TPA Does Little to Calm Critics of Free Trade

  
Despite the Trade Promotion Authority given to President Bush, the critics of free trade agreements continue to develop strong public support. This past week the California State Assembly and State Senate passed Resolution 40, which takes positions against the FTAA and Chapter 11 of NAFTA. California is the site of one of the most notorious NAFTA Chapter 11 cases, in which the Canadian corporation Methanex is suing the US for $970 million to overturn state environmental laws and the banning of the carcinogen MTBE from gasoline.

Also condemning the FTAA is Union Network International (UNI), the largest union professional secretariat of commercial, communications and graphics workers from throughout the Americas. Meeting in their first Regional Congress in Rio de Janeiro, the 200 UNI delegates unanimously passed resolutions to increase the fight against the FTAA.

It is perhaps not surprising that unions and West Coast politicians would take these positions. Another event reported in the Washington Post was more startling. Ecuador's president opened the second regional summit of South American leaders on July 26 by blasting the United States and other industrial nations for preaching free trade while practicing protectionism. "Today it is clear that globalized trade benefits some, but not others," President Gustavo Noboa said in his speech to the gathering. "Latin America continues to be marked by its extreme vulnerability, today sharpened by the persistence of protectionist policies and subsidies in industrialized countries."

Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso also used the summit to criticize what the region's leaders see as a hypocritical position on globalization by the United States and other developed nations. "They speak of integration (of our economies) as if we are the ones who don't want it, when it is we who most want a democratic integration that tears down trade barriers - but of all of them, not just the ones that interest the powerful," he said.

In a meeting of regional foreign ministers the day before, Ecuador's foreign minister, Heinz Moeller, used even stronger language. South America "should expect nothing from the developed nations," he said. "We are fed up with up with rhetoric. I have received so many slaps on the back from the United States government that it has begun to hurt. Offers are worthless. What counts is action."

Many observers have pointed out that the type of Trade Promotion Authority approved by Congress and signed into law by President Bush exacerbates our trading partners' fears of protectionism. Ironically, the reverse is true for public opinion in the US. The US public continues to fear that free trade will send good jobs overseas and undermine regulations in sensitive health and safety areas. US negotiators therefore can expect to encounter continued difficulties at home and abroad. A test of their ability to craft a free trade agreement that can convince both schools of thought will be the US/Chile FTA, which is supposed to be ready for approval before the end of the year. Groups in the US have sought to get a copy of the current draft of the agreement through the Freedom of Information Act, but so far, the USTR has resisted. The text, once it is released, will begin to tell some of the story of how the US intends to strike a balance between so many competing interests.