Michigan pays high price for free trade agreements
The Detroit News, USA
Michigan pays high price for free trade agreements
Stop president from putting U.S. on fast track to despair
By James P. Hoffa: Labor Voices
13 April 2007
As a proud Michigan native, I’m angry about the dire financial conditions facing the state and its families. Michigan has fallen from its boom days primarily because our good-paying manufacturing jobs have been exported.
We’re in "the most severe crisis in the state’s existence," says David Littmann, senior economist at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, in a recent Washington Post story. For the first time since the Great Depression, Michigan is a poor state relative to the rest of the nation. Detroit has the highest unemployment rate of any U.S. city.
Free trade flight
A chief facilitator of this migration, of both our neighbors and jobs with fair pay and benefits, are so-called "free trade" agreements. The truth is, there is nothing free about these deals — we’re paying a high price for these deals. Our federal government must rethink the way it negotiates trade agreements.
A smart first step is allowing the fast track authority to expire on July 1. This authority lets presidents negotiate trade deals and submit them to Congress for a vote within 90 legislative days. They must be rejected or approved with no amendments.
Since Congress granted President George W. Bush this power in 2002, he has used it to craft a series of agreements that sell workers short.
The "free trade" agreements — with individual countries, such as Australia, Chile, Morocco, Oman and Bahrain, and greater regional agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) — are nothing more than off-shoring agreements that have made it easier for U.S. companies to shop for the cheapest sweatshop wage and weakest labor laws.
Since the Bush administration has negotiated another substandard "free trade" agreement with South Korea, congressional Democrats criticized the proposed deal as "completely inadequate in the face of Korea’s longstanding iron curtain to American manufactured products," particularly U.S. cars. Only 4,000 American cars were sold in South Korea last year, while South Korea exported 800,000 vehicles to the United States. This imbalance must be addressed.
Trade deficit soars
Our country’s trade agreements have become increasingly problematic since Bush took office. Although the United States has run trade deficits for more than three decades, the shortfalls have more than doubled under Bush, reaching higher records in each of the past five years.
In 2006, our balance of payments deficit topped $760 billion. Since 1994, the first full year NAFTA was in effect, we have accumulated more than $5 trillion in external or trade debt. (That’s staggering; most CEOs won’t even make that much in a lifetime.)
What’s more, some of these agreements have inadvertently created national security issues. By severely reducing our manufacturing base, we rely on other nations to build materials that allow us to defend our nation.
By contrast, our trade policy should benefit companies and workers. Such a policy could make a major difference in Michigan and throughout the country by providing job security for workers and their families; improving the quality of schools; and determining whether children’s job prospects are booming or flagging.
As Michigan proves, we cannot achieve these results while fast track authority exists.
James P. Hoffa is president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
