Background on Trade

Trade Power Point PresentationsOrganizing Materials for the Trade ActPrevious Trade Act Version

Talking Points concerning the current financial crisis:

  • This is no time to consider more job killing trade agreements. We need to focus on creating high wage jobs that stay in America, rather than passing trade agreements that ship our jobs overseas.
  • This financial meltdown is just another example of what happens when a small handful of corporations control an economy. If we continue to let a few multinational corporations write the rules of trade, as they have in the past, we can expect to see these same types of problems in the future.
  • As we debate more congressional oversight to prevent future problems, it makes sense to also give Congress a greater role in overseeing trade agreements.
  • If there is one lesson we’ve learned, it’s that we need more accountability. Voting on trade agreements in a lame duck session – at the least accountable time, when many members are not returning – would be a mistake. It sidesteps the results of the election.
  • We need to let citizens vote, and then push elected leaders to implement a trade agenda that reflects the views of the majority, and serves the majority’s interest.
  • As we develop new rules for the economy in 2009, we should turn to policy guidelines like The TRADE Act as a roadmap for better government oversight, to make sure these same problems don’t happen again.
  • Conservative free traders are already using this crisis to demagogue for the passage of more trade deals. NAFTA, CAFTA and failed trade policies of the past brought about wage stagnation, manufacturing decline and job loss. The Neocons attempt to prop up our low wage economy with consumption financed by debt has failed. Now is not the time for more of the same.
  • Many of the conservatives who wanted to use trade agreements to privatize public service, and “shrink government to the size of a bathtub”, are now turning to government to bail out the private companies they once worshipped. It’s time to put our priorities back in order.
  • Trade and the economy exists to serve people, no the other way around.