[CTC] IUST: Hundreds of civil-society groups to send Congress sweeping NAFTA demands

[Dolan, Mike]

Daily News
Hundreds of civil-society groups to send Congress sweeping NAFTA demands
March 15, 2018

Members of Congress on Friday will receive from more than 800 civil society groups a fresh set of recommendations for what lawmakers should demand in a new NAFTA, according to a letter obtained by Inside U.S. Trade.



The groups, which include the AFL-CIO, Public Citizen and United Steelworkers, spell out a familiar list of priorities for NAFTA, including upgraded and enforceable labor and environment rules and the elimination of investor-state dispute settlement.



The groups call for the elimination of "NAFTA terms that promote the outsourcing of Americans' jobs," which they say "means eliminating the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system and the special investor protections it enforces that make it less risky and cheaper to outsource jobs, and that also empower corporations to attack environmental and health laws before tribunals of three corporate lawyers and get unlimited payouts of our tax dollars."



The civil society letter will be sent the same day the chairs of the Senate Finance and House Ways & Means committees are set to send U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer their own letter demanding that ISDS be retained<https://insidetrade.com/node/162268> in NAFTA. Sources told Inside U.S. Trade the two letters are not meant to compete.



USTR has proposed a scheme that would allow countries to opt in or out of ISDS. Canadian and Mexican officials, as well as many in the business community and Republican lawmakers, have voiced opposition to that proposal. At the seventh round of NAFTA talks, Canada and Mexico began bilateral discussions on ISDS.



Lighthizer believes that revising NAFTA is essential to striking a deal that can garner support from the labor community as well as both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill. Former trade officials and private sector sources this week told Inside U.S. Trade that eliminating ISDS from NAFTA would not jeopardize its passage.



Lighthizer, however, has also pushed for non-binding dispute settlement in NAFTA, putting him at odds with civil society organizations that believe labor and environment rules must be subject to "swift and certain enforcement," states the letter.



"Congress must not vote on a NAFTA replacement until each party adopts, maintains, implements -- and enforces -- domestic laws that provide the labor rights and protections included in the International Labor Organization's Core Conventions and policies that fulfill the Paris climate accord and other core multilateral environmental agreements," the letter reads. "New tools must be added to ensure that independent monitoring and enforcement will occur, and preferential market access must be conditioned on sustained evidence of on-the-ground improvements, with social and environmental dumping tariffs imposed for backsliding."



Lighthizer has previously said<https://insidetrade.com/node/160419> that labor "will be treated exactly like every other provision" when it comes to enforceability and dispute settlement.



USTR has tabled a NAFTA labor text that mirrors what was negotiated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Democrats have pushed for upgraded provisions. USTR is expected to table new language at the next round of NAFTA talks in April that would aim to rectify the U.S. loss to Guatemala last year in the first labor case brought via a trade agreement. A key component of the U.S. loss was that in the eyes of the panel, the U.S. failed to prove Guatemala's labor violations occurred in a manner affecting trade.



"In the absence of a binding and easily-enforced agreement based on these critical measures, Mexican workers will continue to be horribly exploited, American jobs will continue to be outsourced, the environment will continue to be degraded and the wages for workers in all three NAFTA countries will continue to decline," the letter states.



The civil society groups also ask Congress to demand that "right to require food labeling -- including mandatory country-of-origin labels for meat and dolphin-safe labels for tuna -- must be explicitly affirmed and protected so consumers can make informed choices." The Obama administration lost a World Trade Organization case to Mexico and Canada over mandatory country-of-origin labeling on meat and is in litigation at the WTO with Mexico over dolphin-safe tuna labeling.



The civil society groups also call for enforceable disciplines against currency manipulation and misalignment; stronger rules of origin; safeguards to protect against challenges to U.S. policies aimed at protecting workers, public health and the environment; and the eliminations of procurement rules that limit how U.S. tax money can be spent.



On agriculture policy, the groups request that "NAFTA rules that forbid countries to establish and implement many farm and food policies -- such as inventory management, strategic food reserves, import surge protections and other anti-dumping mechanisms -- must be eliminated." They also state opposition to new tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports.



Finally, the groups tell Congress to request that the negotiating progress be "transparent and participatory."



"Moving forward, the public and all members of Congress must be invited to help formulate U.S. positions and comment on draft U.S. proposals. And negotiated texts must be made publicly available, with opportunity for comment, after each negotiating round," the letter states. -- Jack Caporal (jcaporal at iwpnews.com<mailto:jcaporal at iwpnews.com>)


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