Fast Track Passage Won't Defeat the ''Seattle Coalition''
Viviane Lerner
http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/trade/featured/2001/fasttrack.html
Fast Track Passage Won't Defeat the "Seattle Coalition"
By Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh
Institute for Policy Studies
December 6, 2001
Today the U.S. House of Representatives barely approved fast track
trade authority by a vote of 215 to 214, ending a long battle that
pitted the Fortune 500 against a broad alliance of labor,
environmental, religious, feminist, human rights, consumer, family
farm and other activists. These diverse forces defeated fast track
twice during the Clinton Administration and managed to delay a
vote numerous times this year because of lack of support. Now that
fast track has been approved, pro-free trade analysts would no
doubt like to begin ringing the death knell of the opposition
forces. To the contrary, there are several reasons why this vote
is only a small setback in the fight against corporate
globalization.
1.Free Traders Undermined Their Own Legitimacy with Sleazy Tactics
The K Street lobbyists, Capitol Hill horse traders, and White
House spin-meisters had to really hustle to pull this one out. We
will never know how many millions of dollars in campaign
contributions or pork deals were needed to eke out a win. When
money wouldn't work, the Administration diverted Colin Powell from
the war effort to try to persuade members of Congress with the
ludicrous argument that fast track was needed to fight terrorism.
(Now that Bush has fast track, can we expect Osama bin Laden to
emerge from his cave waving a white flag?) All this last-minute
manipulation makes it impossible for free traders to claim that
fast track passed on merit.
2. Just as NAFTA Created an Anti-Free Trade Groundswell, So Too
Will this Vote Doom Future Deals
In 1993, NAFTA backers faced defeat in the House of
Representatives even a week before the vote. Then, Clinton started
buying support with promises of military contracts, research
centers, and protections for various commodities. Although it
succeeded in pushing the deal through, the strategy proved
short-sighted. The tainted nature of that vote, along with NAFTA's
dismal record, paved the way for the defeat of fast track in 1997
and 1998 and for the recent wave of mass demonstrations against
globalization that first erupted in Seattle in 1999. This time
around, we're likely to see similar fallout. Even free traders
such as Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute
warned in the days leading up to the vote that the last-minute
arm-twisting could create such harsh feelings that Congress might
reject future trade deals.
3. Planned Trade Deals Face Other Obstacles
What the House passed today was merely a procedural matter. Free
traders still face high hurdles to obtain actual new deals. The
two most significant on the horizon are:
Free Trade Area of the Americas: The idea to expand NAFTA to 31
other nations has few champions in the hemisphere. The populist
government of Venezuela refused to agree to the timetable for
negotiations worked out in April in Quebec City, Canada. The
Brazilian government fears that it will lose its clout in South
America by entering a hemispheric deal where it would be
overshadowed by the United States. For Mexico, the FTAA would mean
losing the privileged access to the U.S. market it now enjoys
under NAFTA. Argentina is in economic meltdown and facing a
growing backlash against free market polices. Small economies of
the Caribbean fear that the loss of tariff revenues would cripple
their public sectors. Meanwhile, a Hemispheric Social Alliance has
formed that joins 50 million trade unionists and citizens networks
across the Americas in opposition to the FTAA.
World Trade Organization: The Doha ministerial in early November
managed to produce an agreement to launch a new round of
negotiations, but the meeting hardly left the impression of
rousing consensus. France (one of the biggest global agricultural
exporters) and India (the world's biggest democracy) were both
threatening to pull out at the 11th hour. Negotiators had to work
past the deadline and through the night just to save face with an
agreement that was so vague that countries on opposing sides of
key issues could all claim victory. These divisions are likely to
flare up once again once the real deal-making begins-and next time
negotiators may not be thousands of miles away from the nearest
protestor.
4. One Set Back Among Many Victories
The growing movement to oppose corporate globalization is
unprecedented in the breadth of its composition, its demands and
in its many cross-border alliances. While U.S. activists have
suffered a blow on fast track, there have been -- and will
continue to be -- victories on many other fronts:
WTO: At the recent WTO meeting, governments agreed to give poor
countries better access to discounts on drugs for AIDS and other
major killers. Previously, U.S. AIDS activists had pressured
pharmaceutical firms and the U.S. government to back off
challenges to South Africa's and Brazil's programs to offer
affordable AIDS treatment. The U.S. government had alleged that
these programs violated WTO rules on intellectual property rights.
International Bankruptcy: Last week the IMF made the surprise
announcement that it now supports an idea promoted for years by
progressives to create an international bankruptcy mechanism for
developing countries facing debt crises. While the details remain
to be seen, the idea is to establish a procedure based on Chapter
11 of U.S. bankruptcy law that would protect governments from
being sued by creditors during negotiations over debt
restructuring. Progressives have long argued that such a mechanism
was needed to ensure that private investors are not bailed out
while the poor bear the burden of economic crises.
MAI: In 1998, international activists, particularly in Canada and
France, spearheaded the defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment. Negotiated in the rich country club, the Organization
of Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, the MAI would
have severely restricted the authority of governments to control
the activity of foreign investors.
Debt: Since the late 1990s, several rich country governments have
responded to pressure from religious and other activists by
canceling debts owed to them by poor countries. (The IMF and World
Bank also responded with a debt relief program, but this is only a
partial victory since the institutions are demanding that debt
relief be conditioned on onerous conditions and many impoverished
countries, such as Haiti, are left out.)
Corporate Campaigns: A number of groups have been successful in
pressuring specific companies to modify their behavior (for
example, Rainforest Action Network's concessions from Home Depot
to support sustainable forestry, certain companies pulling out of
Burma over egregious human rights abuses). In addition, students
have organized on dozens of campuses to pressure their
administrations to adopt a code of conduct against purchasing
college gear that has been made in sweatshops.
World Bank/IMF: Since the late 1990s, there have been victories in
individual countries against policies promoted by the World Bank
and IMF. Workers, peasants and others have been successful in
fighting water privatization in Bolivia, gasoline price hikes in
Nigeria, labor law reforms in Korea, and telecommunications
privatization in Costa Rica. In the United States, Congress passed
legislation in 2000 requiring U.S. representatives to the World
Bank and IMF to oppose projects that include "user fees" on access
to primary health care and education. These fees have been
associated with lower school enrollment and reduced access to
health care.
Global Financial Casino: Promoters of a tax on speculative capital
flows (known as a "Tobin Tax") have succeeded in obtaining support
from some European nations and Canada. In September 2001, the
European Commission agreed to study the feasibility of such a tax.
John Cavanagh is Director of the Institute for Policy Studies in
Washington DC. Sarah Anderson, is a Fellow at the Institute for
Policy Studies.
The Institute for Policy Studies is a multi-issue research and
education center founded in Washington, DC in 1963. See:
www.ips-dc.org for more information on globalization and other
topics.
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