Not So Free Trade

Who's side is government on, Main Street or Wall Street?  The multi-national corporate domination steamroller continues to lead the US in a race to the bottom in quality of life on earth.  Rep Alan Grayson (D-FL) is raising the alarm on a trade deal being negotiated that has some alarming provisions according to the article in Huffington Post.

Known as a "NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) with Europe," the "partnership" is actually a deal between multinational corporations and their minions in government. It features "investor-state" dispute resolution, which would permit foreign corporations to file lawsuits to prevent government actions that they don't like, such as health, environmental and safety regulations.

Interesting concept, but it has degenerated into handcuffs on government, slapped on at will by special interests. Let's say your country or state passes a consumer protection law -- such as one that says fishing companies must label tuna caught using methods that kill dolphins. A Mexican corporation that sells tuna in the United States might declare this is a "non-tariff barrier" to trade, undercutting Mexican sellers of tuna versus American ones (though it applies equally to both).
Under the guise of a "free trade" agreement, the government could be sued, and have the dolphin-safe tuna law overturned.
This actually happened, in 2012. The World Trade Organization ruled against the American dolphin-safe tuna labeling law. So this is not just a theoretical possibility. "These provisions elevate corporations to the level of nation states and allow them to sue governments over nearly any law or policy which reduces their future profits," the Sierra Club warns.
Canada has been sued under a similar clause in NAFTA for refusing to export its water. Canada has also  been sued for keeping a pollutant out of its gasoline supply, and for taxing windfall profits by oil companies. This next wave of trade agreements may prioritize corporate rights over the privacy of our personal data, restrict regulation on fracking and (as Senator Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.] has warned) roll back much-needed rules on large banks.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has probably never met a regulation it didn't want to repeal or violate. The chamber is even arguing that the Volcker Rule, which restricts gambling with tax-payer protected deposits by large banks, violates U.S. trade policy.

 The US government has a terrible track record on international trade issues, and President Obama has continued in the footsteps of past administrations.  Public Citizen has noted that after one year of a trade agreement with South Korea, we're worse off in terms of our trade deficit with them.

Just-released government trade data, covering the first year of implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), shows a remarkable decline in U.S. exports to Korea and a rise in imports from Korea, provoking a dramatic trade deficit increase that defies the Obama administration’s promises that the pact would expand U.S. exports and create U.S. jobs, Public Citizen said today.

Many of the sectors that the Obama administration promised would be the biggest beneficiaries of the Korea FTA have actually been some of the deal’s largest losers:

• U.S. pork exports to Korea have declined 24 percent under the first year of the FTA relative to the year before FTA implementation.
• U.S. beef exports have fallen 8 percent.
• U.S. poultry exports have plunged 41 percent.

The U.S. deficit with Korea in autos and auto parts increased 16 percent in the first year of the FTA. U.S. auto imports from Korea have surged by more than $2.5 billion under the FTA’s first year. FTA proponents have shamelessly touted “gains” in U.S. auto exports without revealing that this increase totaled just $130 million, with fewer than 1,000 additional U.S. automobiles sold in Korea relative to the 1.3 million Korean cars sold here in 2012.
Read additional analysis of the government data on U.S. trade with Korea under the U.S.-Korea FTA.