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.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Bernie Sanders for President!
As it stands now, Costa-Ricans enjoy free health care and free education through college. How long will that last when the free marketers start demanding privatization?
One foot in the door.
And no Army, either.
Costa Rica has also one of the best electricity generation and distribution system and it has no oil.
It is a country that is an example of a civilized latin american society.
We ought to follow that lead and have a referendum on the "Free" Trade Agreements as well.
Yes, Costa Rica has no army since 1948, because Figueres, who won the 1948 Civil War caused by fraud election, was tearful of a coup d'etat (the army was still loyal to Calderón, the loser). But Costa Rica has one of the most high level of crimes due lack of security. There's lack of security (even with poor salaries), because there's much bureaucracy who consumed the taxes crazily (13% for sale taxes).
Yes, we enjoy free education for school and high school, but bad quality comparing with private ones. Public universities are not free, but with subsidies for a cheap price.
About free health care, a needed person for a treatment, he/she have to wait at least two months to one year, depending the case.
About the electricity, it's because USA hasn't enough rivers to generate energy. But with the rain problems, ICE (Costa Rican Institute of Energy) was forced to buy oil to attend to growing demand. (There's a project on Terraba, the most wealthy river of Central America in Costa Rica, but Amerindians opposed it.)
Passed the CAFTA, there will be privatization of markets (telecommunication and insurances), but the Constitution of Costa Rica demands every human access to education and to life in order to protect the natural rights.
Still, with the deregulated trade, there will be social inequality. (Chile has the most quantity of free trades, but has the most high level of social inequality)
Right on, Senator!
Bush-bots may claim he was joking but the quote "This is an impressive crowd, the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base" says all you need to know about who Bush and his cabal cares about.
(continued)
On a side note, most of the anti-NAFTA (and probably CAFTA, don't know much about the inner workings of latin american politics)is caused by lobbyists trying to get tariffs/qu
for an example of why free trade is good just look at the steel tariffs...
MGH:
Here is the graduate level of international finance rebuttal to what you argue: Factor price equilibrium will compete wage differences away, I mean face it, free enerprise capitalism looks to minimize expense. So restrict this just to Mexico (it applies equally well to the globalism) and compare an general wage rate in USA of $15 per hour competing with a general wage rate in Mexico of $1 per hour. When the invisible workings of the free market are finished, the general wage rate will rest at $9 per hour. The arguments for efficiency and increased GDP are yours, however put yourself in the sovereign position of an US American. You get screwed. (The investment bankers make out like bandits ya-da ya-da but working Americans get blended into a lower wage rate)
Culture and identity and sovereignty will become things of the past. (Is Italy, for example a nation, or a state of the EU. This is the price)
Prices will equalize eventually (or come close, there will always be natural resource scarcity, thats a problem of substainibility), that is true. But the wage wont become $9 or $8, it would become $16 and $16 in both countries for example. You'll have twice the demand, but twice the the number of factories making the product, and those factories will be more efficient than they are now.
The arguement you are making is basically that we should continue to exploit poor countries because it makes us richer, which is something most people on this board disagree with (Although I disagree on this premise working anyways)
Culture and identity you might be right, I don't know too much about sociology and anthropology, but I view them as causes of conflict and not of that much importance. I'd assume people would always have a way to identify through religion, acquintances and common interest.
to a commentor below "Why are illegal immigrants moving into our country." Free trade also assumes free movement of labor (all the mexicans who want in should be allowed to), and illegal immigration is good for the economy (they should pay taxes though, but the solution to that is rather simple)
Except that the independent super market worker made more money than the walmart worker and could better afford the bookbags etc.
This senseless argument of cheaper products helping the poor is very hollow indeed. What would be a much greater help to the poor is real job opportunites that pay better than the local Walmart - who ran out the mom and pops, and sent the local factory to china.
All this cheaper product scenario does is further increase the downward cycle of poverty - not help it as yet another false premise of "free" trade.
Does no over understand how free trade works, jesus christ. Bernie Sander's I really appreciate you're work in congress, but it seems you - like most politicans and American - fail to understand economics 101
Comparative Advantage should be basic reading for all Americans and Politicians who complain about outsourcing, dumping, free trade, etc
The reason Mexico and India are able to take this job is because they are more efficient at it. This not only helps "Big business" but it helps the lower and middle class also...thr
A common rebuttle is "who cares if products are cheaper if I don't have a job." It is true that jobs are destroyed, but new ones are created! Ever since NAFTA, people complain that we are losing jobs and they can hear the "swoosh" (Perot reference). But our UNEMPLOYMENT RATE HAS stayed the same. Through free trade the economy is made more efficient, and the GDP of U.S. and world increase as high as possible. (efficiency same reason why Walmart is more efficient than mom and pop stores, sure they lose their jobs, but a much more efficient way would be job retraining and better unemployment benefits)
Whereas it is true that free trade can possible cause a greater wealth discrepancy, a MUCH MORE efficient way to deal with this is to tax the rich more and other forms of wealth distribution. We are deflating our GDP by ALOT with protectionism in order to save these jobs. Efficieny kind of takes a while to explain, but think of it this way...woul
Yeah...new jobs *are* created.
I've got three of them.
*ahem*
to reiterated, trade blocks are the WORST way to combay inequality. Our economic policy should be the have the highest possible GDP, our social policy should be to redistribute the wealth in a fair fashion. Free trade gives the highest possible GDP.
Question..
Or, is that just a fortuitous side effect of the agreements?
I mean business can make money either way. by either paying them next to nothing in their home country or, in the US, by employing them illegally, paying them less than minimum wage with no benefits, no unemployment insurance, no workers comp, no unions and hey, let's admit it, they should be happy and shut up anyway because they were making less back home.
Until these agreements are modified to close the gap on some of these inequities there are going to be problems with the chasm between big, big, big business and xenophobic isolationists growing wider everyday.
India and Mexico are more efficient- if you consider it efficiency to pay pennies a day to your workforce. Hey, you know what's even more efficient? Slavery.
It is absurd to make the comparison on the basis of who is more "efficient" unless you broaden that to include quality of life, not just some cheaper prices on lead-laden barbie dolls at Target.
Although, I do agree that we should tax the fucking rich. The income gap is the surest indicator of the handbasket we are riding.
"mgh" is trying to demonstrate that he's read an old copy of ATLAS SHRUGGED or some other etiolated fantasy of economic theory....
"Does no over understand how free trade works, jesus christ" from mgh234
You may actually convince me of the veracity of your argument were it not for your almost unreadable comment. You shoot yourself and your argument in the foot when it appears that you are such a careless writer. Better luck next time, free market cheerleader. "The world is flat! The world is flat!" Um, no, actually it's still round.
Senator - Well said and thank you for your wisdom. Fair, not free trade is what we need. NAFTA terminology like "harmonization" scare me, as obviously played out in the markets of Mexico and U.S. as described in your article. We still have a few on the hill that want to move in this direction, and fewer running for the presidency. We should all take a very close look at what this country needs, not wants, when deciding how we're going flourish in trade while protecting U.S. sovereignty. Respectfully, Patrick Wilber
WOW!!!
THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS!! SOMEONE HAS TO SCREAM IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!!!
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you Senator Sanders for this insightful posting. There is only one thing I take issue with and it is that there is only an increase in the gap between the rich and the poor. As your statistics note there is a ever widening gap between the rich and everyone else in the country. Under the Bush/Clinton era the working class has been wiped out. The very consumers who are needed to buy cheap products from China at Wal-Mart are under pressure. Just this summer the CEO of Wal-Mart admitted that same store sales were down as were profits. The reason is Wal-Mart's customers are running out of money before the end of the month and Wal-Mart has had to slash already low prices in order to keep customers coming in.
They're only able to do this because margins on CHINESE-sourced goods(???) are so large.....
THAT's NOT 'FREE' trade OR 'FAIR' trade....
Thank you Senator Sanders, for your words here and to the Costa Rican People. That our face in our own hemisphere, and indeed around the world, is one of Corporatism and retribution against free people who might choose another way is a sad commentary on our Nation and the Administration. I appreciate you setting the record straight for our neighbors in Costa Rica, and letting them know that many if not most Americans want what they want, namely fair and equitable trade practices which benefit workers in both our nations.
When we treat our friends in this manner, by intimidation and lies, ... is it any wonder that the number of friends to America is dwindling around the world?
Keep up your excellent work, sir!
Bernie, I'd be worried if the WSJ WASN'T writing nasty things about you!
Thanks for the stat ammo. It comes in handy when discussing the concept of "free trade" vs "FAIR TRADE" with fence-sitters.
I applaud your courage, sir!! Keep up the GREAT WORK!!!
Be sure also to mention that the RENMINBI is NOT free to float upward against the dollar, i.e., the Chinese trade surplus with the U.S. CANNOT be self-correcting. (As the so-called 'free traders' acclaim markets work!!!)
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
