Obama approves new trade accord with Peru

[amborin]

Trade Accord Causes a Split of Democrats new york times


By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: November 9, 2007

WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — Has the Democratic Party gone soft on trade? Or has it opened a bitter internal split that could come back to haunt the party in the coming elections?

Under the Bush administration, trade deals submitted for approval to Congress have generally been opposed by labor unions, environmental groups and left-of-center activists hostile to the forces of globalization. Democrats, as a result, have rarely given their approval.

But on Thursday, only a year after the Democrats regained control of Congress following a campaign rife with criticism of White House trade policies, nearly half the Democrats in the House broke with recent party orthodoxy and supported a trade deal with Peru that the administration hopes could lead to approval of significantly bigger and more important trade pacts in the future.

The Peru deal was approved by an overwhelming vote of 285 in favor to 132 against. But its most striking aspect was that 109 Democrats voted yes and 116 voted no, reopening the fissure that developed during the Clinton administration, when much of the party bucked President Bill Clinton as he pressed for the North American Free Trade Agreement and liberalizing trade with China.

To the surprise of many Democrats, the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, led her fellow party members to vote yes, and even she found it paradoxical. “Frankly, I have largely been on the other side of it than I am tonight,” Ms. Pelosi told colleagues Wednesday evening at the end of a rancorous debate, during which many Democrats accused her of betraying the party’s base.

The victory was sweet for the Bush administration, which points to the advantages of trade competition and wants to build up the export sector now that it is the strongest part of the economy. But many Democrats argue that lowering trade barriers has helped lose three million manufacturing jobs since 2000 and has resulted in stagnant wages.

Two developments have led to the Democratic rupture over Peru. First, Ms. Pelosi and other Democrats won concessions from the Bush administration to include protections for workers and for the environment in Peru, and by extension in trading-partner countries in future trade deals. With these attachments, Ms. Pelosi said the Peru deal was not perfect but still worthy.

Second, the Democrats are riding high politically and getting sizable campaign contributions from the sectors that are benefiting the most from the global economy. These include financial services firms, computer chip makers and other high-tech manufacturers, the entertainment industry and farmers dependent on selling to markets overseas.

A split among the Democratic presidential candidates, who receive support from unions but also from export-oriented industries, mirrors the disagreement in Congress. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois endorses the Peru deal, which is due to come before the Senate this year, while former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina opposes it as part of his populist anti-establishment campaign.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said on Thursday that she would vote for the Peru deal, but she has sent mixed signals on the overall issue. She has asked, for example, for a review of the North America trade agreement negotiated by her husband, and she said she would vote against several coming trade accords.

Yet she is also surrounded by former officials from the Clinton administration who are ardently pro-trade, including former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin.

The old Clinton hands, who argue that differences in education levels and advances in technology, not trade, are the main reason for wage stagnation or job losses, say they are confident that Senator Clinton’s instincts are in the pro-trade mold. These Democrats also call for more domestic spending on job training and preserving benefits for workers who do lose their jobs to imports.

“I think if a Democratic president comes in, Democrats will take a broader view of trade than Democrats can in Congress right now,” said Stuart E. Eizenstat, an under secretary of state for economic affairs under Mr. Clinton. “I would expect that a Democratic president will be able to win more trust from Democrats in trade, though maybe not from most of them.”

The accord with Peru would allow its exports into the United States duty-free and would eliminate duties on most industrial and farm exports from the United States to Peru.

Opponents of open trade say that because it was so bitter, the Peru vote may actually make future votes more difficult and the path of a future Democratic president more doubtful.

President Bush and his top aides hailed the approval of the Peru deal on Thursday and called on the same bipartisan cooperation to get behind pending deals on Panama, Colombia and South Korea.

snip

“The Peru vote has to be taken with a grain of salt,” said Clayton Yeutter, a former top trade envoy under President Ronald Reagan. “Of the four pending agreements, this one was the easiest for the leadership and the membership. It is not that big of an agreement, and they can use it to demonstrate some bona fides in favor of trade agreements.”

[saracat]

1. Mr.Corporatist strikes again. Big hypocrite!

[Skittles]

2. they are both corporatists

:thumbsdown:

[babylonsister]

4. How do you know, when you don't have a favorite? Ha! nt

[babylonsister]

3. November of 07? I'll be the first to admit I don't 'get' who is doing what,

but come on! No one running for prez is impressing us with their current votes.

[greyl]

5. So does Clinton.

link to the OP article

[amborin]

6. Obama was in favor of Nafta, til it was politically incorrect

the miami herald:

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Clinton, Obama didn't always bash NAFTA
Posted on Mon, Feb. 25, 2008Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY DAVID LIGHTMAN, KEVIN G. HALL AND JAY ROOT
[email protected]

AUSTIN -- When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama duel Tuesday night in a crucial debate in economically battered Ohio, both are certain to claim that they oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement.

It's a dubious claim, however. Obama touted the benefits of the trade deal with Canada and Mexico when he was running for his Senate seat, and if Clinton had reservations about NAFTA, she kept them to herself when her husband made it one of his presidency's top priorities.

The Democratic candidates spent Monday trading barbs about NAFTA, each painting the other as a fervent backer of an accord that many economists call a success and that some politicians and union leaders label a failure.

Clinton opened her Ohio campaign last Tuesday saying that, ''I've long been a critic of the shortcomings of NAFTA.'' Obama followed with fliers accusing her of flip-flopping.

The passage of the trade deal in 1993 was one of Bill Clinton's biggest policy victories, and those who fought to pass it say Hillary Clinton certainly wasn't a vocal opponent -- and probably wasn't an opponent at all during her husband's eight years in office.

Hillary Clinton ''certainly was never opposed to it,'' recalled former Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn., whom Bill Clinton recruited to help lobby for the agreement in 1993. ``I guess whatever he was for, she was for.''

James Jones, a veteran Democratic congressman from Oklahoma whom Bill Clinton tapped to be his ambassador to Mexico, helped lobby wavering Democrats to get NAFTA through Congress. He doesn't recall Hillary Clinton ever questioning NAFTA, either.

''I have always assumed she supported it,'' he said.

Marc Campos, a Democratic political consultant in Houston, worked for the government of Mexico during the NAFTA debate. The Mexican government coordinated its lobbying efforts with Washington, and Campos was tasked with rounding up Hispanic support for the treaty in the United States -- an easy job.

''For the most part, Latino leaders throughout Texas supported NAFTA,'' Campos said. ``At the time, was involved in all the healthcare stuff, so she wasn't a real player on it in the administration. But hell, she was married to the guy.''

In fact, Clinton barely mentions NAFTA in her 532-page memoir. When she does, it's usually in the context of how it affected her failed 1993-94 effort to overhaul healthcare. Major newspapers reported her frustration in 1993 that the campaign to pass NAFTA was knocking her initiative into the background.

Clinton's campaign spokesman, Phil Singer, points to a 2000 statement in New York in which she called NAFTA ''flawed'' and suggested that changes were needed in it as the earliest evidence he could find of her opposition.

Obama's claims, too, are open to question.

''I don't think NAFTA has been good for Americans, and I never have,'' he said Sunday in Ohio.

But according to a Decatur (Ill.) Herald & Review story in September 2004, Obama touted the benefits from U.S. exports under NAFTA during his Senate campaign. The Associated Press also reported at the time that Obama favored pursuing trade deals such as NAFTA.

The Illinois senator insisted Sunday in Ohio that while he doesn't oppose free trade, he has reservations about NAFTA.

''What the world should interpret is my consistent position, which is: I believe in trade,'' he said.

But it's hard to be for trade and against NAFTA, because that landmark regional trade deal served as a blueprint for future accords, creating rules for everything from how to label products to timetables for removing tariffs and other trade barriers.

''I think when Obama says that kind of stuff, it is political double-talk,'' said David Rothkopf, who served as an undersecretary for international trade in the Commerce Department under President Bill Clinton. ``The reality is that NAFTA produced many benefits.''

[monktonman]

7. You forgot to highlight this....

Its classic Clinton triangulation and pandering....

"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said on Thursday that she would vote for the Peru deal, but she has sent mixed signals on the overall issue. She has asked, for example, for a review of the North America trade agreement negotiated by her husband, and she said she would vote against several coming trade accords."

She's gonna vote FOR it but is trying to fool the voters by sending "mixed signals" on the OVERALL issue.

Sheeeesh!

[babylonsister]

8. And Hill doesn't know WTF she wants!

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said on Thursday that she would vote for the Peru deal, but she has sent mixed signals on the overall issue.

[amborin]

9. Obama gets campaign funds from Big Pharma

Barack Obama's Glass House Ibd
Mon Feb 25, 6:49 PM ET



Politics: Barack Obama accuses John McCain of corruption as his partner in a Chicago real estate deal goes on trial. In both Illinois and Washington, D.C., Obama is no stranger to those trying to buy influence.

ADVERTISEMENT

Campaigning in Ohio last Saturday, Obama accused presumptive GOP presidential nominee McCain of having lobbyists as top aides and said "many of them have been running their businesses on the campaign bus while they've been helping him."

Obama's charge against the man who co-authored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill with Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold because he thought there was too much money in politics comes on the heels of a flimsily concocted story on the front page of the New York Times suggesting without facts that McCain had an affair with an attractive female lobbyist for whom he did political favors.

This pure coincidence, of course, delineates a line of attack that both Obama and the media that fawn over him are likely to use this year -- a revival of the "culture of corruption" strategy to replace the "failed Iraq policy" strategy that died after the surge succeeded and political reconciliation became a reality in that country.

It also suggests how unwilling the mainstream media are to examine the record of the former Illinois state senator who says, among other things, that McCain's health care plans reflect "the agenda of the drug and insurance lobbyists who back his campaign and use money and influence to block real health care reform."

Obama knows insurance lobbyists all too well. Back in 2003, Illinois lawmakers, including Obama, tried to expand health care coverage with the "Health Care Justice Act." As Scott Helman of the Boston Globe reported last September, insurers and their lobbyists, fearing a government-run system, "found a sympathetic ear in Obama, who amended the bill more to their liking." During debate on the bill on May 19, 2004, Helman notes, Obama acknowledged he had "worked diligently with the insurance industry."

Meanwhile, Obama was willing to accept campaign contributions from insurers, including $1,000 to his state Senate campaign committee from the Professional Independent Insurance Agents PAC in June 2003 and $1,000 from the Illinois Insurance PAC in December of the same year. According to Helman, "Obama also collected money from the insurance industry and its lobbyists for his successful U.S. Senate campaign in 2004."

The Washington Times reports that while Sen. Obama has said he won't accept money from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA), he has accepted "tens of thousands" from partners at Covington & Burling LLP, which was paid nearly a half-million dollars to lobby for PhRMA last year.

[emilyg]

11. !!

[anamandujano]

15. Could you supply links for these? I'd like to read them at the original site.

Thanks.

[Breeze54]

10. Got a link and a list of who voted yea and nay?

:shrug:

President Bush and his top aides hailed the approval of the Peru deal on Thursday.

Uh oh... then we know this is very bad! :grr:

Found it..... the link.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00413#name
A bill to implement the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.
Vote Counts: YEAs 77
NAYs 18
Not Voting 5

[amborin]

12. ruins Peru's small farmers

"However, international aid organisation Oxfam said the agreement would expose Peru's small farmers to "massive dumping" of subsidised US farm goods. "

[amborin]

13. Screw Peru

"But it's precisely the imports of subsidised agricultural produce from the US, particularly wheat, maize and cotton, which could be disastrous for up to a million Peruvian farmers, many of whom live in poverty in the rural interior of the country.

"We will have an absolutely unjust competition between Peruvian agricultural products and North American agricultural products, because the US subsidises its agricultural products and we don't", says Javier Diez Canseco, head of the Peruvian Socialist Party and a former presidential candidate.

"So there is a very strong difference between the conditions of production and the subsidies that the US farmers receive and those that Peru has to deal with."

Clear divide

Peru's government says it has a fund of about £37m to compensate farmers during the first five years of the free trade agreement (FTA).



Not everyone is happy with the deal

But there is still a clear divide between the benefits of the deal for Peru's growing urban middle class and the rural population. The trickle-down is geographically patchy.

"One of the biggest losers here could the rural households. Rural areas are widely poor", says Carmen Ponce, a researcher at Lima-based think-tank, Grade."


"However, the US-based watchdog organisation Amazon Watch says the trade pact is not environmentally sustainable and will mean new rights for oil companies to drill in the Peruvian Amazon, around 65% of which has already been zoned into oil and gas concessions in the last three years.

The group says investor rights provisions included in the FTA will allow foreign companies to skirt Peruvian law and regulatory authorities, potentially benefiting US corporations such as Hunt Oil and Occidental Petroleum over Peruvian and US citizens.

The strengthening of US copyright and trademark protection in the FTA also means Peru's poor could be hit as the price of medicine rises by 30%, according to research.

"

[Breeze54]

14. Peru: five killed in trade protests

Peru: five killed in trade protests

http://www.ww4report.com/node/5154

Submitted by WW4 Report on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 02:51.

Campesinos and farmers started an open-ended strike in eight Peruvian departments on Feb. 18, holding marches and blocking highways to demand government measures to ease the impact of a free trade agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish) with the US. The action was called by the National Convention of Agriculture (Conveagro), the National Council of Irrigation Users (JNUDR) and the National Agrarian Confederation (CNA). According to JNUDR president Enrique Malaga, the FTA, which
is to lift tariffs on heavily subsidized US farm products, will harm more than 1.75 million Peruvian farms.

One protester was killed in Barranca, north of Lima, on Feb. 18; police said he was shot by an angry motorist. Three more protesters were killed on Feb. 19: two were shot dead when police fired into a march in Ayacucho department in the central Andean region; another protester fell to his death as he was fleeing police tear gas near the Pan-American Highway in the southern department of Arequipa. At least 150 people were arrested. The government declared a state of emergency in the eight departments on Feb. 19, and by the end of the day the organizers had suspended the strike and resumed negotiations with the government.

Also on Feb. 19, teachers marched on Congress in Lima to protest a decree by social democratic president Alan Garcia on the hiring of teachers with university degrees in the public schools.

Despite the suspension, campesinos continued the strike through Feb. 20 in the southern departments of Cusco, Arequipa and Ayacucho to protest the four deaths in the preceding days. According to CNR radio, a fifth protester, Edgar Huayta Saccsara, was killed during the Feb. 20 strike. He was reportedly shot in the head during disturbances in Huamanga, capital of Ayacucho; some 73 other people were injured. Also on Feb. 20, US ambassador Peter Michael McKinley spoke out in favor of the trade pact, which the US Congress approved in December. It would "establish modern systems of trade regulation and design a discipline which will improve Peru's competitiveness and promote its prosperity," he said. (Bloomberg News, Feb. 21; Earth Times, Feb. 20; TeleSUR, Feb. 19; EFE, Feb. 20; Prensa Latina, Feb. 20)

The protests continued two more days in Cusco, where local people called a 48-hour strike starting on Feb. 21 to protest a law allowing companies to set up businesses near archeological zones. Strikers blocked roads out of the city of Cusco, while some 500 marched in the downtown area. On Feb. 21 protesters marched on the airport, causing some damage and leading the authorities to suspend flights for the duration of the strike. Hundreds of tourists were stranded, but five of them—three from Argentina, one from Colombia and one from Spain—were reportedly detained by the national police in Cusco for joining the protests. (AFP, Feb. 22; Living in Peru, Feb. 21)

On Feb. 22, Peruvian vice president Luis Giampietri blamed the week's protests on "subversion" by former presidential candidate Ollanta Humala and his Nationalist Peruvian Party (PNP). (La Prensa, Panama, Feb. 24 from DPA.)