[CTC] As Dems dither, Trump deepens trade debate, sets WTO adrift

[Victor Menotti]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/10/1952017/-As-Dems-dither-Trump-deepens-trade-debate-sets-WTO-adrift?_=2020-06-10T02:27:30.852-07:00 <https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/10/1952017/-As-Dems-dither-Trump-deepens-trade-debate-sets-WTO-adrift?_=2020-06-10T02:27:30.852-07:00>


As Dems dither, Trump deepens trade debate, sets WTO adrift <https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/10/1952017/-As-Dems-dither-Trump-deepens-trade-debate-sets-WTO-adrift>

President Trump’s tough talk is deepening domestic and international debate on how to transform world trade rules.

Yet Democrats still struggle to articulate a compelling alternative agenda as its corporate-minded members remain convinced that the current model can be reformed by better enforcement of existing agreements while making minor adjustments, even if such reforms leave in place dangerous dynamics contributing directly to today’s extreme economic and ecological crises.

Meanwhile, Trump dominates the debate, setting adrift the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was scheduled to hold this week its 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in Kazakhstan but was postponed <https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/gc_29may20_e.htm> due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.  

Only last weekend, peaceful protesters in Kazakhstan were  aggressively arrested <https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakh-opposition-plans-rallies-for-democratic-reform/30655977.html> for demanding democratic reforms, some holding “I Can’t Breathe“ signs in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

Ever since WTO‘s 1999 Battle of Seattle <https://www.akpress.org/battleofseattleakpress.html>, officials have opted to hold ministerials in the world’s most isolated and intimidating places precisely to avoid another shutdown by protesters.

Eating Progressives‘ lunch

Progressive internationalists first labeled the Geneva-based bureaucracy for 164 nations representing 98% of world trade as an “invisible government <http://ifg.org/v2/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Invis_Gov.pdf>“ for global corporations <https://www.citizen.org/article/whose-trade-organization-a-comprehensive-guide-to-the-wto/> to drive down wages while rollingback regulations that protect workers, public health, and the planet.  

This year, WTO marks its 25th anniversary by watching itself implode, thanks largely to the election of neo-fascist critics like Trump who—in the absence of any compelling alternative agenda advanced by Democrats—campaigned that the US got a “raw deal“ from WTO.

In many ways, Trump is the direct result of Democrats‘ dismissing decades of predicted and documented failures of free trade policies, deferring instead to internal corporate interests and dogmatic ideologues who dominate trade policymaking.  

With WTO‘s legislative, judicial, and executive functions now forsaken, corporations‘ global government is operationally imploded <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-23/terms-of-trade-wto-takes-center-stage-in-trump-s-trade-drama-k5qoq0nw?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=dsa&utm_term=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiYL3BRDVARIsAF9E4GdfkoEEBLwNW21BvaP1s0weFH30oWKIKeoJ6RuHvMAEKjP7MqYORVIaAo5PEALw_wcB> due mainly to its own making:

- Director General (DG), Robert Azevedo, recently resigned; while he hasn’t said exactly why <https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/dgra_14may20_e.htm>, trade watchers believe he sees no way forward given current governments argue aimlessly;

- Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM), the secretive and unaccountable judicial body deciding how to enforce WTO rules, is now defunct due to Trump’s <https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/09/trumps-real-trade-war-is-being-waged-on-the-wto/> refusal to replace judges;

- MC12 is cancelled, or purportedly postponed, due to a global pandemic caused by intensified illegal wildlife trade, inadequate national healthcare systems, as well as governments and corporations rejecting precautionary reductions of globalization’s hyperconnectivity <https://mondediplo.com/2020/05/02free-trade>.

US elections set new trade agenda?

Progressive policy wonks warn that the world risks more famine, war and climate catastrophe unless America changes its approach to trade by explicitly prioritizing people and the planet before global corporations.

Yet too many Democrats continue to support corporate trade agendas calling for even more liberalization and deregulation, albeit with so-called enforcement mechanisms <https://waysandmeans.house.gov/sites/democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/files/documents/20200511_Ltr%20from%20WM%20Dem%20to%20DHS-CBP%20re%20USMCA%20Forced%20Labor%20Enforcement%20Task%20Force.pdf> that would function as unfunded mandates un-implemented by unwilling administrations.

House Ways and Means Committee Member, Ron Kind (D-WI), most recently articulated this unkind approach to Inside U.S. Trade <https://insidetrade.com/trade/kind-lack-us-leadership-wto-slowing-reform-efforts> when he, “lamented the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the pact“ known as the TransPacific Partnership.  TPP was actually killed in Congress by a progressive coalition of labor, environment, family farm and consumer groups yet Trump is too often incorrectly credited with its cancellation.

Now it appears parts of progressives‘ agendas to relocalize economies has been highjacked by USTR Robert Lighthizer's proposal <https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/lighthizer-calls-post-pandemic-us-industrial-policy> that the US create a post-pandemic trade and industrial policy so that “all the things we need“ to handle crises are made in the U.S.

Trump mobilized American voters with an anti-free trade message only after Democrats repeatedly refused to incorporate progressive proposals <https://ourworldisnotforsale.net/2013/OWINFS_WTO_stmt.pdf>.  If 2016 results are repeated is still to be seen tis November, making progressive trade policy more important than ever given the global trading system is now dangerously adrift and its last collapse was followed by world war.
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