Kucinich on Collapse of Trade Talks

[AnAmerican]

A longtime critic of the World Trade Organization and its impact on labor and environmental standards globally, Congressman Kucinich issued the following statement today on the collapse of the WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico:

"Working people the world 'round have the same complaints about the WTO: it's bad for their jobs, bad for their livelihoods and bad for their income. Small farmers in Africa lose their jobs just like steelworkers in Ohio. The evidence of the failure of the WTO to deliver anything like the prosperity its promoters have promised is plain for everyone to see. That is why the U.S. Congress should reevaluate the WTO and rewrite the trade agenda our trade representative advocates."


From the campaign website....no copyright issues

[lams712]

1. Couldn't have said it better myself........n/t

[genius]

2. I agree. That's part of the reason I'm backing him.

He really cares about the lives of real people.

[diamondsoul]

3. BINGO! Dennis nails it once again.

And I'm glad at least ONE of the Candidates has the gumption to speak up about this.

I recieved an e-mail about a South Korean agriculture expert who committed suicide outside the WTO talks. The story is tragic and details how the WTO is destroying small farms in South Korea. The rural farmers in SK are losing everything and cannot survive on it anymore. The man who killed himself had spent decades teaching rural farmers and students how to get more yeild from crops and how to make enough to survive from their yields, but the WTO destroyed all that. He lost his farm to foreclosure, and watched as hundreds of other farms were abandoned. It's gotten so bad that none of the farmers there who are still farming for a living want their children to take over. They're telling them not to farm.

What I want to know is why is Dennis Kucinich the only one who seems to notice or carer about these situations and actually consider options to deal with them? Where are the rest of them, and why aren't they talking about it?

[gottaB]

4. News Hour covered the WTO talks Monday

They had as a guest Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Josette Shiner, and the idiocy that was coming out of her mouth was astounding. For example, she was trying to blame the collapse on advocacy by groups like Oxfam. Typical wingnut debating tactics. The other guest, representing Caribbean nations, did his best not to laugh at her outright, but it was trying.

Kucinich is absolutely right. The agenda of our current trade representatives makes us look stupid, intransigent, corrupt, and unwilling to negotiate fairly. The modus operandi of this administration is destroying our international credibility and it needs to stop.

I'd like to see a candidate explicitly address this in detail. (Sorry, I looked at Kucinich's site and blog but didn't see an entry on the Cancun talks. Where is it exactly?)

[MrPeepers]

5. I would disagree...

I believe the WTO is absolutely critical. We need free trade to really prosper. If we over-protect our key industries, they'll fall behind in productivity. We'll be unable to streamline our trade; we could be importing more goods which we produce inefficently and exporting more goods we produce efficently. We may lose some jobs in some areas, but the economy will be picking up millions of dollars that it would never have gotten with tariffs and quotas everywhere. We'll also see employment in our areas of specialization picking up, as well as a rise in employment of executives to haggle out trade agreements, laborers in transportation and shipping, managment in transporatation and shipping, and so on. It may hurt a few people in the short-term, but to maintain a healthy economy into the future free trade is simply a must.

Peepers

[no name no slogan]

6. You're missing the point

Nobody that I know that's anti-WTO is against "free trade". The point with the WTO is that it is BROKEN beyond repair in its current structure, and it needs to be put to rest, so a new plan can emerge.

Did you know that, under the WTO as it now stands, a country can be sued by a transnational corporation for enacting laws that the corporation feels are "anti-free trade" (and penalized if found guilty)? The WTO has the power to transcend the sovereignty of states and their citizens. It's another vehicle for the rich, developed world to continue the exploitation of emerging economies by the developed world and transnational corporations.

What Kucinich is proposing is going back to bilateral trade agreements on a country-by-country basis, just like what we had prior to NAFTA and the WTO.

[LWolf]

7. bi-lateral rather than unilateral. Good point.

Does anyone really want megacorporations enacting and enforcing trade policy across the globe?