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As the campaigning for the 2012 election nears, America is still in deep trouble in unemployment and ever-increasing job-killing import competition. We lost 55,000 manufacturing facilities in the last decade, and those losses continue at about 1,000 per month along with many more good jobs.

Any changes in trade policy to correct this grievous situation and thereby help President Obama’s re-election will have to start in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate. Who’s doing the most to sponsor new trade policy legislation ? He’s Ohio’s senior Sen. Sherrod Brown. He’s also up for re-election in a crucial race that will have much  national attention. Who wins in Ohio may well decide which party will control the Senate and who wins the presidency!

Sen. Brown is a priority  target for Republicans, who oppose his leadership on trade reform to correct the disastrous one-sided U.S. free trade policies of Wall Street, big banks, and major multinational companies.

Sen. Brown needs the help of all like-minded organizations. I urge USW to raise its strong voice to make trade reform a major election issue for voters and a big boost for an Obama victory as well as for Ohio’s Sen. Brown.

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Kenneth N, Davis, Jr. also is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce/International and former IBM vice president and chief financial officer.

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To submit a blog to Free Speech Zone, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW.  No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again! This is a Free Speech Zone.

“His name was Colin; here are his papers,” said the waitress presenting a bound prospectus to two diners who possess a limitless interest in the origin, diet and even friendship circle of the chicken they are about to order. The scene comes from Portlandia, the sketch comedy that skewers the bobo lifestyle.

Most of us aren’t quite so inquisitive about our food. But in an era of mass food-borne illness outbreaks, we do need retailers to provide basic information about our foods’ origins, and regulators to ensure the accuracy of these claims.

The country-of-origin labels we now rely on come from a 2008 law that ensures we know in which countries our meat was born, raised and slaughtered. The policy resulted from decades of consumer campaigning in response to slaughterhouses’ practices of routinely combining dozens of animals from diverse countries into the same hamburger patty, without having to even document the cattle’s origin.

Last month, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the law violated the global agency’s rules. A three-person tribunal in Geneva admitted that there was no strong evidence of quantifiable damage to Mexico and Canada, which challenged the law. Yet, if U.S. officials do not appeal or the appeal fails, the U.S. must weaken or eliminate the policy, or we face indefinite trade sanctions (more…)

Documents signed in a fraudulent attempt to violate workers’ and citizens’ rights are only sheets of paper. These do not reflect a bilateral commercial treaty but just one episode more in the history of pillage and barbarism in Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

On the other hand, we value the work of all organizations and individuals who worked hard to convince the many U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives who did not vote in support of the so-called Free Trade Agreements, or FTAs. We also value these legislators and we say thank you for standing up for fairness and human rights. We call upon all people to continue working in unity for fair trade, which is the opposite of the newly passed FTAs.
My union, SINALTRAINAL, in Colombia, sends special thanks to the USW: especially to International President Leo W. Gerard, but also to the thousands of Steelworkers who assisted in this fight. To see the full list of the other signatory organizations please click on the following:  http://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/downloadable/Andes/Colombia/2011/June%2021/TLC%20Carta%20Final.pdf

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To submit a blog to Free Speech Zone, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again! This is a Free Speech Zone.

The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

Despite America’s  huge jobs problem and trillions of dollars in trade deficits, some U.S. leaders want even more bad Free Trade Agreements! The results ofNAFTA have been disastrous, and it’s widely predicted our new agreement with South Korea will also be a big net loss for the U.S.

America must rebuild it’s devastated domestic industry to create millions of jobs and for national security, but we cannot do it under the weak trade policies of the backers of more one-sided giveaway deals like KORUS. With no apology due, let’s name those misguided current leaders here:

- Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell
- Republican House Speaker John Boehner
- Ohio Senator (R) and Former U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman
- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the N.A.M.
- Multinational CEO’s like Jeff Immelt of GE, who’s also Chairman of your U.S. Jobs and Competitiveness Council
- Many more CEO’s of our biggest corporations.
- Plus Goldman Sachs, most of Wall Street, and our biggest banks

These folks are living in a selfish world where it’s O.K. for America’s future to be bleak, and for 99 % of our citizens  to be denied fruitful lives, while Washington serves only the top 1%. That’s got to stop now!  Listen to the people’s protests! (more…)

Congress just passed three more NAFTA-like trade deals, so our country’s trade deficit is going to get even worse. And pressure on working people to accept pay and benefit cuts and longer and harder working hours is going to get even worse. And the rewards to the top 1%, at the expense of the rest of us, are going to get even greater. But we can still win the fight over China’s manipulation of its currency. If we win this it lessens the difference between prices of goods made there and goods made here and can bring some jobs, factories, countries, industries and wealth back to the 99% of our country that doesn’t benefit from these trade deals.

Message Of Trade Deals — Loud And Clear

The message of these trade deals is loud and clear: shut up and accept pay and benefit cuts and longer and harder working hours. And if you don’t like it we will move your job to a country where working people can’t complain. In fact, labor leaders are regularly murdered in Columbia, one of the countries that Congress just approved a trade deal with. If approving a trade deal with a country in which labor leaders are killed for trying to make things better for working people doesn’t send a loud and clear message to working people here, I don’t know what does. (more…)

As the Occupy Wall Street movement spread across the nation last week, politicians in D.C. flipped the bird at protesters – including those camping in Washington’s McPherson Square.

Here’s how: While occupiers sought political focus on the unemployment, impoverishment and foreclosures suffered by the nation’s non-rich 99 percent, politicians considered three major pieces of legislation and passed only the one that will help the wealthiest 1 percent and hurt the remaining 99 percent.

Senate Republicans murdered-by-filibuster the American Jobs Act, which would surtax the 1 percent to provide jobs for the 99 percent. The Senate did pass the currency manipulation bill, but House GOP leaders refused to schedule a vote on the measure that would protect jobs for the 99 percent by punishing countries that undervalue their currencies to artificially lower prices on their exports.

By contrast, both houses of Congress adopted the so-called Free Trade Agreements with Panama, Colombia and Korea, which will, just like their predecessor NAFTA, destroy jobs held by the 99 percent.

It’s incredible. Inexplicable. Inexcusable. In a country where joblessness is a painful 9.1 percent. Where one in five children lives in poverty. Where foreclosures rose again last month. Where a whole movement is growing to protest the appeasement of the rich at the cost of the middle class. In that place, Congress chose to walk backwards. It didn’t take two steps forward – which it could have by passing the currency bill and jobs act. No. It just took a giant step backward by embracing job-killing trade agreements.

It all forces the 99 percent to demand even more loudly: Where’s the jobs?

WHERE’S THE JOBS? (more…)

The Chinese invasion tells us the true problem is that America is no longer willing or able to invest in its own future.  

Many economic Nostradamuses have long predicted that the epitaph on America’s tombstone will ultimately read, “Made In China.” But casual observers probably didn’t think the funeral procession would happen this fast. In the last year, though, most have wised up. Thanks to a spate of mind-blowing headlines, we are learning that the Chinese invasion isn’t just a distant possibility — it’s happening right now.

First, in February, ABC News reported that almost every Americana-themed trinket sold in the Smithsonian Institute is made in China. Then news hit that San Francisco is importing its new bay bridge from China. Then came the New York Times dispatch about the Big Apple awarding Chinese state-subsidized firms huge taxpayer-funded contracts to “renovate the subway system, refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem River and build a new Metro-North train platform near Yankee Stadium.”

Astounding as all of that is, it was quickly topped by news last week reminding us that the new Martin Luther King monument in Washington was designed by a Chinese government sculptor and assembled by low-wage Chinese workers. (more…)

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

Tragically, the government of Colombia exhibits the behavior of an addict. And, just as regrettably, the United States is co-dependent, so addicted to so called free trade that it plans to award Colombia an agreement based solely on promises.

Addicts always promise. They’ll stop, they pledge. Their co-dependents desperately want to believe, so they cooperate with the addicts’ demands.

Colombia, the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists, has pledged to try to stop the murders to persuade Congress to approve a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Promises, promises.

And the United States has agreed to accept those promises rather than demand performance before signing an FTA. American’s Wall Street banks and multi-national corporations crave another FTA so badly they will believe anything.

When the Colombia FTA was first proposed, Congress refused to approve it because so many trade unionists are assassinated each year by the Colombian military and paramilitary forces that the murders exceed the number of unionists killed in all other countries of the world combined. In 2007, the year that former President George W. Bush completed the agreement, 39 Colombian unionists were slain.

The Colombian government knew why Congress denied approval. It could have responded four years ago by protecting trade unionists and preserving their lives. It did not.

Instead, the murders increased. In 2008, 52 Colombian trade unionists were assassinated, one a week. In 2009, the number declined by 5 to 47, but it was back up to 52 last year. Six have been slain so far this year, including Hector Orozco and Gilardo Garcia, members of the agricultural union known as Association of Peasant Workers of Tolima, who were threatened by the Colombian military just before they were assassinated. Promises, promises.

In response to the concerns expressed by Congress about the murders, the newly-proposed FTA requires Bogota to improve safeguards for workers by April 22, and to develop a plan by May 20 to enhance the capacity of regional judicial offices because the murders of trade unionists go unpunished by the Colombian government – giving the killers an impunity rate of approximately 95 percent. And by mid-June, the Colombian government promises to increase penalties for threatening workers.

The government of Colombia could have completed all of those steps four years ago. It didn’t bother.

To this point, Congress has taken the moral high ground by refusing to approve the trade deal. It said, basically, as long as Colombia continued to countenance the slaughter of its community and labor leaders, Afro-Colombians and indigenous people, America would not give it special treatment for trade purposes.

In addition, Congress recognized the FTA’s potential to devastate Colombian farmers. The FTA would speed forced displacement of Afro-Colombians and indigenous people by encouraging increased exploitation of their land by business interests, such as palm oil companies, half of which are owned by paramilitary groups. Expelling these farmers from their land would further swell Colombia’s internally-displaced population – the largest in the world at 4.3 million.

Making matters worse for Colombian farmers, the main U.S. beneficiaries of the FTA would be big agricultural companies which would be permitted to dump cheap, subsidized food stuffs into Colombia duty-free. This would result in farmers’ impoverishment and land loss because small growers would not be able to compete with the low-cost American produce.  In Haiti and Mexico, domestic food production was wiped out by similar free trade agreements. It’s likely that Colombia would follow the path of Mexico, where, as the ability to grow legitimate crops became economically impossible, farmers turned more and more to producing illicit drugs. Colombia already produces as much as 80 percent of the world’s cocaine.

Business groups, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, protested the refusal by Congress to approve the FTA, contending that increasing American exports and jobs was more important than protecting Colombian lives and human rights.

The Chamber’s position is not only depraved, it’s based on flawed calculations of exports and jobs. Just like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and granting China entrance to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Colombia FTA will cost America jobs and exacerbate the U.S. trade deficit.

Previous projections by the Chamber and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) that NAFTA and China’s WTO membership would improve the U.S. economy proved catastrophically off base.

When the U.S. signed NAFTA in 1993, it had a $1.7 billion trade surplus with Mexico. After the agreement, that surplus quickly morphed into a deficit, which ballooned to $64.7 billion in 2008. These annual deficits cost the U.S. 560,000 jobs between 1993 and 2004.

Similarly, the ITC predicted that the tariff reductions China offered when it entered the WTO would result in a trade deficit of $1 billion a year. Instead, between the years of 2001 and 2008, the actual result was deficits of $185 billion, and the loss or displacement of 2.3 million American jobs.

The U.S. already runs a trade deficit with Colombia. It was $1.86 billion in 2009. The Economic Policy Institute calculates that the proposed FTA with Colombia would nearly double that trade deficit by 2015, which would cost the United States another 55,000 jobs.

Frankly, the EPI calculation, which factors in effects on trade like currency manipulation, is far more credible than the ITC and Chamber reports, which ignore these issues.

Bogota wants the FTA because it believes the deal will be good for Colombian business interests. One immediate bonus, for example, is that the FTA would eliminate tariffs on 80 percent of Colombia’s exports to the U.S.

To get what it wants, the Colombian government is willing to say anything. Just like an addict. Promises, promises. The Colombian government’s past performance shows its pledges to protect workers from assassination are empty.

America must reject the role of co-dependent. It must demand the proof of performance before rewarding the government of Colombia with an FTA.

Without proof of performance, the government of Colombia will get away with murder.  It will export more of its goods – crude oil, coffee, fruit and flowers — to the U.S.  And unwitting Americans will buy more blood red Colombian roses.

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Leo W. Gerard also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee. President Barack Obama recently appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of the Apollo Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute.  He is a member of the IMF and ICEM global labor federations and was instrumental in creating Workers Uniting, the first global union.

By Travis McArthur
Public Citizen Trade and Finance Researcher

In Rep. Brady’s announcement of last week’s hearing on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), he said, “According to the President’s own statements, [the pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea] have the ability to create over 250,000 American jobs.” Speaker Boehner’s blog has also been claiming this 250,000 jobs gain figure.

But did the President ever say that the three FTAs will create 250,000 jobs? No. Rep. Brady here makes at least three errors. If you correct for one, the “jobs created” number goes down to 78,000. If you correct for two, the jobs number goes down to 39,333. If you correct for three, the job gain turns into a job loss of 3,200 jobs.

Back in November 2009, Obama gave an interview to Reuters on the eve of his trip to Asia in which he stated, “And right now we have about 9 percent of — a 9 percent share of Asia’s — not just China, but Asia’s trade overall, and it’s estimated that for every 1 percent of increased share that we get, that could mean 250,000, 300,000 jobs.” (more…)

By Ian Fletcher
Senior Economist, Coalition for a Prosperous America

Globalization and, more specifically, free trade have a remarkable capacity for inducing dreamy thinking in American minds.  The “everything will be all right” lullaby arguments called forth by the subject are endless.  These lullabies are not especially hard to construct, as many popular arguments for free trade sound persuasive—until real numbers intrude.

For example:

“Free trade is good for America because it means a billion Chinese .are now hungry consumers of American products.”

But America is running a huge deficit, not a surplus, with China. ($272 billion in 2010, about 54 percent of our total). China deliberately blocks imports, mainly with non-tariff barriers, in order to decrease consumption, increase savings, and boost investment. (This high investment rate is the main reason its economy is growing so fast.) As a result, even the limited purchasing power China’s mostly poor pop­ulation does have rarely gets spent on American goods. The dream of selling to the Chinese functions primarily as bait to lure in American companies, which are forced by the government to hand over key technological know-how as the price of entry. They then build facilities which they discover they can only pay off by producing for export. The China market remains the mythical wonderland it has been since the 19th-century era of clipper ships and opium wars (when it was hyped as aggressively as today, by the way). (more…)