Right Wing Nuts Aren't Right About Much, But They've Always Known How "Free" Trade Agreements Would Impinge On U.S. Sovereignty

Free Trade bills like NAFTA are classic corporate conservative policies. George H.W. Bush tried to get NAFTA passed for his corporate buddies but the unions and the Democrats put up a big enough stink that he failed. So Bill Clinton told the corporations he could do it for them. He hired a then unknown slimy little thug from his campaign to do the trick-- and Rahm Emanuel when to work endearing himself to Wall Street. In the end most Democrats voted against NAFTA but Clinton and Emanuel got 102 of them to join the vast majority of Republicans to pass it 234-200. Some of the biggest boosters were crooked Republican hacks like Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey (more recently reincarnated as the Tea Party czar), Pete Hoekstra (currently running for senator in Michigan), John Boehner, Tom DeLay, Buck McKeon, John Kasich (now Ohio's governor), and John Kyl and Rob Portman (both of whom are now sentaors considered front-runners to be Romney's running mate). Among the corporate Democrats who betrayed working families that day-- no surprises: Harold Ford, Steny Hoyer, Paul Ryan's ally Ron Wyden, Howard Berman... And who opposed it? Sherrod Brown, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Barney Frank, Jerry Nadler, Henry Waxman, Bernie Sanders... you get the picture.

Then almost a year to the day later, Clinton rammed through another Big Business boondaggle, the disastrous GATT/WTO legislation, the last vote of the year, which passed 288-146. 89 Democats and 56 Republicans voted against it, including the same Sherrod Brown, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Barney Frank, Jerry Nadler, Henry Waxman and Bernie Sanders.

By 2000, it was undeniable how bad the WTO was for American workers and there was a move to repeal it. But corporate bribes are mighty powerful and when the roll call was called, repeal failed 56-363, a mere 33 Democrats and 21 Republicans (+2 independents) standing up for America. Who voted to get us out of the WTO? Sherrod Brown, Maxine Waters, Tammy Baldwin, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Dennis Kucinich, Marcy Kaptur on the Democratic side and Ron Paul (who introduced the resolution), Walter Jones, Don Young on the Republican side.

Are you wondering why I'm bring up this old news? Everything old is new again. And the DC Conservative Consensus is passing disastrous trade legislation again, wonderful for sociopathic multinational companies, catastrophic for American workers... and for American sovereignty

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 law.

The Obama administration's key health care achievement slammed by the WTO was the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA), sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). The ruling, issued Wednesday, was on the final U.S. appeal which means that now the U.S. has 60 days to begin to implement the WTO's orders or face trade sanctions.

This outrageous WTO ruling should be a wake up call. Increasingly "trade" agreements are being used to undo important domestic consumer, environmental and health policies. Instead, the Obama administration has intensified its efforts to expand these very rules in a massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "free trade" agreement.

The WTO's ruling against banning the sale of flavored cigarettes isn't the only example of its attack on consumer protection and health laws. The U.S. has filed WTO appeals on two other U.S. consumer laws-- U.S. country-of-origin meat labels and the U.S. dolphin-safe tuna label-- both were slammed by lower WTO tribunals in the past six months. Yup, in short order we could see the WTO hating on Flipper, feeding us mystery meat and getting our kids addicted to smoking.

The challenged tobacco control U.S. law was designed to reduce teen smoking by banning "starter flavorings," since tobacco firms had begun marketing flavors like cola, chocolate, strawberry and clove. The 2009 law forced U.S. firms to cease sales of these products, whether imported or domestically produced.

Wednesday, the WTO sided with Indonesia, who claimed that the U.S. ban of their imported clove-favored cigarettes should not be allowed. A key reason was that the U.S. had not banned all flavored-cigarettes (namely menthols). Thus, they argued, the policy unfairly hit Indonesia. However, data showing that teens are more likely than adults to smoke cloves (while menthol smokers include vast numbers of adults) was dismissed.

Given these recent WTO rulings spotlighting just how dangerous the existing "trade" agreement model is for an array of non-trade public interest policies, you might expect that the Obama administration would finally start implementing candidate Obama's 2008 election pledges to renegotiate existing agreements and create a new model. Instead, the U.S. is pushing for completion this summer of a nine-nation TPP that contains the same rules. The deal would also empower foreign corporations to privately enforce these rules by suing the U.S. government directly before kangaroo courts, comprised of three private sector lawyers operating under UN and World Bank investor-state arbitration rules.

The American public is uniquely united against more-of-the-same trade deals. Thus, if only for political expediency, the administration must stand with the thousands of Americans who have signed a Consumer Rights Pledge calling on the U.S. to not comply with these illegitimate trade pact rulings, and to "knock it off" on the TPP negotiations that would greatly intensify this problem.

This ruling just adds to the growing evidence that today's "trade" agreements are no longer mainly about trade; they're about corporate power and influence. Chevron is using these corporate power grab terms to try to dodge paying $18 billion to clean up horrific contamination in the Amazon ordered after 18 years of U.S. and Ecuadorian court rulings. Philip Morris is using the system to attack Australian and Uruguayan cigarette plain packaging laws that were designed to discourage smoking.

The only Blue America candidate opposing someone who is old enough and so long in office and so much of a corrupt corporate shill to have voted for these crap policies is Lee Rogers, who's trying to replace Buck McKeon in northwest Los Angeles county. We asked him how he differed from McKeon on trade policies. He's concerned about the impact on American workers and the impact on American sovereignty and is especially worried about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will be coming up in Congress next year.

Giving the WTO authority to review and strike down US law is a self-inflicted attack on our sovereignty. Not surprising, my opponent, Rep. Buck McKeon voted for the WTO agreement. This is a clear example of how dangerous these trade agreements can be. It's outrageous to think that an international tribunal has oversight over US commercial law intended to prevent teen smoking. This agreement is nothing more than a corporate power tool branded as a trade agreement. The next trade agreement on the horizon is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The full version of this agreement has not been released by the US trade representative despite repeated calls from advocacy groups. But, some leaked versions appear to establish new global norms not present in US law, like enforcing patents against surgeons or other medical professionals for performing procedures. As the world's largest economy, we'd enter this agreement with small nations like Brunei and Singapore. If nations like Vietnam and Malaysia, who are currently negotiating, become members, it could have a serious impact on American farmers. I support putting the TPP on hold and renegotiating the WTO's mandate."