So below is part of an article from The Daily Standard I found on Free Trade. Read at least the following if not the entire article and let me know what you think. I know this article is written very pointed for one party vs. the other, but that is not my point.
“SO IT DOES INDEED end with a whimper rather than a bang. Free trade, I mean. Thanks to a president too weak politically to withstand the protectionist surge of a Democratic Congress, the era of ever-freer trade has come to an end. It expired quietly, with few mourners, and some of those who have done it in claiming that the corpse is alive and well.
Susan Schwab, U.S. Trade representative, found it politically necessary to claim that the deal cut by a weakened President Bush and a reluctant Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson with a triumphant Congress “shows the U.S. is not turning protectionist.” I doubt whether her more candid predecessor, Bob Zoellick, could have been persuaded to claim victory in the face of so significant a defeat.
The deal, still subject to congressional approval, is this: The Democrats will agree to approve two minor trade agreements, one with Peru and the other with Panama, in return for a Republican agreement to require its trading partners to adopt a series of environmental and labor market “reforms.” Those “reforms” include the recognition of the right of trade unions to organize workers, the outlawing of most child labor and of workplace discrimination, and a requirement to allow patent protections of pharmaceuticals to lapse overseas when they expire in the United States. We can sue our trading partners if they violate the agreement, and they can sue us. For example, if some country such as Panama decides that we are violating trade union rights here at home, they can bring suit to pressure Congress to change the law
Never mind that these provisions are an invitation to anti-trade forces in America to bring suit against countries deemed to be lax in enforcing these new standards. Or that the agreement opens the door to suits against our own government. More important is what this deal tells about the shift in the balance of political forces that determine future trade policy.” Source The Daily Standard
- I think that if we have all of these green laws forced on us, it is counter productive to allow goods to be brought in here that do not have to meet the same standards.
- Not sure on Union stuff.
- As for Child Labor, I do not understand where the adults are? Are they working too, or just pimping out thier kids. I think that if Kids work there must be a reason, like poverty, lack of education, lack of a goverment that cares at all about their people. But if kids do have to work, then they should be paid as much as adults, seems to me that would employ more adults or help the child break the cycle? I know it is more complicated than that. But I think that the US should not allow products in that were made by children until we know why and that the loser companies and countries have a plan to improve the lives of it’s child workers.
- Other countries sueing us does not sound so good, but us sueing them sounds great. Sounds like we could almost use that right as a line item veto to block certain companies from exporting to us while allowing others? That could help tilt the balance. However I’m sure our abilty to sue and complain will be hamstrung by the same people that are supposed to be protecting us.
- If we allow goods to be brought in to the US that were produced in ways that we would not allow here at home we are just creating a second class person that it is OK to take advantage of, a second class country where it is OK to pollute, and so on. It is like the idiots that pay a carbon tax when they fly in private jets they can pollute and feel good about it because they have some money to waste on making themselves feel better.
- Bottom line for me is we stop importing items that made in ways we don’t allow at home. That will raise the bar. ( I know other things have to happen as well, it is not that simple)
