To: President Donald Trump
President asked to explain the working man's benefits of the Trade Deals
At a hypothetical Town Hall meeting held after the President's 2015 State of the Union address, a participant asks, "Mr. Obama, please explain what benefits a working person will receive from passage of either TPP or TTIP trade deals. Please do not repeat the macroeconomic arguments, we've already heard them. Will I as the average worker in this country be better off or worse off?"
Why is this important?
All U.S. citizens will be affected by passage of these trade treaties, because
1) Jobs will once again flow out of the U.S., just as they did under NAFTA. Remember the glowing promises President Clinton made to sell NAFTA. Just the opposite has come to pass. “Fast-tracked international trade deals have led to exploding U.S. trade deficits, soaring food imports into the U.S., increased off-shoring of American jobs, and an unprecedented rise in income inequality”, according to a compilation and analysis of 20 years of trade and economic data released January 15 2015 by the watchdog group Public Citizen.
and,
2) These treaties create international tribunals, composed of corporate attorneys, that allow corporations to challenge and override domestic laws or regulations of the signatory nation that might adversely impact the corporation's “expected future profits”. This process would undermine our sovereignty and subvert democratically passed laws, including those dealing with labor (wages, benefits, and collective bargaining), health (food safety, for example), and the environment (creating immense pressure for all signatory nations to adopt the least restrictive environmental standards). These treaties would greatly accelerate a global race to the bottom, where the taxpayers of a nation-state might be required to reimburse a global corporation (for its supposed loss of “expected future profits”?!?)
No one has asked the President to explain the treaties from the workers’ perspective. At the macroeconomic level, he can “sell’ these treaties like Clinton sold NAFTA and demand fast track treatment.
As citizens, our voice is not being heard. In our country, we have the right to expect that our President will address our concerns, especially when many of us press that expectation on him.
1) Jobs will once again flow out of the U.S., just as they did under NAFTA. Remember the glowing promises President Clinton made to sell NAFTA. Just the opposite has come to pass. “Fast-tracked international trade deals have led to exploding U.S. trade deficits, soaring food imports into the U.S., increased off-shoring of American jobs, and an unprecedented rise in income inequality”, according to a compilation and analysis of 20 years of trade and economic data released January 15 2015 by the watchdog group Public Citizen.
and,
2) These treaties create international tribunals, composed of corporate attorneys, that allow corporations to challenge and override domestic laws or regulations of the signatory nation that might adversely impact the corporation's “expected future profits”. This process would undermine our sovereignty and subvert democratically passed laws, including those dealing with labor (wages, benefits, and collective bargaining), health (food safety, for example), and the environment (creating immense pressure for all signatory nations to adopt the least restrictive environmental standards). These treaties would greatly accelerate a global race to the bottom, where the taxpayers of a nation-state might be required to reimburse a global corporation (for its supposed loss of “expected future profits”?!?)
No one has asked the President to explain the treaties from the workers’ perspective. At the macroeconomic level, he can “sell’ these treaties like Clinton sold NAFTA and demand fast track treatment.
As citizens, our voice is not being heard. In our country, we have the right to expect that our President will address our concerns, especially when many of us press that expectation on him.