[CTC] Early Statements on the NAFTA Signing

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Statements from Rep. DeLauro, Sen. Merkley, CTC, GTW and IATP.  More to come tomorrow morning.  

DeLauro Statement Ahead of Trump’s Planned NAFTA 2.0 Text Signing
November 29, 2018  Press Release 
WASHINGTON, DC (November 29, 2018) – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) today released the following statement ahead of President Trump’s planned signing of the NAFTA 2.0 text.

“From GM’s recent announcement indicating the closure of American manufacturing plants to the Bic plant, the Phillips facility, and Ansonia Copper and Brass in my own district, we have seen the damage that bad trade policies can do by encouraging companies to move production out of the United States. We have seen this since NAFTA was signed into law, which I opposed at the time. Yet, despite Trump’s rhetoric describing the continued loss of manufacturing jobs as ‘American carnage’ since the beginning of his Presidency, it does not seem he has learned anything.”

“The NAFTA 2.0 text he is planning to sign tomorrow would not help end the outsourcing incentives that have hollowed out communities across the country. In its current form, this deal is far from being one that helps working people across North America. As I and my fellow Democrats have said all along, the final package must remove the current outsourcing incentives, raise wages for American workers, include strong labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement mechanisms, and ensure our nation’s food safety. Those are some of the key standards by which we must judge this deal in order to ensure it protects jobs across the country. Falling short for American workers is not a viable option.”

###


======
MERKLEY STATEMENT AHEAD OF NAFTA 2.0 SIGNING
Thursday, November 29, 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley released the following statement ahead of the planned “NAFTA 2.0” signing at the G20 summit tomorrow:
“For decades, NAFTA has been a disaster for American jobs and American wages. If we want to have a middle class in America, we have to make things in America. We need a fresh start and a new direction.
“Unfortunately, what we’re getting is not so much a new direction as a NAFTA 2.0. The text that will be signed tomorrow contains some improvements, but still falls far short of a deal that will stop NAFTA’s ongoing job outsourcing, environmental damage, and downward pressure on wages. We need a transformation that will put American workers back on fair footing—not a tweak and a rebranding. Without swift and meaningful enforcement provisions for labor and environmental standards, this is a raw deal for American workers.
“We must set our sights much higher than simply continuing the global race to the bottom at a slightly slower pace. We should be pursuing a truly fair and level playing field in trade, one with clear and enforceable labor and environmental standards, that will finally reverse outsourcing and create good jobs here in America. I’m going to keep fighting for improvements to this deal, and for the trade policies American workers need.”

=======

For Immediate Release
Contact: Arthur Stamoulis, (202) 494-8826, media at citizenstrade.org <mailto:media at citizenstrade.org>

View Statement Online <https://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/blog/2018/11/29/nafta-falls-short-on-jobs-wages-human-rights-and-the-environment/>

NAFTA Deal Falls Short on Jobs, Wages, Human Rights and the Environment
A Lot More Work Needed Before There’s a NAFTA Replacement that Benefits Working People

Washington, DC — Anticipating Friday’s early-morning signing of a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by the United States, Mexico and Canada, Citizens Trade Campaign’s executive director, Arthur Stamoulis, issued the following statement:

"The Trump administration’s NAFTA proposal fails to include the critical changes needed to protect jobs, raise wages, defend human rights and safeguard the environment.  As much as the White House wants to spin this as a win, a lot more work is needed before there’s a real NAFTA replacement that working families can be happy about.  

"Each week, NAFTA continues to destroy livelihoods across the continent.  As written, the deal on offer would continue to facilitate the outsourcing of jobs, the suppression of wages and the dumping of toxins.  Any final text needs stronger labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement mechanisms added.  While steps forward have been made in other areas, any final proposal without this fundamental fix is a nonstarter.

"In addition, Trump’s proposal is significantly worse than the original NAFTA on access to medicines.  The world needs trade policies that increase the affordability of life-saving medications — not ones that extend monopolies for pharmaceutical giants and raise healthcare costs.

"Beyond failing to even mention climate change, the current proposal also seeks to maintain special rights for some of the planet's most egregious corporate polluters.  A final deal must fully eliminate giveaways that help corporations interfere with environmental, food safety and public health protections.  Additional language is also needed to ensure consumers’ rights to know where and how their food is produced."

###

Citizens Trade Campaign is a national coalition of labor, environmental, family farm, consumer and faith organizations working together to improve U.S. trade policy.

=======
Signing of NAFTA 2.0 Does Not End Fight for Progressive Improvements to the Agreement

Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

The NAFTA 2.0 text that is being signed contains some improvements that progressives have long demanded, some damaging terms we have long opposed and some important unfinished business. 

If I had to grade the agreement now, I’d give it an incomplete because more work is needed to ensure swift and certain enforcement of the pact’s labor and environmental standards among other essential improvements necessary to stop NAFTA’s ongoing damage to workers and the environment.  

President Donald Trump and commentators who don’t know better are likely to place undue significance on this ceremonial event, but the signing is simply the next step in an ongoing process that must produce a final deal that can win majority support in Congress. 

As is, the agreement falls short of the changes needed to stop NAFTA’s ongoing job outsourcing, downward pressure on our wages and attacks on environmental safeguards, but there is a path to improving it so a final NAFTA package could win wide support.

A new NAFTA can go into effect only if majorities of both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate approve it next year. Given the results of the midterm elections, only a final deal that can earn Democratic support will get through Congress.

If trade officials work with congressional Democrats, unions and others on the improvements needed to stop NAFTA’s ongoing job outsourcing and environmental damage and raise wages, a final deal could achieve broad support next year. Of course, who knows what lunatic things unrelated to trade that Donald Trump might do in the meantime to derail that prospect.

=====

  
Contact: Chris Palmquist, 712-242-6090
cpalmquist at iatp.org <mailto:cpalmquist at iatp.org>
 <mailto:cpalmquist at iatp.org>
November 29, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FAMILY FARM ORGANIZATIONS FROM U.S., CANADA OPPOSE SIGNING OF NEW NAFTA
The reworked agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico neglects the demands of farm groups

MINNEAPOLIS—The original North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been devastating for family farmers in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It has promoted global agribusiness interests at the cost of family farmers and contributed to the economic and social erosion of rural communities. Rather than answer the demands of family farm groups across North America to replace NAFTA with an entirely new agreement that promotes fair and sustainable food systems, Friday’s signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is a missed opportunity. Among those neglected demands:

Restore local and national sovereignty over farm and food policy
Under the New NAFTA, countries will relinquish their rights to use safeguards that shelter key markets from price or supply volatility, putting Mexico’s ambitious plan to restore food self-sufficiency at risk. Canada’s successful dairy supply management program will be weakened by opening domestic markets to imports. U.S. civil society demands to restore Country of Origin Labeling for meat were ignored.
Stop corporate giveaways in trade agreements
While the New NAFTA does positively restrict the controversial Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism between the U.S. and Mexico, and eventually eliminate it for cases between the U.S. and Canada, it provides a new avenue for corporate interference: Provisions on regulations empower corporations to delay and challenge new and existing rules that are designed to protect public health and the environment. It also requires Mexico to sign and implement a treaty on plant varieties that limits farmers’ ability to both save and share seeds.
Ensure economic viability and resilience in rural communities
Farmers across North America are trapped in a vicious cycle of low prices, overproduction and corporate concentration in agriculture. The New NAFTA fails to provide any new solutions to prevent the dumping of goods across borders at below the cost of production.
Family farm organizations from the United States and Canada are continuing to demand a new agreement between the North American nations that respects the concerns of farmers, workers and the environment.

Karen Hansen-Kuhn, Director of Trade and Global Governance, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
“This New NAFTA is a huge missed opportunity. Family farm groups in all three countries insisted on new rules to rebuild rural economies and food systems. Instead, we have a deal that locks in many of the old rules that have driven farmers out of agriculture for more than two decades. But it’s not over yet. Signing this New NAFTA is just one more step in a bad process. Legislatures in all three countries should insist that negotiators go back to the drawing board or reject this new NAFTA all together.”

Cam Goff, First Vice President (Policy), National Farmers Union Canada
“Since 1969, supply management has awarded Canadian dairy and poultry farmers a fair return for producing sufficient quality and quantity without overproduction. The New NAFTA attacks this system, while around the world, including in the USA, dairy farmers look to Canada’s system as a way out of desperation caused by overproduction, low prices and excessive debt. The new deal also attacks Canada’s quality control system for grain exports and seed, giving multinational corporations undue influence and promoting a high-volume, low-price export strategy. The New NAFTA helps corporations and hurts farmers within Canada and internationally.”

Rick Arnold, Chair of the Trade Group, Northumberland Chapter of the Council of Canadians
“What Canada is proposing to sign on to November 30 is a trade deal that could decimate key sectors of Canada’s farm community, ignore gender or indigenous concerns, and contain no mention of climate change, the Paris Agreement, or global warming. It should not be signed, and the Parliament should reject it.”

Jim Goodman, President, National Family Farm Coalition
“This latest version of NAFTA, like previous trade deals, not only allows, but protects, the threats that corporate power poses to governments and people. The New NAFTA will ensure corporations profit regardless of the cost to farmers, farm workers, labor, women, minorities and the indigenous of all three nations. It undermines Canada’s production management policies and seed access in Mexico while promoting low farm prices in the United States. Public health and safety, the viability of rural communities and environmental protection will be nothing more than afterthoughts under the New NAFTA.”

##################


Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20181129/8fe72585/attachment.html>