Posted on 08/08/2002 8:51:18 AM PDT by madeinchina
President George W. Bush signed the omnibus trade bill (H.R. 3009) into law on August 6. The legislation passed its final major hurdle on a razor thin vote of 215-212 in the US House of Representatives. The vote was held in the dead of night, at 3:30 AM on July 27. The afternoon before the vote, Mr. Bush had made a rare appearance on Capitol Hill to personally lobby Republicans for the package that included Fast Track trade negotiating authority. Fast track is a procedure that would eliminate the right of Congress to amend legislation drawn up to implement trade agreements that required a change in American law.
Before leaving for a month-long August recess, Congress failed to complete work on a single one of the 13 appropriations bills required to fund the government past the start of the new fiscal year October 1. High priority bills to create a new prescription drug benefit for the elderly, to establish a new Department for Homeland Security, and to reform the bankruptcy laws all stalled. None of these measures motivated the kind of lobbying effort seen on the trade bill.
Why was there such an effort to pass Fast Track? What is the real purpose of Fast Track procedures for trade agreements?
Fast track is not really needed to stifle debate in the House of Representatives. This was shown by the extraordinary methods used (and abused) by the Republican leadership in the House to pass Fast Track itself. The House has a rule process that can prohibit amendments and limit debate on any bill. No amendments were allowed when Fast Track was first brought before the House last December.
A House rule was also used June 26 to pass 191 pages of trade legislation, much of it never even considered in committee. The legislation was written into the rule itself, placing it even further from the process of debate and deliberation, and then rammed through by one vote, 216-215.
But the U.S. Senate prides itself on being the "greatest deliberative body in the world." It has an open system of amendment and debate. Or it did, until it adopted Fast Track.
Why was the Senate asked to shut up? Because officials like U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick don't want democracy to intrude on policy. As he told the Institute for International Economics last September 24, "international accords impinge on specific economic interests in every one of 435 Congressional districts and all 50 states - with each interest well-positioned to press for a twist of protection here or special treatment there."
These interests are American interests, rooted in the towns and farms and factories of this country. They are supposed to be represented by those who are elected by Americans to legislate on their behalf, which is why the power to regulate foreign commerce was entrusted to the Congress by the Founding Fathers when the Constitution was written.
Zoellick, however, prefers the interests of transnational corporations with overseas interests and foreign partners. His unelected 'advisory committees' are filled with corporate representatives, who are free to speak and lobby and propose amendments to his trade positions every day. They are invited into the negotiating process even though many have openly proclaimed that they no longer consider themselves to be American enterprises.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Congress is being told to shut up so the global corporations can be heard more clearly; and through them a chorus of foreign interests. Stories in the media tend to confirm this interpretation.
Walter Russell Mead is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a strong supporter of Fast Track. Writing in the New York Times August 5, Mead noted, "Trade negotiations are about horse trading; now Republican officials have the chance to decide what products to push and where to make compromises on trade deals that will affect the future of key industries and states. These efforts will be remembered by corporations when it comes time for campaign contributions." With blue-collar Americans losing their jobs and white-collar Americans losing their investment portfolios, Republican Congressional leaders may be the only people left who think aligning with Big Business is the best way to court public trust.
But with whom are the corporations aligned? Mead argues, "Given that lower wages and other costs are usually critical to the global competitiveness of less developed nations, trade agreements under the Doha rubric may be particularly sensitive in Congress. Trade-promotion authority will make such agreements far more likely." The beneficiaries of such agreements are clearly not Americans, but transnational corporations who shift their factories overseas in pursuit of lower wages and other cost savings. The foreign host countries also benefit from this transfer of wealth, especially ruling elites who are skilled in skimming off a lucrative share of the trade and capital flows for themselves.
Business Week magazine elaborates on how these foreign partnerships will gain from Fast Track at the expense of American national interests; not to condemn such an outcome but to praise it as the voice of Big Business. In a lengthy commentary in the August 12 issue, Business Week hails the new impetus to the World Trade Organization Doha negotiating round given by Fast Track, but still worries that President Bush might harbor too much concern about American workers and farmers to make the kind of deal overseas interest groups want. "Administration critics charge that Bush's recent tilt toward protectionism will make it tough to complete. After all, negotiators from across the Atlantic to south of the border question whether the U.S., which recently imposed steel tariffs and approved massive new farm subsidies, is willing to open its markets further," says Business Week.
According to Business Week, the key to completing the Doha talks is a willingness on Washington's part to appease Brazil and China by giving both countries an increased share of the U.S. market. As Business Week puts it, "Despite the increasingly anti-U.S. tone permeating Latin America and China these days, many business and political leaders in those regions know that increased exports are their best hope for emerging from the current economic slump."
This passage is written as if hating America and wanting to destroy its industrial capacity through trade competition stem from different feelings. They don't. Most of the rest of the world wants to transfer as much wealth and power away from the United States as possible.
Business Week also thinks, "Negotiations over U.S. antidumping laws, which have been a thorn in Brazil's side, could also prove fruitful." The implication is that Zoellick intends to give up these vital U.S. laws to please foreign interests, exactly as opponents of Fast Track alleged. Such a surrender would disarm American producers of their last safeguards against the depredations of foreign governments, transnational corporations and their cartels. But then, leaving the American people naked to the world, without the protection of their elected officials or their national laws, is what the entire Fast Track exercise has been about.
Not to mention, unconstitutionally delegating legislative powers to the President.
I dare say that the Liberal claim that he is stupid certainly seems apt with regard to his grasp of what the Constitution says or who wrote it -- or why.
Most discouraging, indeed. (And to think that W is a product of the nation's most "prestigious" prep school and universities.)
Perhaps because he attends the same country clubs they do?
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