Trade debate carries risks for workers
Robert Jensen
Department of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Robert Jensen 2001
Dallas Morning News, July 2, 2001, p. 15-A
by Robert Jensen
Conservatives usually are the most strident defenders of the doctrine of
original intent, the idea that we should follow the will of the Founding
Fathers in interpreting the Constitution.
But in a strange twist on that idea, Republicans now are warning us that
the Constitution has "tied the hands" of the president in trade negotiations.
The problem, it seems, is that the Constitution states in Article I, Section
8 that "Congress shall have power ... to regulate commerce with foreign nations."
The original intent seems pretty clear to me: Congress should regulate international
commerce.
More likely, the "problem" for conservatives is that Congress sometimes is
more prone to public pressure than is the executive branch. That is, citizens
who organize to pursue their interests have a better chance of influencing
the House and Senate than they do when the whole show is run out of the White
House.
As a result, congressional participation in regulating commerce with foreign
nations can make it more difficult for corporations to ram through the kinds
of trade deals that help them line their pockets at the expense of those
citizens. The solution to that occasional excess of democracy? For the Bush
administration and Republicans in the House, the answer is fast-track legislation.
Well, it used to be called fast track, until the Bush spinmeisters realized
the term makes it sound as if the rich and powerful might be trying to pull
a fast one on U.S. citizens, which, of course, they are. So the concept has
been renamed "trade promotion authority," and congressional Republicans are
gearing up to push the legislation through before they head off for vacation
in August.
Fast-track authority made it easier for the first Bush administration to
negotiate, and the Clinton administration to pass, the disastrous North American
Free Trade Agreement. But fast-track authority expired in 1994, and the most
recent attempt to bring it back was defeated in the House in 1998. But fast
track is back again, and the Republicans are talking about a bipartisan coalition
to push it through.
Under fast track, members of Congress would be abandoning their duty instead
of taking their rightful role in regulating international commerce. The proposed
law allows the president to bring trade agreements he negotiates before Congress
for an up-or-down vote, without amendments and with limited debate.
If reinstated, fast track will make it easier for the Bush administration
to ram through a version of the Free Trade Area of the Americas –
a hemispheric NAFTA – that will increase the power of
corporations and marginalize the interests of labor organizers, human-rights
activists and environmentalists.
During the upcoming debate, expect to hear the usual distortions from President
Bush. He already has said fast track is necessary so that he can avoid a
trade agreement that has "codicils on it that frighten people from trading
with us."
Of course, Mr. Bush knows full well that "people" aren't frightened by agreements
that protect workers' rights, human rights and the environment. Rather, it
is corporations that are frightened by such protections. They are afraid
of losing their ability to rake in massive profits off the vulnerable economies
and peoples of the developing world.
Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the University
of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. Other
writings are available online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/freelance.htm.
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