showed 109 Democrats and 176 Republicans voted in favor of the pact.
The Senate is expected to give final congressional approval to the deal by the end of the year. It locks in Peru's duty-free access to the U.S. market, while phasing out Peru's tariffs on U.S. agricultural and manufactured goods.
Supporters predict a big boost to U.S.-Peru trade, which totaled about $8.8 billion last year. Critics say it will give U.S. companies incentives to move to Peru, thus sending U.S. jobs overseas and depressing wages at home.
"I encourage the U.S. Senate to quickly approve this agreement, and for Congress then to move promptly to consideration of our free trade agreements," Bush said in a statement.
The Peru free trade agreement is the first of four trade deals Bush wants Congress to approve before he leaves office in early 2009. The remaining three with Colombia, Panama and South Korea all face challenges.
Democrats had opposed a free trade accord with Central American countries which passed narrowly two years ago when Republicans controlled the chamber.
But Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, now House Speaker, said the Peru agreement "rises to the level of acceptance" because of a bipartisan agreement reached earlier this year that strengthened labor and environmental provisions of the pact.
Peru's trade minister, Mercedez Araoz, said: "This is a clear sign that Peru is committed to a development agenda based in trade openness, to getting closer to the world, to look for markets with clear rules in the game."
ATTACKS
Still, several Democrats also attacked the Peru deal on the grounds it would cost American jobs, which they believe has happened under both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American trade pact.
But House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, disagreed. "This bill does not cause Americans to lose jobs. It's abundantly clear that the balance is on America's side in terms of removal of the tariffs," Rangel said.
The pact boosts protections for workers in both countries by requiring the two trading partners to adopt, maintain and enforce core international labor standards, such as the right to bargain collectively and go on strike.
The environmental provisions requires the United States and Peru to effectively enforce their domestic environmental laws and to honor international environmental obligations.
For the first time in a U.S. trade agreement, the labor and environmental commitments also will be enforceable through the same mechanism as commercial provisions of the pact.
But the AFL-CIO U.S. labor federation said it was "skeptical" about future enforcement of labor and environmental provisions in the pact, and asked for more congressional oversight.
"The damage done to working families by flawed trade policies run deep. It will take much more than some improvements to a bilateral free trade agreement to fix it," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
The deal locks in Peru's duty-free access to the U.S. market under a long-standing U.S. trade-preference program, creating a more favorable environment for foreign investment the Andean country wants to help create jobs.
For U.S. business, it immediately eliminates duties on 80 percent of industrial and consumer product exports to Peru and more than two-thirds of farm exports. Most other duties will be phased out over 10 to 15 years.
The deal also requires Peru to open its banking, insurance and other services markets to more U.S. companies and strengthen copyright, patent and trademark protections for U.S. products ranging from music to manufactured goods.
(Additional reporting by Adriana Garcia in Washington and Teresa Cespedes in Lima, editing by Jackie Frank)
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