US Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman testified before the Senate Tuesday. He was there to push Congress to pass Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), so new trade agreements can get pushed through. Protesters disrupted the hearing. The people are trying to make their voices heard over the corporate push for Fast Track.
Heating Up
Things are heating up as big new corporate "trade" agreements get closer to coming before Congress. These trade agreements have a terrible track record for American workers, because they have driven inequality, devastated entire regions of the country, and hollowed out the middle class. New corporate-centered trade agreements being negotiated will go far beyond previous NAFTA-style deals, by setting up monopoly protections for giant multinationals, elevating corporate rights above the rights of governments, and setting up corporate-run tribunals, that will have the power to override laws and regulations if they interfere with corporate profits.
Monday, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations resumed in New York City. Even though the big blizzard was starting, the negotiators were greeted by protests, as hundreds of people representing trade, labor, environmental, health, communities of color, anti-GMO and food justice, anti-fracking, animal rights, and other groups that will be hit hard by TPP and other upcoming agreements.
Hearing Disrupted
Tuesday, USTR Froman testified before the Senate, and was met with protests. Roll Call reports, in "Protesters Arrested at Fast-Track Trade Hearing":
Capitol Police arrested three sign-carrying, slogan-shouting demonstrators who disrupted a Tuesday morning Senate Finance Committee hearing on the president’s trade policy agenda.
The protesters wore shirts reading “No Fast Track” and greeted U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman with signs stating, “Froman lies” — a response to his statement to the committee that trade promotion authority “is Congress’s best tool to ensure that there is ample time for public scrutiny and debate on U.S. trade agreements.”
The Daily Dot reports, in "Internet freedom activists storm congressional TPP hearing":
Margaret Flowers, a member of Physicians for a National Healthcare plan and a longstanding TPP critic, burst in carrying a sign reading “Trading away our future,” and shouting “we know the Trans-Pacific Partnership is negotiated in secret!”
As she was being escorted away by security, a pair of male protesters entered from another door. “You’re going to super-size NAFTA!” one yelled, as the other simply repeated “No TPP!” The two unfurled a banner behind Froman, who stared straight ahead with an annoyed look on his face.
Then a third wave hit: Three protestors sitting behind Froman held up other signs, like one reading “Fast track constitutional train wreck.”
Fast Track Limits Congress' - Democracy's - Ability To Make Changes
Froman was asking Congress to pass "Fast Track" Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), a process that sets aside Congress' Constitutional duty to define and review (and fix) trade deals. Under Fast Track, Congress agrees not to amend agreements, to limit the amount of time spend discussing the deals, and to vote on approving the treaty within 90 days of Congress and the public first seeing what is in the agreement.
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), appeared on the Thom Hartmann show to discuss Fast Track process:
The Fast Track legislation prohibits subcommittee debates, subcommittee hearings, subcommittee markups, full committee debates, full committee hearings, full committee markups, and it limits us in the House of Representatives to 88 seconds of debate for each one of us. Eighty-eight seconds to extend to 40 other countries (if we count both trade deals the President is working on), the disaster that's been visited upon the U.S. economy simply by having a dozen existing countries with these deals in effect. They want to put our $30/hour workers directly in full head-to-head competition with the $0.30/hour workers in Vietnam and Brunei and in other places like that, who have no environmental protection, no labor rights, and in many cases are [relying on] slave labor. That's what these deals are trying to do. It's the Fast Track to Hell.
In addition to only 88 seconds per Representative to discuss the treaty, 90 days from first seeing a trade agreement does not give the public time to read and analyze the repercussions of these massive trade deals. It does not give the public time to organize opposition if opposition is warranted.
It is no wonder that citizens are trying to overcome the corporate juggernaut pushing Fast Track. It is a rigged process, designed to push these agreements past Congress and democracy, before the public can do anything about it.
Call your member of Congress, and both of your Senators, and tell them you oppose Fast Track. The coming trade agreements will require sufficient time for the public to read and fully comprehend them. They might have flaws that Congress should be able to fix.
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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary and/or for the Progress Breakfast.
