From: Ann Jones
Columbus
I wrote my opinion on NAFTA and then the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), both negative. I had hopes for what President Trump might pull together in the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). Let me sound an alarm once again about the corporate greed and malevolence laced into it.
My hope is that we pay attention and act while there is time to change it. While Trump promoted it as “fair and good for everyone,” that is not the case as it stands. It seems to be a way to lock into law advantages and schemes for corporations over the common good of consumers, labor, independent businesses, the environment and other democratic forces. While couched in legalese, it obscures corporate thievery as did the other trade plans. It even hides from Congress who will profit and who will pay. Trump lauded his handiwork of 1,809 pages (did he even read it?) as “the most important trade deal ever made by far.” While he continuously asks “big pharma” to reduce its horrific prices, this trade deal would require the governments to guarantee and even extend big pharma’s monopoly price setting power. The sneaky deal even gives drug makers 10 years exclusive marketing rights, thus preventing generic competition for an additional decade beyond the 20 years already in place. Fantastic for all?
“Big oil” would retain its NAFTA-granted access in court preventing Mexican efforts to strengthen the environment and health protection. While the deal prohibits fraudulent labor units in Mexico, it provides no way to enforce or monitor corporate compliance. Helps everyone?
Trump’s fantastic re-do of NAFTA keeps a rule prohibiting our government from setting our own health standards for meat sold to our consumers. Yuck!
Our own government’s International Trade Commission reported in April that USMCA’s economic impact will be embarrassingly low. Over six years the number of jobs created will be equivalent to what our present economy creates in a slow month. The commission found the USMCA would be a net job killer, would slow U.S. economic growth and likely increase our trade deficit.
Even with these uglies, a good thing is eliminating NAFTA’s repugnant Investor State Dispute Settlement, no longer giving corporate claim to taxpayer dollars through specious lawsuits. If Congress can strengthen labor and environmental standards making them strictly enforceable, the new trade option might counter corporate America’s outsourcing and changing middle class jobs into Mexican sweatshops. Certainly, the goodies for “big pharma” must be removed. Congress should decide who controls the price of our medications and whether our fried chicken is tainted or not!
The trade deal has flaws and it is up to us to call that to the attention of our members of Congress. A spring poll found 70% of registered voters want USMCS’s corporate advantages scrapped or the whole deal crossed out. Trade fights are tedious and complex. If it unites folks across countries and the political spectrum to rewrite the corporatized version to favor everyone, it is worth the work to improve it.
