[CTC] USTR says NAFTA renegotiation texts will be classifed

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE
Pro-labor groups, congressional allies seek more transparency in NAFTA rounds

August 15, 2017 
Labor and public interest groups, and their congressional allies, are urging the Trump administration to make public the negotiating texts tabled in the NAFTA talks after each negotiating round is concluded -- but the administration already has ruled out such an approach.

“Our process is fairly well-defined by our [Trade Promotion Authority] legislation,” a USTR official said on a press call today. “The text itself that will be exchanged among the governments is classified text so that is not released, but we do conduct an extremely transparent and collaborative effort as we said in developing our objectives and in consulting with Congress and our stakeholders in this 90-day period and beyond. So that is how we will conduct it.”

The AFL-CIO and groups including Public Citizen -- with backing from lawmakers such as Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Tim Ryan (D-OH) -- had previously called for the administration to publicly release negotiating text through the Federal Register prior to tabling proposals in the negotiations.

That idea was a nonstarter for the administration, and with the first round of negotiations beginning Wednesday in Washington, DC, Celeste Drake of the AFL-CIO today urged the administration to make public the texts upon the conclusion of each round.

Drake noted the European Commission’s practice of publishing text within a few weeks of negotiating rounds in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks with the U.S. as well as in some of its other negotiations.

“There are still opportunities” for the administration to open up the negotiating process, she said, adding that it's “too late for more promises that the negotiators know best.”

DeLauro and Ryan, who participated on a conference call today along with Drake and Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, both charged that a lack of transparency helped doom the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations begun under the Obama administration and scrapped by President Trump.

“This is contrary to what happens elsewhere,” DeLauro charged, saying U.S. negotiators typically were shutting out both Congress and the public “until it's too late.”

“As we learned with TPP, secrecy breeds contempt,” Drake said.

Ryan called the administration's refusal to publish text after each round “a step backward right out of the gate.” He said the lack of transparency around the texts “raises a good deal of suspicion” and added, “This is not a private company the administration is running.”

But Drake of the AFL-CIO called the administration official's comment “a negotiating position -- it doesn't mean we'll take no for an answer.”

The AFL-CIO, Public Citizen and DeLauro and Ryan spelled out their well-known objectives for the upcoming negotiations, while arguing that the Trump administration could find congressional majorities including most Democrats and “a sizable number” of Republicans in support of such an approach.

The lawmakers and groups called for “strong and enforceable” environmental standards in the revised NAFTA, elimination of exceptions from Buy American government procurement rules, stronger rules-of-origin standards, scrapping the current dispute settlement process and addressing currency manipulation.

“We want to work with the administration,” DeLauro said, adding that House Democrats would be “essential” to passing the revised NAFTA agreement.

DeLauro and Ryan claimed the NAFTA renegotiation is attracting strong interest among citizens. DeLauro noted that she did a well-attended town hall in her district last week on job outsourcing and Ryan said he's holding a roundtable in Ohio next week.

Town halls throughout the country were generating discussion on NAFTA, Wallach said, and have been highly attended. She said an online message sent out recently by Public Citizen generated 15,000 comments. -- Charlie Mitchell (cmitchell at iwpnews.com <mailto:cmitchell at iwpnews.com>)


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20170815/4d05f43a/attachment.htm>