[CTC] Crosscut (Seattle): Pacific trade fight makes for local discomfort

[Fred Heutte]

http://crosscut.com/2015/04/pacific-trade-fight-makes-for-local-discomfort/

Pacific trade fight makes for local discomfort

by Martha Baskin 

This week, local fair trade advocates are lobbying members of
Congress, who are home on a spring recess. Last week, the activists
had cause for celebration at home: All nine members of the Seattle
City Council passed a resolution in favor of a new kind of trade
policy and more balanced trade agreements.

The idea of “fair trade” is an uphill fight in Congress, but it
appears to have resonance in the state’s largest port city. Language
in the resolution favors trade policies and agreements that protect
local jobs, respect domestic environmental laws and acknowledge the
rights of cities and states to make “reasonable rules and
regulations” without fear of being sued. The Bellingham City Council
passed a similar resolution the week before.

The resolutions are largely symbolic. But both fair trade advocates
and those satisfied with the current “free trade” model say the
city’s views can be significant, coming from a state that bills
itself as the nation’s most trade dependent.

Congress is expected to take up Obama’s request for trade-promotion
authority later this month. Commonly called “fast track,” the
authority requires Congress take an up-or-down vote on trade pacts
with no amendments or changes. The trade agreement of particular
concern to those on the West Coast is the Trans Pacific Partnership,
or TPP, a proposed pact the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim countries have
been negotiating for the past five years.

Gillian Locascio of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition said,
“There’s absolutely no reason why a trade agreement that has been
negotiated in complete secrecy and that civil society hasn’t been
involved should be fast-tracked through.” Civil society, in this
case, refers to non-corporate players at both the local and national
level. 350Seattle.org, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense
Council, Food and Water Watch, the AFL-CIO and Washington State Labor
Council and numerous faith and consumer watch dogs groups have been
in full “battle mode,” said Locascio, since Obama reaffirmed his
support for the TPP in his State of the Union address in January.

The TPP negotiations have drawn in 600 corporate trade advisers on
the U.S. side. Only a small percentage of advisers represented civil
society, according to Stan Sorscher of the Society of Professional
Engineering Employees in Aerospace, and their recommendations have
not been taken into account. Last year, a more diverse “Public
Interest Trade Advisory Committee” was set up to expand the range of
advice, said Sorscher, but it never developed. “To the extent that
the original public interest trade advisers from civil society were
window dressing, then the diversity campaign is window dressing on
the window dressing.”

Business groups and several state and congressional representatives
see trade policy and trade agreement through a different lens. They
called the Seattle City Council vote a huge step backward for global
trade. Eric Schinfeld, president of the Washington Council on
International Trade, suggested that the council and public take their
time forming judgments about the “fast-track” legislation, which is
expected within weeks, and the final version of the TPP deal. “Let’s
read it. Let’s see if it has some of these concerns about labor and
the environment and regulating the public interest before we decide
it’s a terrible thing.” Schinfeld, whose members include Boeing,
Microsoft, and SSA Marine, said 40 percent of all state jobs are tied
to trade. “We benefit when good trade policies help our companies be
more competitive in the international market place.”

He questioned whether the overwhelmingly support for the resolution
at the Seattle City Council meeting indicated any public ground swell
against the president’s trade agenda just. Not everyone is free to
attend midday City Council hearings, he noted. A poll by the Pew
Research Center last year found 59 percent of Americans think free
trade generally is good for the country.

If agreement on trade hinged on the top exports and imports moving
through the Port of Seattle, it’s likely the contentious camps would
find common ground. Edible fruits and nuts, machinery and meat are
among the top exports with electrical machinery, furniture and
bedding, and apparel the top imports. True disagreement might be
found over where the commodities are manufactured and the carbon
footprint of exporting meat; but disputes over trade policy and the
multiple trade agreements spawned over the last two decades don’t
really hinge on exports and imports.

Instead they revolve around the architecture of the agreements, who’s
negotiating them, outsourcing of jobs, the potential of unelected
global tribunals to override domestic laws and the billions that
nation states have been forced to pay when clean energy policies
collide with expected profits of multinational fossil fuel companies.
The agreements have been criticized for their lack of transparency by
Democrats and Republicans alike. So far, members of Congress have
been allowed to read the Trans Pacific Partnership but are not
allowed to take notes, talk about what they read or make copies.

Much of what is known about the content of the TPP has been exposed
through leaks. Wikileaks released the environmental chapter last
year. In late March Wikileaks did the same with the controversial
investment chapter, which gives broad rights to corporations to sue
governments over laws they think will reduce profits. Environmental
organizations are particularly concerned about the system set up to
protect corporate rights, known as “Investor State Dispute
Settlement” or ISDS. ISDS has been written into many trade agreements
since the North American Free Trade Agreement/NAFTA was passed in
1994 and remains intact in the TPP.

Sierra Club Responsible Trade Director Ilana Solomon says there have
been an estimated 600 cases of corporations challenging governments
since NAFTA. The challenges are increasingly about clean energy and
climate policy.

One example cited by Solomon is the EU’s landmark climate policy or
Fuel Quality Directive (FQD), which sought to set a target to reduce
the carbon intensity of transportation fuels by 6 percent by 2020.
Canada, whose Alberta tar sands are the largest known reservoir of
crude bitumen in the world, threatened the EU with a World Trade
Organization challenge. The U.S. oil industry, which refines Canadian
tar sands for export and hopes to ship more if the Keystone XL
pipeline is approved, also lobbied against the Fuel Quality
Directive. The threats, combined with leverage that trade negotiators
enjoy, says Solomon, were taken seriously. “The EU commission issued
a revised Fuel Quality Directive that is vastly weakened and is
exactly what the oil industry wanted.”

At the same time the EU worked to use trade rules to strike down U.S.
climate and energy policies. In 2014 a leaked trade document revealed
the EU’s attempt to strike down policies that would eliminate U.S.
bans on exporting liquid natural gas and any bans on the contentious
extraction process that goes with it, fracking.

In testimony before the Seattle City Council, Microsoft Government
Affairs Director Irene Plenefisch acknowledged concern expressed by
many over multinationals suing governments in unelected global courts
via the Investor State Dispute Settlement process. Plenefisch told
the council, “It’s absolutely true, the U.S. has been a party to
multiple cases using ISDS but has never lost one.”

She said the tech giant favored both “fast track” and the TPP. Trade
agreements, in her words, provide more deterrents to piracy and new
opportunities for digital content. In addition, she said, the TPP for
the first time would address cross border data flows. “Thus far in
the TPP negotiations,” she said, “there has been extensive engagement
with Congress and a standing offer for every member of Congress to
review it.”

It’s uncertain how the majority of the state’s Congressional
delegation will cast their vote on fast track, the trade promotion
authority needed by Obama to pass the TPP. After the Seattle City
Council vote, Republicans Dan Newhouse, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and
Dave Reichert issued a statement that called the Seattle vote
“disheartening.”

Fair trade campaigners who are actively lobbying this week recess say
no Democrats have agreed to take a public position on the TPP or on
fast track. Last year Reps. Jim McDermott and Adam Smith signed what
was considered a tough letter to the U.S. Trade Representatives
office regarding labor rights. McDermott recently made critical
remarks about the deal at a coffee with constituents. Sens. Maria
Cantwell and Patty Murray have yet to take positions.