[CTC] More NAFTA statements (faith groups & MOCs)

Fri Nov 30 08:37:55 PST 2018

http://columbancenter.org/content/national-faith-based-organizations-urge-better-nafta-deal <http://columbancenter.org/content/national-faith-based-organizations-urge-better-nafta-deal>

November 30, 2018
Washington, DC

National Faith-Based Organizations Urge Better NAFTA Deal

Today the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States gathered to sign the renegotiated NAFTA agreement, renamed the US/Mexico/Canada Agreement (USMCA). The text signed today falls short of our moral vision of trade policy.  

As faith-based organizations and religious bodies with constituencies in the U.S. and around the world, we believe the goal of U.S. trade policy should be to promote sustainable development and livelihoods for all. 

A  year ago, 16 faith-based organizations outlined our principles <http://www.columbancenter.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2017.12.05_-_letter_to_congress_on_nafta.pdf> by which we would evaluate any renegotiated agreement. The agreement signed today must be remedied in key ways in order to live up to those principles. 

“As we work on the ground in communities often most impacted by trade and investment agreements, Columbans urge all Members of Congress to consider what such agreements would look like if negotiated from the perspective of the most vulnerable, including the environment. We do not believe the current renegotiated NAFTA reflects what is required to fully ensure trade policy sustainably uplifts all,” Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach Director Scott Wright commented. “While advances were made in some of our principles, we believe all must be upheld for the wellbeing of the most vulnerable and creation.” 

"The NAFTA 2.0 text has some positive and needed changes, but more work is needed to guarantee that NAFTA 2.0 helps all working families. We must reject a model that puts the wealthy and big corporations in control. We’ll continue to work to ensure that a final deal going to Congress next year will stop NAFTA’s ongoing damage to workers and the environment." -Sr. Simone Campbell, SSS, Executive Director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice 

“For over twenty years, the United Church of Christ has called for the renegotiation of NAFTA given inadequate protections it offered for worker rights, farmers, and the environment. Although the new NAFTA agreement offers much needed changes, such as ending dangerous Investor State Dispute Settlement tribunals (ISDS), it still falls short in several key areas.  It is critical that environmental standards are raised, and the loophole that preserves ISDS for nine U.S. oil and gas companies be eliminated. Additionally, the move from 8 years to 10 years of market exclusivity for medicines is unacceptable.  This provision will keep life-saving medicine further out of the hands of those who desperately need them, a clear violation of our faith values and moral call to help those in need.”          -Sandy Sorensen, Director of the Washington Office, United Church of Christ

“Maryknoll missioners worked for many years with indigenous and other smallholder farmers in Mexico. They witnessed how NAFTA destroyed the livelihoods of rural farming communities,” said Susan Gunn, Interim Director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. “Rather than fixing provisions that have hurt small farmers throughout North America, the new NAFTA will further erode efforts in Canada and Mexico to support the livelihoods and sovereignty of family farmers while doing little to nothing to improve the lot of family farmers in the United States. Once again, it is corporate agribusinesses that will reap the benefits- not farmers.”  

Now is the time for Members of Congress to set a strong precedent in just and faithful trade policy by making the necessary changes to the agreement signed today.

###

Sanders Statement on NAFTA Replacement 
BURLINGTON, Vt., Nov. 30 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released the following statement Friday after President Donald Trump signed a revised North American trade pact:
"As someone who not only voted against NAFTA, but walked on the picket lines against it, there is no question that this unfettered trade deal needs to be fundamentally rewritten. In my view, a re-negotiated NAFTA must stop the outsourcing of U.S. jobs, end the destructive race to the bottom, protect the environment, and lower the outrageously high price of prescription drugs.  Clearly, Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 does not meet these standards and I will strongly oppose it in its current form. Unless strong enforcement mechanisms are written into the text of this agreement, corporations will continue to ship U.S. jobs to Mexico where workers are paid as little as $2 an hour.
"Further, this deal includes some outrageous giveaways to the fossil fuel industry and big pharmaceutical companies that will harm the environment and increase prices for life-saving prescription drugs. Before this deal is sent to Congress for a vote it must include strong enforcement mechanisms to increase jobs and wages and all of the riders that benefit big fossil fuel polluters and pharmaceutical companies must be taken out of it. Trade is a good thing – but it has got to be fair.” 
Contact: Josh_Miller-Lewis at sanders.senate.gov <mailto:Josh_Miller-Lewis at sanders.senate.gov>
Schumer: Dems will seek changes to USMCA on labor, climate

By Megan Cassella 
11/30/2018 09:41 AM EDT

Congressional Democrats are looking to leave their mark on the newly signed U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement by making sure it benefits workers, raises wages and recognizes climate change as "a grave threat," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ed123886d2e8a1ec92070dc3798674a4bf46ee5994bf6a968819a2373092e865a985e00e583861b79c040f3f0d2de0f6> said today.

In a statement released just after President Donald Trump and his North American counterparts signed <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=ed123886d2e8a1ecb68c2d2bcdbc507326dcbbc07514508da834310695773bce1055bfdcbfa068610b32b26f9559ee0c> the deal, Schumer said Democrats would look to include provisions in the so-called implementing legislation to address their various concerns.

The New York senator also blasted the current labor and environmental protections as "too weak," adding the deal would have to "prove to be a net benefit to middle-class families and working people in our country" in order to win the congressional support it needs to pass.

"Thankfully, the Congress has a role in crafting 'implementing legislation' to make sure the deal benefits and protects middle-class families and working people and isn't simply a rebranding of the same old policies that hurt our economy and workers for years," he said.

Schumer is the latest in a series of lawmakers from both parties in both chambers who have expressed concerns about the agreement in its current form. But his focus on using the implementing bill to make changes leaves a path open for the Trump administration to work with Congress to address lawmakers' concerns and potentially win their votes.

Pocan Statement on Signing of the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement <>

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Representative Mark Pocan (WI-02) released the following statement regarding the signing of the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“Despite the United States, Mexico, and Canada signing the NAFTA 2.0 agreement today, this deal is incomplete. The agreement as currently negotiated will not stop the damage done by NAFTA, including job outsourcing, wage suppression, and environmental degradation. In order to gain widespread support of Democrats in Congress, the agreement must contain swift and enforceable labor and environmental standards and must reverse special protections for corporations. We have been clear about these goals from day one, and I will continue to push the Trump Administration in the upcoming months to fulfill their promise of a new trade framework that supports working families.”
###

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20181130/1f9ccf24/attachment.html>