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U.S. Free Trade AgreementsDear Gary:
Recently, I was on Democracy Now!, an hourly news report that runs on over 1250 TV and radio stations worldwide each day. The subject was trade:
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the pending vote in Congress on the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership, a global trade deal currently being negotiated between the United States and 11 Latin American and Asian countries. Senate Finance Committee leaders Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Ron Wyden are expected to introduce a “fast-track” trade promotion authority bill as early as this week that would give the president authority to negotiate the TPP trade deal and then present it to Congress for a yes-or-no vote, with no amendments allowed. . . . Congressman Alan Grayson, could you explain your opposition to fast-track authority, and what you’re calling on your colleagues in Congress to do?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Our “free trade,” our so-called free trade policies, have been a disaster for the United States since NAFTA was enacted. Before NAFTA was enacted and went into effect 20 years ago, we never had any year in our history when we had a trade deficit of $135 billion or more. Every single year since then, for 20 years in a row, our trade deficit has been over $135 billion. Our last 14 trade deficits have been the 14 largest trade deficits not only in our history, but in the history of the entire world. And the result of that is that we’ve gone from $2 trillion in surplus with our trade to $11 trillion in debt. And we’ve lost five million manufacturing jobs and roughly 15 million other jobs in the last 20 years. So we’ve lost twice: We’ve lost the jobs, and we’ve also gone deeper and deeper into debt.
What’s happening is not that we’re buying goods and services from foreigners and they’re buying an equal amount of goods and services from us-that’s the way free trade is supposed to work. What’s actually happening is that we’re buying our goods and services from foreigners, and they are taking the money that we give to them for that, and buying our assets.
That has all sorts of consequences for our economy. First we lose those jobs. Secondly, it makes American income and wealth more and more unequal. The reason why we have the fourth most unequal distribution of wealth in the world is because of fake trade. The reason why we have a bizarre, and at this point unprecedented, “quantitative easing” [monetary] policy, where the government uses the cash in our pockets to buy up assets and drive those asset prices up further and further, is because of fake trade. The reason why we have a federal deficit is because we have a trade deficit. The TPP, “fast-track,” the Transatlantic version of TPP, these dramatically increase the amount of countries with whom we have this relationship-they quadruple them-and they put us on a fast track to Hell, where America is nothing but cheap labor and debt slavery. . . .
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to President Obama speaking in February after he began the major push for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This is bipartisan legislation that would protect American workers and promote American businesses, with strong new trade deals from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but are fair. It would level the playing field for American workers. It would hold all countries to the same high labor and environmental standards to which we hold ourselves. Now, I’m the first to admit that past trade deals haven’t always lived up to the hype. And that’s why we’ve successfully gone after countries that break the rules at our workers’ expense. But that doesn’t mean we should close ourselves off from new opportunities and sit on the sidelines while other countries write our future for us.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Obama speaking in February. President Obama is, obviously, President of the United States, [the] leading Democrat. Congressman Grayson, he represents your party, as well. Why the difference? Who are the blocs now that are united? We’re not just talking [that] it’s Democrats here and Republicans here. What set of Republicans and Democrats agree on this?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, it’s a mystery to me. You know, I was in the room when the President gave that statement, made that speech. He gave a 45-minute speech. On those three sentences, that was the only time during that entire speech when the Republicans rose up and applauded him, and the Democrats did not. I think that’s very revealing. There are very, very few Democratic votes [for Fast-Track] in the House of Representatives, because we represent ordinary working people. The groups that are lobbying the hardest for this are the multinational corporations, and their K Street lobbyists. They’re the ones who desperately want to see this passed. . . . Ordinary Democrats represent constituencies who have been hurt hard, really hurt very hard, by the loss of those five million manufacturing jobs and 15 million other jobs. Go to any Democratic district in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. And the fact is that there is very little support, if any significant support, within the Democratic House Caucus for Fast-Track or for the TPP. We do have a few corporate Democrats. Frankly, we do have a couple of sell-out Democrats, who have sold out to the corporate lobbyists. But the bulk of the Democratic Party well understands, along with the labor movement and ordinary people, that these policies have been disastrous for us. And it is a lie to say that they will improve the economy. In fact, they will continue the downward trend of the economy, until foreigners own everything. . . .
AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Grayson, do you have to rely on WikiLeaks to get information about what’s actually in the TPP agreement?
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: Well, one of the sad and disturbing elements of this whole process has been the artificial secrecy that’s been imposed by the Administration and by the Trade Representative on these dealings. I can’t think of any other occasion, when I’ve served in Congress, when I’ve seen the element of deception loom so large here. The public is better informed of Iraqi attacks on ISIS, which you’d think would be classified, than it is informed on a trade deal that’s going to determine our economic future for the next 20 years. What’s happened is that, right at the beginning, the Trade Representative took the absurd position that everything that was being negotiated was classified, even though it was directly in the hands of the foreign governments with whom he was negotiating. Remember, normally, we have a classified system to keep information away from our enemies, or at least other governments. In this case, it was the other governments that had the information, and it was Congress and the American people who were being denied the information. And they took that position for five years, even though 100 members of Congress wrote a letter to the trade representative saying, “Cut this out.”
Now, I’m the first member of Congress to actually see any part of the TPP, even though 600 corporate lobbyists are, quote, “advisors” to the Trade Representative, and they get to see everything. And I insisted they take that information to my office, and in return they told me I couldn’t take it with me, I couldn’t take it home, I couldn’t make notes on it, I couldn’t have my staff present. And here’s the kicker: They didn’t want me to discuss it with the media, the public or even other Members of Congress. So it’s a farce. And it’s meant specifically to keep the information away from the American people, because if the American people knew what was going on, they’d recognize that it’s a punch to the face of the middle class in America. . . .
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you for being with us, Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida’s 9th Congressional District.
If we want to avoid a future of “cheap labor and debt slavery,” then we have to fight back, and fight back now, before it’s too late. To see the video, or to support our “Truth in Trade” campaign, click right here.
Courage,
Rep. Alan Grayson
