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Lori Wallach
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Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. A Harvard-trained lawyer, Wallach has promoted the public interest regarding globalization and international commercial agreements in every forum: Congress and foreign parliaments, the courts, government agencies, and the media. Described as “Ralph Nader with a sense of humor” in a Wall Street Journal profile, “the Trade Debate's Guerrilla Warrior” in the National Journal, and “Madame Defarge of Seattle” by the Institute for International Economics, Wallach has testified on NAFTA, GATT-WTO, and other trade issues before over 30 U.S. congressional committees, numerous other countries’ legislatures, the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Wallach’s work in “translating” arcane trade legalese – indeed, entire proposed international commercial agreements – into relevant, accessible prose has had significant national and international impact.

Blog Entries by Lori Wallach

One More Scandal?

(10) Comments | Posted May 20, 2013 | 9:40 PM

What do a zombie, handcuffs, a steamroller and a legislative luge run for job-killing trade agreements all have in common? They're all apt metaphors of an expired, scandalously anti-democratic procedure called Fast Track.

And, I should know. I just wrote the book on it. How this little-known...

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U.S. Exports Drop Under Korea Trade Deal and Obama Said What?!

(30) Comments | Posted May 10, 2013 | 4:53 PM

The first year of results are in for the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and it's grim. U.S. exports to Korea plunged 10 percent under the FTA and the trade deficit jumped 37 percent. That equates to the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.

Yikes,...

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Death Threats Remain Rampant Under Obama's Colombia FTA

(1) Comments | Posted April 16, 2013 | 2:25 PM

Shame on the Obama administration: Two years after it announced its "Labor Action Plan" to grease passage of a Bush-negotiated Free Trade Agreement (FTA), death threats against Colombian unionists persist unabated.

Remember then-candidate Obama's passionate confrontation with McCain during the last presidential debate, explaining why he opposed...

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SOTU, TPP, TAFTA -- WTF?

(4) Comments | Posted February 13, 2013 | 12:52 PM

Did you notice the two rabid skunks President Obama unleashed at the State of the Union picnic?

Creating American jobs! Rebuilding American manufacturing! Boosting American exports! Promoting innovation! Ensuring strong health and environmental protections! Completing an 11-nation NAFTA-style "free trade" agreement (FTA) called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -...

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Latest WTO Lunacy: Poker and Piracy Together at Last

(6) Comments | Posted January 29, 2013 | 7:11 PM

On Monday the World Trade Organization (WTO) officially authorized Caribbean nation Antigua to sell $21 million in "pirated" U.S.-copyrighted music, films and computer programs in retaliation for the United States failing to comply with a 2005 WTO order to allow online gambling here.

Say what? (And,...

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Obama, Romney 'Trade Pact' Malarkey vs. Reality: The Data Is In

(35) Comments | Posted October 15, 2012 | 12:11 PM

One year after passage of the "free trade" agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama, the latest trade data show U.S. exports to Korea have declined and imports from Korea and Colombia have surged -- adding to the job-killing U.S. trade deficit. And, already this year 35 Colombian unionists have been...

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TPP: What You Don't Know Will Hurt You (Video)

(1) Comments | Posted May 8, 2012 | 6:02 PM

DALLAS -- Tuesday, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) twelfth round of negotiations will begin behind closed doors at the Intercontinental Hotel here. Branded as a "trade deal" by its corporate proponents, the TPP in reality would establish new corporate rights to ease job offshoring, attack environmental and health laws in foreign...

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WTO Orders U.S. to Dump Landmark Obama Youth Anti-Smoking Law

(15) Comments | Posted April 9, 2012 | 2:30 PM

A landmark U.S. health policy already was being struck down even as protestors surrounded the Supreme Court over the attack on President Obama's healthcare law. Behind closed doors in Geneva, a World Trade Organization (WTO) tribunal issued a final ruling ordering the U.S. to dump a landmark 2009 youth anti-smoking...

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Trade Deals: Backdoor Financial Deregulation

(18) Comments | Posted March 20, 2012 | 7:23 PM

Wall Street has a new power tool to demolish financial stability policies, and it comes from a source many would not expect. It's not the cozy relationship between Wall Street and some members of Congress, or the hordes of bankster lobbyists who roam Capitol Hill. Wall Street has obtained...

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Job-Killing Trade Deals Pass Congress Amidst Record Democratic Opposition

(6) Comments | Posted October 13, 2011 | 1:31 PM

With 9 percent unemployment and Americans desperate for job creation, it is unconscionable that President Obama and House Republicans just shoved through a trio of NAFTA-style job-killing trade agreements that even the government's own studies show will increase the U.S. trade deficit.

This represents a complete...

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Obama Flip-Flops Off Trade Cliff

(4) Comments | Posted October 4, 2011 | 4:13 PM

Apparently, Obama has a plan for winning re-election that does not involve Ohio... oh, and he is tired of talking about job CREATION.

Yesterday, after months of seeming ambiguity about whether to really take ownership of the three job-killing, Bush-signed, NAFTA-style Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama,...

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Trade Pacts Obama Is Flacking in Jobs Plan Would Increase Trade Deficit Say Government Studies

(1) Comments | Posted September 7, 2011 | 5:53 PM

Everyone expects Obama's imminent jobs plan and related speeches to include a pitch to pass Bush's leftover Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with Korea, Colombia and Panama. We got the preview of this during Obama's bus tour.

Problem is, whatever one thinks about the idea of "free trade," the federal government's...

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The Korea Trade Deal in Two Minutes (VIDEO)

(3) Comments | Posted June 29, 2011 | 2:00 PM

Check out this two-minute film from Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch about the job-killing NAFTA-style Korea trade deal.

Or, if film isn't your thing, read the script below. It is replete with links to images and underlying documents. And, if this makes you mad, do something about it.

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Obama's Colombia-Korea NAFTA Expansion Is Disgusting

(8) Comments | Posted April 7, 2011 | 3:24 PM

Today's announcement by the Obama administration of an "Action Plan" ostensibly aimed at addressing Colombia's horrific labor rights conditions is a remarkably cynical maneuver to facilitate passage of yet another of President Bush's leftover NAFTA-style Free Trade Agreements (FTA). With today's move, Obama takes ownership of a Colombia-Korea trade agreement...

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The Korea Trade Deal Is Lose-Lose

(5) Comments | Posted February 15, 2011 | 5:31 PM

The Obama administration's effort to convince Congress to pass a NAFTA-style trade pact with South Korea on foreign relations and national security grounds took a beating last month when a large delegation of Korean opponents of the pact came to Washington. The administration has defaulted early on to...

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Obama Trade Policy Perils: Korea FTA Talks Resume Tomorrow

(8) Comments | Posted November 29, 2010 | 1:59 PM

That the Obama administration did not agree at the G-20 summit to push the same NAFTA-style Korea free trade agreement (FTA) that former President George W. Bush signed in 2007 is understandable. It's projected to increase the U.S. trade deficit, is wildly unpopular in both countries, and replicates the most...

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Polls, Research Show Dems Can Win Talking Trade (GOP too)

(0) Comments | Posted October 18, 2010 | 4:44 PM

Recent polling shows that anger about U.S. job-offshoring and "free trade" has become a powerful election issue nationwide - across stunningly diverse demographics. Once again, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch is tracking these issues in races across the country. We found trade playing in 150 of the 170...

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Jobs & Exports: New Report Highlights Obama Peril with Bush Trade Pacts

(2) Comments | Posted September 17, 2010 | 5:45 PM

The growth rate of U.S. exports to the countries with whom we do NOT have Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) has been over double that to U.S. FTA partners. That stunning finding should put an end to recent Obama administration talk about reviving three NAFTA-style FTAs leftover from the Bush era....

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Does the U.S. Trade Rep. Secretly Love Higher Tariffs?

(23) Comments | Posted August 20, 2010 | 4:14 PM

For a guy who loves "free trade" and is supposed to represent U.S. workers and businesses, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk seems way too comfy with tariffs being slapped on American exports. Instead of renegotiating a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) requirement that Mexico-domiciled tractor-trailers have full access to...

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CAFTA Attack on Green Policy: Did Obama Need More Reasons to Renegotiate Bush's NAFTA-Style Trade Deals?

(5) Comments | Posted August 4, 2010 | 2:44 PM

Pacific Rim Mining Corp. just won the first stage in its attack under the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from the government of El Salvador over environmental and health policies. The corporation is using the CAFTA provisions that grant...

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