WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2006
Rally against Korea-U.S. trade deal TODAY in Seattle

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2006
"Free trade:" It's not about freedom, and it's not about trade

The American commercial media has managed to dumb down the debate on international trade policy to terms reminiscent of President Bush's war-on-terror rhetoric: You're either for trade, or against it.  After all, who could possibly be opposed to free trade?  Which part don't you like, "free" or "trade"?

This is especially true here in Washington, where opinion makers inevitably toss out the conversation-stopper that one in four jobs in this state are "dependent" on trade, implying that opposition to free trade agreements is opposition to trade, and therefore, opposition to jobs.

And thus, with a condescending pat on the head, people with serious and legitimate concerns about the policies and consequences of recent free trade agreements are routinely dismissed.  That's especially true when they take to the streets in protest, as many will in Seattle today to rally against the Korea-U.S. (KORUS) Free Trade Agreement being negotiated in town this week.

Tomorrow's KORUS newspaper editorials will portray organized labor, environmental groups, and representatives of Korean working families as protectionists still clinging to horse-and-buggy economic policies -- nutty protesters who flinch at the mere mention of the word "globalization" because they don't understand what it means and how it benefits them. Protesters will simply be dismissed as anti-trade. (Without KORUS, South Korea is already our 7th largest trading partner. The failure of KORUS would not suspend that trade or create any new barriers to increased trade.)

So, here are a few points about free trade that you aren't likely to read in commercial media coverage of today's protest:

Free trade agreements routinely impose brand new trade restrictions, in order to protect corporate profits, often in direct conflict with clear public interest.  Case in point, Chapter 15 of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) imposes "intellectual property" laws on pharmaceutical products that are designed to delay and limit the introduction of generic drugs and market competition.  Generic competition has proven effective in reducing drug costs in a sustainable way, most notably in the case of AIDS medications where prices in developing countries have dropped from $10,000 to $300 per patient over the past few years.

U.S. trade representatives list pharmaceutical and intellectual property issues right at the top of the "extremely challenging" issues they hope to resolve in this week's Seattle KORUS talks.

U.S. trade representatives say KORUS will help U.S. manufacturers sell more abroad and narrow a trade gap of $16 billion last year.  But they have said the same of previous free trade agreements, notably the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the opposite has happened: even higher trade deficits.

"NAFTA was supposed to open markets in Mexico for American-produced consumer goods," says AFL-CIO trade policy expert Thea Lee. "Instead, it has drastically increased our trade deficit with Mexico... entailing the loss of more than 1 million U.S. jobs over the past 12 years. These agreements simply haven't delivered on their key promises."

The costs of recent free trade agreements are ignored, while its benefits are touted. While port traffic may have increased and created some good jobs, there is clear evidence that far more family-wage U.S. manufacturing jobs -- millions of them -- have been lost and moved overseas, and that this offshore outsourcing has been facilitated and hastened by free trade agreements.

As Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender pointed out in a November 2004 column, "When families lose their incomes and lose their opportunities for a better future because of imports, outsourcing and offshoring, we should acknowledge the damage... It’s past time to pay attention. Now we even have to think about how our national security might be compromised by this loss of basic manufacturing capacity."

There may be no other issue where the opinions of Americans are so routinely dismissed as they are with international trade. Poll after poll after poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly oppose so-called free-trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA, and feel like they have harmed their interests, not helped them. Widespread public opposition is the reason that so many congressional arms must be twisted to achieve passage -- often by a single vote -- of free trade agreements.

By more than a 2-to-1 margin, people say that increased international trade mostly hurts, not helps, American workers.  That negative response is significantly higher than it was in 1999, now that people have witnessed firsthand the unfulfilled promises of trade agreements like NAFTA.  Three of every four Americans disagree with the assessment of the Bush administration, which is negotiating these trade deals, that offshore outsourcing is actually good for America.

And yet, media pundits continue to insist free trade is popular. "Like most people here, we are for free trade," opined The Seattle Times in Sunday's editorial.

And there is the rub.  In fact, it's true that if you ask Americans whether they support "free trade," they say "yes."  The explanation of that disconnect between liking free trade and disliking its impact, as George Lakoff would be quick to point out, is the simple choice of the words "free" and "trade."

But what's "free" about blocking foreign countries from allowing generic drugs to compete?  What's "free" about allowing multinational corporations to sue governments that are democratically elected by the people, and force them to privatize public services or repeal environmental regulations that they consider barriers to trade?

The word "trade" implies mutual benefit and some level of fairness. Corporate profits may be doing fine, but there is clear evidence that globalization, accelerated by free trade agreements, has cost the United States most of its manufacturing base, and now even service industry jobs -- ranging from customer service representatives to medical x-ray technicians -- are being shipped overseas.

And that is why American and Korean working people will be in the streets of Seattle today. Because so-called free trade agreements like the KORUS, and NAFTA before it, do not put the interests of people first.  They require nations to cede their very sovereignty to corporations, stopping people from deciding on their own whether they want public services, labor standards or environmental protections through their governments.  They put the "freedom" of capital and corporations first, even if those interests are in direct conflict with public health and good, and promise us that the benefits will eventually trickle down.

It hasn't happened yet and there's no reason to believe it will until the United States reverses its failed trade policies.  It's time to use America's enormous economic power and influence to encourage higher labor and environmental standards, not promote the flight of capital and jobs to nations with the absolute lowest standards.