Fair Trade

Costa Rica on Sunday will become the first country where citizens have the opportunity to vote for or against a trade agreement. Despite being heavily outspent by the moneyed interests, despite opposition from the Costa Rican government and the U.S. ambassador, despite an extremely hostile media, the latest polls show momentum building for the opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Incredibly, just the other day, in a nation of only 4 million people, more than 100,000 marched in opposition to the treaty -- a sign of the deep grassroots opposition there to CAFTA.

Free trade is very good for the large multinational corporations who can throw American workers out on the street, move abroad to China and other low-wage countries, hire people there for pennies an hour, and bring their products back into this country. For those people, for the CEOs of large corporations, unfettered free trade has been a very good thing, but for the middle-class and working families of this country, for working families and poor people in Mexico and in other low-wage countries, unfettered free trade has been an unmitigated disaster.

Increasingly, trade policy is not a partisan issue. The vast majority of Republicans now have serious concerns about our current trade policies because they see those trade policies as being harmful to the middle class and working families of this country, according to a new poll. "By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president. The sign of broadening resistance to globalization came in a new Wall Street Journal-NBC News Poll that showed a fraying of Republican Party orthodoxy on the economy," The Wall Street Journal reported in a page-one news story on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, the pundits for the plutocrats, twice this week weighed in on what it thinks is good for the people of Costa Rica. They also had a thing or two to say about me.

My trip to Costa Rica last month was not about telling the people there how to vote. That's their business, not mine. The trip that Rep. Mike Michaud and I made was to help counter the lies being spread in Costa Rica that suggested that if the people there, exercising their democratic rights, voted "no" on Cafta, the U.S. government would punish them by excluding them from the Caribbean Basin Initiative as well as other punitive actions.

While I strongly disagree with the Journal editorial page's right-wing ideology, I'll give them points for persistence. Year after year, despite all of the evidence, the Journal has continued to be a cheerleader for the unfettered free-trade policies that, while benefiting multinational corporations, have caused so much economic pain for working families here in the U.S. and our trading partners abroad.

There may be disagreement on the merits of unfettered free trade, but there should be no disagreement that when the people in a free, democratic and independent country like Costa Rica vote their conscience they should not be punished by the world's superpower. That is not what democracy is about.

A Journal columnist, Mary Anastasia O'Grady, wrote last Monday about how wonderful passage of the trade agreement will be for the people of Costa Rica. The Journal said the exact same thing to the people of Mexico during the 1993 debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement.

What happened with the passage of Nafta? In Mexico, the agricultural sector has been decimated by cheap exports from American agribusiness. Poverty has increased, the middle class has declined and people are literally dying in the desert trying to flee Mexico for the U.S. Working families in Mexico suffer, the rich have gotten richer and we now have the obscenity of the wealthiest person in the world, Mexican Carlos Slim Helu, coming from a country in which millions of families struggle to feed their children. This may be the kind of economic development championed by you, but not by me. We can have trade policies that can do better, that must do better.

It's not only Mexico and other developing countries that have been hurt by these unfettered pro-corporate free-trade agreements. It's also the working families in the U.S. who are now engaged in a horrendous "race to the bottom."

Despite an explosion of technology and a huge increase in worker productivity, poverty in America is increasing, the middle class is shrinking, and the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider. In the past six years, millions of good-paying jobs in the U.S. have been lost as companies shut down here and move to China and other low-wage countries.

During that same period, median household income for working-age families has declined by about $2,500, 8.6 million Americans have lost their health insurance, three million have lost their pensions, and millions are working longer hours for lower wages. Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. is now the highest of any industrialized country and greater than at any time since the 1920s.

Nobody I know believes we should place a wall around this country. Trade is a good thing, but what we must begin doing is negotiating fair trade agreements that reflect the interests of working families in America, working families in other countries, and not just large multinational corporations and the CEOs who help write these trade agreements.

Comments

[RumiSouth]

It's time for an economic Sam Harris, and atheist of the "invisible hand."

Write a book, Bernie!

[psnyder]

Oh, there is an invisible hand. You can't see it, but you can feel it picking your pocket.

[wnsrfr]

Bernie, you really have come so far from that time you wanted to spend the hospital expansion bond on low-income housing :)

I don't live in VT anymore, but I am proud to have you represent my forever-considered-home...

[fpal]

But Bernie, they teach us that CEO's pursuing their own self-interest also promote the good of the community. You know, the invisible hand.

That's capitalism 101.

Are you saying that capitalism is bad?

[outnow]

Are you saying that capitalism does not have its evils? I think you are being sarcastic about that invisible hand.

Unregulated capitalism is called Monopoly. The issue is where to place limits. Neither Milton Friedman not Alan Greenspan advocated having no governmental control.

Increasingly, neoliberal policies are undermining our middle class. It happened in England. The debate is not new. Reaganomics destroys the middle class in every country in which it has been tried (or forced on the citizens at the point of a gun).

"Fair trade" protects labor rights and the environment. NAFTA and CAFTA promote slavery, child labor, and environmental disaster.

[psnyder]

A corollary of neoliberal economics is neoslavery. Our jobs are shipped overseas and the jobs left pay less; bankruptcy laws are "improved" to eliminate escape from insuperable debt; new instruments make insuperable debt easy to acquire; we are urged to "shop" (or the terrorists win); pensions and health insurance crumble. Voila! Debt slaves without recourse. So no one is left behind, our rulers not only empty our public treasury but burden those of us too poor not to pay taxes (and our descendants) with unprecedented debt while they parade their contempt for (their own) taxation.

More neoliberal irony is that while "free" trade renders borders meaningless to the movement of capital, it renders borders crucial to block the movement of labor. Our current immigration "debate" is concomitant with NAFTA/WTO and the deracination of capital. The "success" of "free" trade depends on freeing capital and binding labor.

The ruling class has globalized itself and takes its ability to exploit the poor and other natural resources anywhere as its natural right, indeed, as its obligation to its shareholders. The obligations of the ruling class are to itself and its own reproduction, and not to any of its mere instruments. If honoring this obligation requires keeping the poor in, say, Indonesia or the Marianas Islands, in a Sisyphian hell of poverty, so be it.

Halliburton's move to Dubai is rich in the pathologies of the current system. It reeks with irony and with the contempt it evinces on the part of the ruling class for the very notion that capital owes any loyalty to its origins.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

CEOs in the U. S. inhabit a microcosm sheltered from market forces. The committees that set executive salaries effectively play 'footsie' with those who might be their future employers. Why else has the ratio of executive salaries to general employes so skewed to that of the rest of the developed world?

[Uselessboy]

We deliberately skewed those salaries by repealing the steep progressive taxation that had made them pointless since around 1905, with a rollback during the boom that led up to the Great Depression.

Corporations can generate money completely outside the scale of their human leadership. A few months' work making the right decisions, you and your family never need to work again.

Steep taxation at the top end prevents such rewards from arriving into the hands of an exec, so they're never offered. When nobody can win the game in a few quick moves, they all depend more on the long term.

That's better for businesses and it's better for the humans that make up the workers and customers and neighbors of businesses.

[TheHandyman]

Sorry to tell you this, but what is practiced in the US is not Capitalism. As practiced in the US, Capitalism is to a healthy and fair economy as lynchings are to healthy race relations. What we have going on here is a gigantic Ponzi scheme and only the big boys are raking it in hence the decline in the middle class and the increase in the impoverished. If you think that the US's form of Capitalism is good, then you have bought into the scheme and think that if you work hard enough, those envelopes filled with $100 bills are gonna start pouring in any minute now!

[Misanthrope2]

Capitalism pretends there is a free market. There isn't. Capitalism pretends that wealth benefits all. It doesn't. Capitalism is simply a political system that benefits the few at a great cost to the many.

[therealredstateblues]

Raw and unfettered capitalism is really socialism for the wealthy.

[TheQuestion]

A few things I wonder about regarding Bernie's article.

1) Isn't it possible that Mexico lost out not because of our agreement with them - but because other countries came on board to compete with them ?

2) Isn't it then also possible that while some countries like ours may lose out - that it is raising the income level in other countries (at least untill someone more competitive comes along) - this may not be all bad if it could eventually raise standards around the world.

All in all though I would agree, (putting aside those complicated theories - which could all be wrong anyway) caution is still a good idea.

[FearlessFreep]

Isn't it possible that Mexican agriculture was devastated by cheap US exports because the latter enjoy big subsidies from US taxpayers? (Funny how free trade didn't affect the USDA regime.)

[ZingoBonMot]

HUZZAH! You're on the money, now, my friend!

[dshwa]

Both of your points are reasonble, but they ignore the reality of what has actually happened under these agreements. The money generated by these deals doesn't go to the people who get employed in the countries where companies set up shop, it goes to the CEOs and the shareholders. As for an eventual raising of standards everywhere, that hasn't shown any signs of happening.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Yes, the Walmart pricing 'factor': Message to suppliers: Either get the cost down or the contract goes to another firm.....

[Misanthrope2]

The money does not go to shareholders. The money is sucked out by the board of directors, the CEO and upper management. Shareholders have little power to change the system, and never benefit like the leaches set forth above.

[TheHandyman]

Yes, anything is possible. It is possible that Bush will admit that he fucked everything up, but what was described is what happened. Bernie got it exactly right!

[sparkandy]

And when I'm facing the loss of everything I own, I don't really care all that much about the standards of the world rising eventually. I only care about a roof over my head and enough to eat. And I'm not the only one.

[FunTravelAdventure]

"Isn't it then also possible that while some countries like ours may lose out - that it is raising the income level in other countries (at least untill someone more competitive comes along) - this may not be all bad if it could eventually raise standards around the world."

The problem of course is that it is NOT raising the income levels in other countries, it is lowering their's along with ours. And that my friends is the precise purpose of these trade deals.

[Dem02020]

Regulation of trade and Commerce is supposed to protect people first, people as workers and as consumers, right?

And the de-regulation of trade and Commerce is what commercial interests perpetually attempt, as something that serves their interests, as opposed to the interests of workers and consumers, right?

And so what we're talking about is de-regulation, when we talk about CAFTA or NAFTA, right?


I have a suggestion: Stop using the words "free" and "freedom", when what we're talking about is de-regulation.

Don't say "free trade", say "de-regulated trade" or "unregulated trade".

Doesn't "free trade" simply mean trade or Commerce that is de-regulated or unregulated?

You see how one side in this debate, by dictating the terms or words used in this debate, and by inserting the word "free" in a place where what's really meant is de-regulated or unregulated, you see how they set the other side up, to appear to be arguing against "freedom", and against something "free"?


It handicaps your argument, if you appear to be arguing against "freedom", by arguing against "free trade"; call it "de-regulated trade" or "unregulated trade" instead.

You'll have not changed the meaning of the Trade Agreement or whatever, not one bit, right?


It's no small tactic the other side employs, when they employ the "free" or "freedom" in place of the words "de-regulation" or "unregulated".

[therealredstateblues]

good point Demo2020

we need to get a handle on the manipulative war of words and call spades spades.

[faust2001]

Thanks for being independant, Senator. The 2-party duopoly has wrecked this nation and its economy, and through obvious rigged games like NAFTA and CAFTA, they're hell-bent on wrecking other economies as well. The predictable and discreditable accusations of "socialist!" from the Socialist Far Right ("sacrifice your well-being for the good of the state--er, I mean the economy") no longer hold water. The oligarchs complain about Chavez and Castro, but the reason for Chavez and Castro (and Lenin and Robespierre) is because people aren't willing to participate in their own disenfranchisement forever. The idea is to level the playing field through sound economic policy (the original name for this idea was democracy) so that you don't wind up with those folks in charge. I wish the people of Costa Rica good luck in their struggle for independance, but the forces aligned against them are formidable in their treachery. Thanks again, Senator!

[rdiazsi]

I'm from Costa Rica and I will vote yes unwillingly to approve the DR-CAFTA, because I fear an exodus of jobs to other Central American countries.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

Sen. Sanders, you couldn't be more right. You wrote "In Mexico, the agricultural sector has been decimated by cheap exports from American agribusiness. Poverty has increased, the middle class has declined and people are literally dying in the desert trying to flee Mexico for the U.S." I wish more people would make the connection between NAFTA and the huge influx of undocumented immigrants this past decade. NAFTA did to the Mexican Family Farmers what Regan/Bush did to U.S. Family Farmers in the 80's. How, as a human being, can I blame/hate anyone for doing whatever it takes to feed their famillies? If the tables were turned, I'd run for the border too!

[ihavenobias]

Yes, we absolutely need more senators like Bernie.

This topic raises another interesting point.

We always hear about all the cheap goods/services we have thanks to the double whammy of outsourcing & insourcing.

And while I'm dubious of just how much we *actually* save, no one points out that the a lot of the supposed savings come in the form of *non-essential* goods and services.

Ok, so we can buy cheaper flat screens, MP3 Players and the list goes on and on.

Meanwhile real wages and benefits are stagnant at best and going down at worst with rising inflation for the things we *actually* need (gas, food, etc).

Although as I've said before, does anyone actually know how much we save by outsourcing/insourcing labor? Is there any research that clearly shows that as consumers, we save X number of dollars on average?

I'm guessing no, primarily because I don't think we ARE saving that much money, if we're saving anything at all.

Most corporations (like Nike) kept prices at about the same level even *after* shipping labor to some third world country and passed those savings onto (drumroll) CEO's and the other top brass along with a few more bucks for their shareholders.

Meanwhile the spin is that we're supposed to be THANKFUL for being able to accumulate a bunch of "cheap" electronics and other non-essential goods and services.

[bobble]

"Ok, so we can buy cheaper flat screens, MP3 Players and the list goes on and on.

Meanwhile real wages and benefits are stagnant at best and going down at worst with rising inflation for the things we *actually* need (gas, food, etc)."


bingo! i think you're on to something there

[therealredstateblues]

Mao- Mart advertisements claims they "save" the average consumer $2300 a year with their cheap (and potentially dangerous) chinese crap.

Economists like Alan Blinder (a former free marketeer who has seen the light) say that the loss of income growth potential for middle class workers from globalization averages aroun $9000.

So thats a net loss of $6700 per year for middle class families

[editorjuno]

"mgh234" neglects to mention that when a factory worker loses a $50K+ production job with full benefits and resorts to working as a full-time WalMart greeter or burger flipper to fend off starvation and/or foreclosure, the faux economic indicator fallaciously called the "unemployment rate" remains the same. Free trade ideology is a recipe for the destruction of the American middle class -- it must be supplanted with a true fair trade approach that protects both our traditional standard of living and our international competitiveness.

[getalife80]

Why the f*ck should a factory worker get paid $50,000/year? They can be replaced by a chimp or a robot.

[Rule Of Law]

getalife-

This is sarcasm, Yes?

[Misanthrope2]

Spoken like someone who has never worked for a living. Who do you think fixes the machines?

[therealredstateblues]

Why should a CEO be paid $211 million for getting fired? (Home Debt's ex-CEO Nardelli)

Rule #1 folks - don't feed the trolls!

This get a life person needs to do just that.

If you work hard in a factory you deserve every cent of that 50k and then some!

[BrooklynC]

Bernie--thanks so much for your resolute and principled service. As a sometimes resident of a poor part of Vermont, I tout you and Sen. Leahy as the best delegation in the Senate. My neighbors in Corinth, who when I met them were gun rightists, anti-welfare, suspicious of "flatlanders," homophobic etc. etc. have traveled a long way with me since 1968, and they are just as proud of you as I am. My sister is an old fan of yours. When she was in med school at UVM, she called your office when you were Mayor. It was lunchtime and everyone else was out of the office. You answered the phone. Give 'em hell (to coin a phrase), Bernie.

[dadw5boys]

Senator Sanders,
We need you guys to stand everyday and tell the American People about this great transfer of wealth from the Public Sector to the Private Sector.
They built a $5 million dollar Police College in Iraq and Piad $72 million for it and it is Uninhabitable because the place is dripping with human waste. The plumbing failed the first week. No repairs and no refunds from the California Company that built it.

[quarterhorsetexas]

The good Senator should be running for President.

[plutorage]

The problem with the way trade agreements are negotiated is that you have interests on one side lined up against interests on the other side - skins and shirts - who end up writing agreements that are good for the team members but not necessarily good for the country where the teams reside.

There should be minimum standards in countries that are members of WTO. I would exclude salary from the regulation and include environmental, workplace conditions, health care, etc.

A regime could be put in place that raises a tariff on goods imported from a country that violates rules. That way trade continues and a country can do what it wants since it can always pay the penalty while violating the rules.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

EUREKA! The last paragraph has the SEED of a genuinely improved policy. One feature that could be added is some sort of compusory publicity, i.e., nationwide notification as to why a cohort of products are being penalized....

ALSO, the country-of-origin indications need to be MUCH, MUCH LARGER even to the point of qualifications like: "Proudly Made in the PRC by Non-union Workers (who couldn't strike even if they were organized....!)"

OVERALL: The U.S. FAILS to use access to its markets effectively as a bargaining chip; otherwise, the Chinese would not ENJOY a $237 billion TRADE SURPLUS with the U.S.

GET TOUCH with the CHINESE! It has to come sometime! FORCE them to revalue the renminbi!!!

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Please excuse: That should read: "GET TOUGH with the CHINESE!" They NEED access to U.S. consumer markets MORE than the U.S. needs them--in the long run...!

[EspressoAtNoon]

I agree Senator. Excellent post!!

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

RONPAUL WANTS TO GET RID OF ALL THESE HURTFUL TRADE POLICIES.

[DanBest]

... and abolish just about every agency in the government. I used to fancy myself a libertarian until I realized that in the political landscape, the libertarians play the role of the streetwalkers, while the Republican party is the high priced penthouse call girl and the Democratic party is the reluctant mistress. You can't talk about individual liberties and ignore the threat that mulitnational corporations pose to the very same liberties. Paul, like the entire right wing, believes that somehow all social problems will be solved by a free market solution. They've had more than enough chances to prove this axiom, but, in my opinion they have failed miserably.

[mode4811]

In all fairness, centralized control has had it's chance all over the world and didn't fair so well either...

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

Although I absolutely agree with your picture of the political landscape, I feel it is actually in a place to change for the better of the people.
Only if with all these resignations and convictions we have are filled with progressives from both sides....Yes, there are many right wing progressive people...They hold views from both sides and are split.
I am prochoice and against certain Immigration policies that we currently have.
I dont believe the Federal government has spent wisely and I believe drastic change is needed.

I believe, as Dr. Paul that the country has removed itself of rule by the people and I believe he is the only one to get us back on track.
There are many vacancies coming up.
If they are filled with the right people, we will have trade policies that the PEOPLE want, in place.
RON PAUL SAYS IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT HIS AGENDA IS, THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, THROUGH THE CONSTITUTION WILL HEAL THIS COUNTRY.
I AGREE WITH YOUR VIEW OF MULTINATIONALS, THEY ARE DESTROYING US. bUT IF WE HAVE A LEADER THAT WILL LET THE PEOPLE TO DECIDE, IT HAS BEEN PROVEN TIME AND TIME AGIN THAT THIS WAY IS THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE TRUE FEEDOM AND PROSPERITY FOR ALL AMERICANS NOT JUST THE MAJORITY.
HE WILL BE ELECTED TO PROTECT THE WEAK AND DEFENSELESS. THE POOR NEED NOT WORRY WITH HIM.

I BELIEVE RON WILL BE OUR TOOL TO CORRECT CURRENT FAILED POLICIES.

GO RON PAUL.

[Misanthrope2]

Ron Paul wants to get rid of women's right to choice and federal civil rights and national environmental protection. And he is a racist.

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW HIS VIEW OF RON PAUL.
SENATOR, YOURE ONE OF THE FEW I WOULD ASK OR LISTEN, CAN YOU TELL ME YOUR VIEW?