David Sirota: SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 49: As Fast Track Expires, K Street Gets Frantic

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/8385

SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 49: As Fast Track Expires, K Street Gets Frantic
by David Sirota | Jun 28 2007

This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration. That deal encompasses free trade agreements with Peru, Panama, South Korea and Colombia, and is designed to pave the pay for the passage of presidential fast track authority - the authority that lets presidents eliminate all labor, environmental and human rights provisions from trade agreements.

Apologies for the lack of reports on the Secret Trade Deal of 2007 during my move to Denver - there is certainly a lot to report. The White House finally released the legislative texts of the Secret Trade Deal, weeks after the deal was announced. Now frantic to package the deal and ram it through Congress over the expected objections of most rank-and-file Democrats, the deal makers, backed by an army of K Street lobbyists, are prepared for the final push. Intensifying the push is the imminent expiration of fast track trade authority - the authority that allows presidents to strip all labor, human rights and environmental protections out of trade pacts. Here is today's report.

ANDEAN TRADE PREFERENCE BILL SETS STAGE FOR FIGHT OVER SECRET TRADE DEAL: As reported here yesterday, Congress is considering a bill to renew existing trade preferences for Andean nations. Reuters reports that the bill passed the House with strong bipartisan support and is expected to pass the Senate easily. The maneuvering over the bill tell the more complicated story of the trade battle within Congress. Most fair trade lawmakers ended up supporting the bill because had it failed, it would have created more urgency to pass the bigger - and far more destructive - Secret Trade Deal - the package of bilateral free trade agreements that vastly expands the status quo, NAFTA-style trade system. Those on both sides of the bigger trade fight agree that the votes on the Andean trade preferences bill was not a referendum on where Congress is on the bigger question of how - and whether - to reform America's lobbyist-written trade policy.

BUSH AND DEMS RACE TO PACKAGE SECRET DEAL; ENFORCEMENT GUARANTEES SPECIFICALLY PREVENTED: The New York Times and Reuters reports on a frantic flurry of negotiations between the Bush administration, a handful of congressional Democrats and the governments of Panama, Peru, South Korea and Colombia designed to package and promote the secret trade deal in the face of massive opposition from labor, consumer protection, religious, agriculture and human rights organizations representing millions of citizens. Though the legislative text of the secret deal has now - finally - been released and there have been some improvements in the labor and environmental standards of these proposed pacts, the deals deliberately exclude any provisions allowing for third-party enforcement of the much-touted new standards. While corporations continue to enjoy the rights in trade deals to sue for enforcement of patent, copyright and intellectual property protections, labor, human rights and environmental organizations will be denied similar rights to sue for enforcement of labor, human rights and environmental protections. This means that all enforcement of the celebrated new labor and environmental provisions will be left up to the Bush White House - a guarantee that such provisions will continue to go unenforced.

NEW DEMS PRESSURE PELOSI, PLOT PASSAGE OF SECRET TRADE DEAL AT MEETING WITH BUSH: CongressDaily reports that " President Bush hosted about a dozen House Democratic lawmakers who have traditionally been supportive of trade agreements at the White House" with Bush making "a pitch for the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement." Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), one of the few Democratic lawmakers to help Bush pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement, said Bush "let us know how important Colombia was from a geo-political perspective." Meeks and a handful of other corporate-backed Democrats are holding out the possibility that they will support the proposed deal with the government of Colombia - a government that actively colludes with paramilitary gangs to execute union organizers (and a government that has recently put a group of former Clinton administration officials on its payroll to help ram - or perhaps, Rahm - the pact through Congress). AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and United Steelworkers of America President Leo Gerard met with Pelosi the same week to stress their opposition to the deal, but Meeks "said Pelosi has made no such commitment" to oppose it. These same Democrats also last week invited Bush officials to speak at the launch of the Congressional Services Caucus - a group spearheaded by Reps. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., and Kevin Brady, R-Texas to advocate for the financial service industry's interests in Congress.

WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DOCUMENT IMPACT OF TRADE DEALS: Last month, this website reported that five senators are pushing legislation to force all future trade deals to include benchmarks for economic success in the core texts - benchmarks on wages, job growth, and other economic factors that, if not met, would allow Congress to terminate the trade pact in question. During a meeting with Bush administration officials about the proposal, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab "insisted it is not possible to measure the economic impact of trade agreements, including job creation," according to a press release from U.S. Sen. Jim Webb's (D-VA) office. Schwab's absurd claim contradicts the U.S. government's own reports which measures such data, and reports by, among others, the Economic Policy Institute.

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[some guy]

1. Everything and anything

the Bush White House wants should be put on hold until they start responding honestly and openly to Congressional subpoenas.