Secrets of a new "Free Trade Frankenstein"

Remember NAFTA? 

The North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada was supposed to promote commerce between the three countries creating the world’s largest “free trade” area by removing tariff and quotas on U.S. goods.

It was supposed to increase employment and prosperity across borders.

But there was nothing free about NAFTA.

It turned out to be a devastating trade for nearly a million American workers, whose jobs were exported to other countries where wages are lower and U.S. companies aren’t subject to worker, health and environmental rules, and got nothing in return.

Millions of workers in Mexico’s small-scale agriculture also lost their livelihoods because they couldn’t compete with subsidized U.S. corporate agribusiness, which flooded Mexico with corn.

Look out, because there’s a new “free trade” Frankenstein on the horizon. Because the public has gotten wise to the big lie of “free trade,” the authorities have changed the labeling – they call this one a “partnership” – the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.

So far, it includes U.S., Australia, New Zealand and several Pacific Rim nations.

Who’s not included in the partnership?

Anybody from the public, or advocates for consumer, labor, environmental rights, improved health care, or anybody else that would question the notion of giving the corporate giants who have exclusive access to the negotiations anything they want.

According to critics, these deals should be more accurately labeled “corporate rights agreements,” because that’s what the real focus is ­ – protecting corporate interests and their private property rights against any interference from environmental, labor or financial regulations they disagree with  – either in the United States or any other country.

For example, the World Trade Organization, which judges trade disputes, recently ruled against a number of U.S. regulations designed to protect consumers, like labeling meat with its country-of-origin, and a ban on clove cigarettes to reduce teen smoking.

These trade agreements allow corporations to challenge national laws they don’t like in special courts. As in the secret negotiations, the public has no right to appear in those courts.

In addition, critics fear that the negotiations could lead to the imposition of strict intellectual property protections for companies that would have wide-ranging impacts, including limiting the availability of less expensive generic medicines, including AIDS drugs, critical to Third World countries’ efforts to limit illness and disease.

U.S. negotiators, led by trade representative Ron Kirk, insist the negotiators need secrecy to be able to negotiate freely.

Trust us, he insists.

But the negotiations aren’t secret from the lobbyists for the corporations whose rights and profits are at stake – they have full access, through “trade advisory groups” that review documents that are off limits to the public.

Corporate bigwigs also gain access to the negotiations while wining and dining with trade negotiators and politicians at fancy dinners at swank restaurants.

At one recent dinner in February in Washington D.C., the sponsors included a who’s who of corporate power – Amgen, Chevron, Dow Chemical, GE, Microsoft, Target and Wal-Mart, along with industry groups such as the Business Roundtable, Chamber of Commerce and PhRMA.

Fortunately, all the issues and secrecy around the talks have attracted attention.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden has become a leader in the fight to open up the TPP talks. Meanwhile several other groups, including Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, the California Fair Trade Coalition, and the Citizens Trade Campaign, have launched campaigns against the secrecy surrounding the TPP and raising issues about the substance of the agreements.

We don’t need more assurances that the trade negotiators and lobbyists are protecting our interests. We don’t need any more PR about how trade will create jobs in America. We can predict the unfortunate outcome of the TPP talks if they remain closed to the public, with only the insiders working to pursue their interests.

We need the most open process, public participation and the toughest scrutiny possible to avoid a massive rip-off at the hands of our secret “partners.”

 

Bailout Fuels Bitter Race to the Bottom

Maybe I just missed Harley Davidson’s thank you note to me and other taxpayers for bailing them out during the height of the financial crisis.

Perhaps the iconic motorcycle maker  didn’t think it would have to send a thank you note.

After all, they had every reason to think that the Federal Reserve’s emergency, low interest, $2.3 billion loans in the wake of the financial crisis would remain their little secret.

But the financial reform legislation spoiled all that, forcing the Fed to disclose details of  trillions of dollars worth of confidential loans they made, which amounted to a giant subsidy because of the low interest charged.

Beneficiaries included not just the country’s largest banks and foreign banks, but corporate giants such as General Electric, Verizon, Toyota and Harley Davidson.

It turns out that these companies borrow millions every day to pay their expenses. When the credit market froze up in the meltdown, Harley Davidson and the others turned to the Fed, which stepped in with loans at low rates and no questions asked.

Maybe the thank you note is still on Harley Davidson’s to-do list.

The company has been awfully busy, what with opening a new plant – in India, closing plants in this country and bullying its remaining U.S. workers to give back wages and benefits or face more plant closures.

It’s not that the company is incapable of showing gratitude. In 2009, a year in which the company suffered steep sales declines and more than 2,000 workers had been laid off, they paid their CEO $6.3 million – including a $780,000 bonus. Since January, 2009, the company has laid off more than a fifth of its work force, and closed two factories. By the end of next year, another 1,400 to 1,600 face layoffs.

In 2009, the average Harley Davidson worker who still had a job  was paid $32,000.

After threatening to close its York, Pa. plant and move production to Shelbyville, Ky., the company and the workers reached an agreement to keep the plant open – with 600 fewer employees and wage concessions. But not before the Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, offered $15 million in tax incentives to the company.

All the cuts are paying off – at least for the company’s shareholders. In July, the company reported a $71 million profit, more than triple what it earned a year ago.

Maybe sending taxpayers thank you notes slipped their minds while company officials were busy hiring lobbyists to fight financial reform last year, to the tune of $115,000 – about $100,000 less than they spent the year before.

Harley Davidson is using the lift it got from its bailout subsidy to join the latest trend – companies make more profit with fewer workers, and wringing concessions from those that remain. As if the bailout wasn’t enough of a gift, the company squeezes even more from state taxpayers just for the privilege of keeping their plants open. For the company’s executives, the bailout fueled their escape from financial ruin and their race to the top. But workers and taxpayers are left standing on the sidelines.

Imagine if Harley Davidson had just split its $2.3 billion low-interest loans with its individual workers. Imagine if the taxpayers, who actually funded corporate America’s bailout, were  the recipients of anywhere near that kind of generosity. Imagine if we had a government with  as ferocious a commitment to shovel trillions into taxpayers and workers'  hands with no conditions of any kind.

We’ll never know what kind of creative energy, not to mention how much economic stimulus, would have been unleashed.

But that’s not the kind of bailout we got.

Harley Davidson, you're welcome.