The Growing Revolt on Trade

The Portland Oregonian has an important story about how members of both political parties are starting to realize just how misguided America's corporate-backed free trade policies are. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation to remove the United States from the World Trade Organization – a secret cabal that usurps states and countries' sovereignty in pursuit of Big Business's agenda. Though the mainstream media barely focuses on this issue, DeFazio says, "People are just starting to think, 'We're borrowing $2 billion a day, and we're borrowing half that from the Chinese? How's that going to work for 20 years or 50 years? There aren't any jobs in America. We don't have basic industries.' The American people are so far ahead of the policymakers and the pundits on this."

Even in places like Montana, the issue is red hot. By a 95-5 vote, the state House yesterday passed a strongly worded resolution demanding U.S. trade negotiators stop selling out America's sovereignty, and to start paying attention to the interests of average Americans.

There are many courageous Democrats who have long fought this important battle on trade. And more Democrats are starting to join the cause. But make no mistake about it - there are still very powerful forces within the "party of the working class" that are clinging to this free trade lunacy. For instance, CNN reports "Robert Rubin, the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, recently urged Congress to set aside environmental and labor concerns in supporting free-trade agreements." As head of Citigroup, Rubin, of course, has an interest in making sure capital can flow anywhere it wants. But still, his level of insensitivity is shocking. He actually argued that labor/environmental concerns "do not relate to the economic realities of the countries involved." Try telling that to the American worker who saw their job shipped off to China, where Corporate America is allowed to pay slave-like wages.

Meanwhile, two top Clinton officials wrote an op-ed in the archconservative Wall Street Journal claiming Democrats "need to embrace certain Republican policies...One early test will be the vote...the Central American Free Trade Agreement - an agreement that Democrats should support." This, despite overwhelming opposition to CAFTA from rural America, labor, and consumer groups. They then claim that doing so will help Democrats' electoral prospects: "If the Democratic Party wants to regain the White House and control of Congress, it has to take pro-growth, pro-jobs positions on key issues, including trade agreements."

This is the kind of rhetoric that can only come from people who haven't won a real political campaign in years, who didn't see how trade issues helped doom the Senate candidacy of fellow-Clintonite Erskine Bowles, and who arrogantly see the interests of the American worker and the American heartland as more of a nuisance than a priority. The fact is, polls consistently show the public has become increasingly skeptical of this free trade policy. From farmers in rural America, to workers in the industrial Midwest, to tech workers who are suffering from outsourcing, America wants a trade policy that starts working for average people, not just the fat cats. The sooner the Democrats' reject the free trade orthodoxy that has ravaged domestic jobs/wages, created a massive trade deficit, and weakened the dollar, the sooner they will be back in the majority.