Misrepresenting the Center

I applaud you. You are exactly right. The New Democrats should make it clear that they are in favor of CAFTA and FTAA if Bush is willing to push for trade agreements with Clinton-style provisos vis-a-vis labor and environmental standards. With Bush and the Right, corporate interests count for everything and labor, the environment, health and safety standards never receive due consideration.

I will say that I hope that when CAFTA fails, however, that New Democrats and pro-democratic internationalists within the party will fight for Clinton-style trade agreements to substitute for CAFTA and FTAA. Latin American democrats and pro-democratic regimes are having a tough time right now. I wish we could roll back time and that we could bring back to life the Alliance for Progress, like the Phoenix out of the ashes. Yet, that is not going to happen and we need to help struggling democratic regimes throughout the hemisphere, from Managua to Bogota to La Paz. We need to show democrats and reformers south of our border that we offer hope and a vision for the future, not just to counter Hugo Chavez in Caracas or Fidel Castro in Havana, but because it is the right and just thing to do.

Having said this, you are also right about our trade relations with Red China. From Richard Nixon on, we have tended to appease China, even long after Nixon's perceived geopolitical requirement to play Red China and the Soviet Union off of each other. Bush the elder was soft on China. Clinton was soft on China. Bush the Younger continues to be soft on China. Nevertheless, what we have with Red China is not free or fair trade. China continues to cheat on trade, manipulate its currency, bully Taiwan, drive for long-term hegemony, and ignore our pleas for assistance with regard to Kim Jong Il and North Korea.

I hardly ever choose Nancy Pelosi as a model. However, on the topic of Red China and trade, she most definitely "talks the talk and walks the walk," as Jesse Jackson used to say. As I heard Pelosi comment in a press conference some three or so weeks ago, Bush the elder never should have sent Scowcroft to clink champagne glasses with the Red Chinese leadership after the massacre of the pro-Democracy demonstrators in Tienamen Square. At that time, as Ms. Pelosi says, we had enormous leverage with Red China. It desparately wanted our trade, our trade deficits with Beijing were small and it held little of our debt. Now, unfortunately, the situation, is reversed. Red China has the leverage and we have none, as Pelosi said in her press conference. Beijing is one of our major creditors and our trade relationship with Beijing is completely skewed in its favor. They cheat and it goes beyond cheating on labor standards. They frequently employ what amounts to slave labor. (Note to Amnesy International: If you want to know what a Gulag is, visit Red China.) They have absolutely no respect for the environment, safety, health or any other international standards. Obviously, forget democracy and human rights. Nevertheless, for all of Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration's very recent criticism of China, we can hope for action on this front, but should expect none.

Alas, if only more Democrats used the language that Pelosi uses to describe China in discussions of international affairs, the American people might have greater trust for the Democratic Party on national security and foreign affairs issues.

Two more thoguhts:

Thought #1 Properly negotiated free trade agreements are not only to the benefit of our trading partners. They are in our interest as well. To raise our standard of living and to compete in world trade, we must constantly be in search of new markets. A trade agreement which allows each side to maximize its "comparative advantages," to use classical economic termonlogy, should be a win-win proposition. Trade need not be a zero-sum game, as FDR showed us in using free trade as one of the economic locomotives to power the world economy out of the Great Depression.

Thought #2 President Carlos Mesa of the besieged and struggling country of Bolivia just resigned. Democrats and refomers are struggling throughout Latin America in the face of populist demagogues such as Chavez, his allies and proteges. The U.S. desperately needs to formulate new Latin American political, economic and diplomatic strategies. Trade is one component, but only one, component of that formula. We must realize that we have moral obligations and national security interests south of our border and not just on the other side of the world.

I admit to being more ignorant than I should about our most recently proposed trade agreement, but I hope the issue of environmental and labor standards aren't the sole thing holding this up. Labor and environmental standards should be pushed and encouraged when possible, but they should not be deal-breakers. Establish the trade agreement first, then gradually push for more labor and environmental improvements.

The same goes for China. This is a situation where nudges and pokes will eventually be more effective than ultimatums. The more China is sold on more economic liberty, then civil liberties and eventually, standards of labor will follow.

Dustin -- The US trade deficit with Red China reached $162 billion in 2004. In 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square Massacre against the pro-democracy demonstrators (Note: Remember how they built a replica of the Statue of Liberty?), the US trade deficit with Red China was only $6.2 billion. We have seen the Chinese use massive trade cheating, colossal intellectual property theft, quasi-slave labor, and currency manipulation to drive US industries out of business and to become a major holder of US debt. This is not just hurting us, but also other emerging market countries, which are competing with Red China for the same niches in the global economy. Moreover, contrary to the premise of your blog entry, the greater trade has not led to greater freedom or democracy. The Tienanmen Massacre, along with the subsequent appeasment by the first Bush Administration, already snuffed out the dream of US-style democracy. If you think that the Red Chinese are interested in free enterprise, human rights or pluralistic democracy, just ask the majority of Taiwanese and the good people of Hong Kong what they think about that proposition. Hong Kong lost what democracy it did have when the British left, when the Red Chinese took over.

With regard to CAFTA and FTAA, labor, health, safety and environmental standards are very important. If you do not think so, just go to many emerging market industrial sites and see how multinationals are treating workers. They frequently make, at best, a subsistence wage, they work under unsafe and unhealthy conditions, and frequently are being poisoned to death by companies that are massive polluters. Just go read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and see what it was like here in the US before people like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and our modern progressive and labor leaders came on the scene. We cheat our own and foreign workers when we do not include provisos in trade treaties regarding labor, health, safety and environmental standards.

Please go back and read some of the long forgotten literature of the Alliance for Progress era. Please read the speaches of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, A. Adolf Berle, and Teodoro Moscoso about Latin America. Look at what U.S. labor leaders such as George Meaney sought to do on behalf of both U.S. workers and workers overseas. Read the literature of the AFL-CIO and AFIELD. Just as the AFL-CIO did in Europe right after WWII, the AFL-CIO pushed not just for democracy, but also workers rights, land reform and other social and economic reforms in Latin America.

George W. Bush may be interested in what William Howard Taft used to call "dollar diplomacy." However, I am interested in making the U.S. once again a torch for democracy, liberty and economic progress and reform. Feel free to disagree with me. I welcome a dialogue and even constructive disagreement, if I cannot win you over. However, just think a little bit about what I am saying.

Dustin -- The US trade deficit with Red China reached $162 billion in 2004. In 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square Massacre against the pro-democracy demonstrators (Note: Remember how they built a replica of the Statue of Liberty?), the US trade deficit with Red China was only $6.2 billion. We have seen the Chinese use massive trade cheating, colossal intellectual property theft, quasi-slave labor, and currency manipulation to drive US industries out of business and to become a major holder of US debt. This is not just hurting us, but also other emerging market countries, which are competing with Red China for the same niches in the global economy. Moreover, contrary to the premise of your blog entry, the greater trade has not led to greater freedom or democracy. The Tienanmen Massacre, along with the subsequent appeasement by the first Bush Administration, already snuffed out the dream of US-style democracy. If you think that the Red Chinese are interested in free enterprise, human rights or pluralistic democracy, just ask the majority of Taiwanese and the good people of Hong Kong what they think about that proposition. Hong Kong lost what democracy it did have when the British left, when the Red Chinese took over.

With regard to CAFTA and FTAA, labor, health, safety and environmental standards are very important. If you do not think so, just go to many emerging market industrial sites and see how multinationals are treating workers. They frequently make, at best, a subsistence wage, they work under unsafe and unhealthy conditions, and frequently are being poisoned to death by companies that are massive polluters. Just go read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and see what it was like here in the US before people like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and our modern progressive and labor leaders came on the scene. We cheat our own and foreign workers when we do not include provisos in trade treaties regarding labor, health, safety and environmental standards.

Please go back and read some of the long forgotten literature of the Alliance for Progress era. Please read the speeches of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, A. Adolph Berle, and Teodoro Moscoso about Latin America. Look at what U.S. labor leaders such as George Meaney sought to do on behalf of both U.S. workers and workers overseas. Read the literature of the AFL-CIO and AFIELD. Just as the AFL-CIO did in Europe right after WWII, the AFL-CIO pushed not just for democracy, but also workers rights, land reform and other social and economic reforms in Latin America.

George W. Bush may be interested in what William Howard Taft used to call "dollar diplomacy." However, I am interested in making the U.S. once again a torch for democracy, liberty and economic progress and reform. Feel free to disagree with me. I welcome a dialogue and even constructive disagreement, if I cannot win you over. However, just think a little bit about what I am saying.

Sorry about the double entry. That was a mistake. It looked like the site went down as I was posting. In any case, JFK, RFK, the Alliance for Progress' A Adolph Berle and Teodoro Moscoso, the AFL-CIO's George Meaney, Serafino Romauldi, and William C. Doherty all believed in both free trade, as well as bringing political, economic and social reform to Latin America. These men believed that free trade should go hand in hand with these other hallowed concepts. In fact, the great Cold War Liberals sought to honor these principles in what was then called the Third World and is now called the Emerging Market Economies.

Dustin,

The holdup isn't whether or not CAFTA has the agreements in them - they do. The holdup is whether or not there's any hope that the Bush administration will actually enforce them. To date, enforcement of prior trade agreement standards on labor and environment have been closer to non-existant.

I'm still more inclined to say pass the treaty and hold Bush's feet to the agreement/fire afterwards, but to each their own. I think the concern expressed by the New Dem caucus is a valid one that deserves some respect. If you can't abide by the very agreement that's been signed, then at least fess up to it before asking Congress to pass it.

The economic impact of CAFTA is rather negligible on the whole, but rather important to a few economic interests: sugar and textiles among them.

That said, there's all sorts of oddities in the CAFTA debate. For one, Jim">http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/politics/11593401.htm">Jim DeMint (South Carolina's staunch free trading Senator) supports CAFTA only due to inclusion of an agreement to impose quotas on China that aid his state. That's sorta like being against free trade before you were for it. His fellow Republican Senator, Lindsay Graham, opposes the agreement. From Georgia, Saxby Chambliss opposes the deal. From Louisiana (a natural given the sugar impact), David Vitter opposes it. So it's not like its entirely a partisan issue.

Greg -- Here is a 4 May Reuters summary of some influential New Democrats regarding CAFTA-DR, which covers Central America and the Dominican Republic:

"We cannot abide trade deals that lower worker protections or reduce the ability to enforce fundamental labor standards. Unfortunately, CAFTA fails this test," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, chairwoman of the House New Democrat Coalition, a group of centrist Democrats who usually vote for trade deals.

Tauscher was joined by three other New Democrats -- Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama, Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington -- who said they could not back CAFTA because of concerns about child labor, sex discrimination in the workplace and obstacles to forming unions in the five Central American countries that are part of the pact.

"We are dealing with five nations where 17 million children between five and 14 got up this morning and went to work," Davis said. "Let's go back to the table and let's ask the CAFTA countries to repair to a higher standard."

The Democrats quoted are leaders of the New Democrat caucus in the House.

Please read the following for a very detailed analysis of CAFTA-DR and labor standards --
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/upload/CAFTA_factsheet.pdf

Portion of an AFL-CIO statement:

"A new AFL-CIO report released April 4 showed the proposed CAFTA contains even weaker worker protections than previous agreements and would eliminate enforcement tools currently available in other trade programs. According to The Real Record on Workers’ Rights in Central America, 40 percent of Central America’s workers earn less than $2 a day, and workers’ rights are routinely abused in the region."

"Under Fast Track rules, Congress cannot amend trade agreements and must vote the entire treaty up or down. Congress should reject CAFTA and force the Bush administration to renegotiate the deal, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson and economist Mark Levinson testified. Any new CAFTA agreement should require respect for internationally recognized workers’ rights, such as the freedom to form unions and to bargain collectively, they said. They also called for a trade agreement that would relieve the debt of Central American countries so they can adequately fund education, health care and infrastructure needs and reduce the financial instability caused by mounting debt burdens."

Before you write this off, once again, please look at --

http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/upload/CAFTA_factsheet.pdf

It contains a detailed analysis of labor standards, which means that we have not even begun to examine other standards.

Nobody seems to be interested in debating me on this topic or in holding a dialogue, so I will debate myself, I guess.

CAFTA-DR may well be worth ratifying even without adequate safeguards and protections, although it is not an easy call. Free trade is generally a winning proposition and to ignore free market principles generally creates market distortions and carries hidden costs. However, a trade agreement with adequate labor safeguards such as the AFL-CIO demands, would be much better. Without such safeguards and protections, the benefits of CAFTA-DR likely will accrue to the multinationals and local business owners as opposed to workers. The result could be little to no "trickle down," continued pressures on the poor to migrate illegally to the U.S. and resentment at "globalization." Unless CAFTA-DR creates new markets for U.S. products and compensates for jobs lost in the U.S., this becomes what the anti-Free Trade ultra-Liberals call the "race to the bottom."

I will offer one more thought. While we wait to see if CAFTA-DR and FTAA are viable, I think we should keep in place the Andean Trade Protection and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA) and not let it expire. Tens of thousands of jobs in Colombia depend on ATPDEA. Colombia is our closest friend and, in an informal sense, ally in Latin America in the wars on terror and drugs. ATPDEA is equally important to other Andean countries such as Peru and Bolivia, which have aided us in the drug war and whose democratic institutions are teetering. This is especially true in the case of Bolivia, where leftist agitators have bottled up La Paz and have toppled two democratic Presidents. One of the chief agitators, Evo Morales, has no respect for Bolivia's democratic constitution or institutions and is an admirer of Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.