Repukes trying to rush another nasty trade deal through Congress

[Elwood P Dowd]

A portion of a Public Citizen email I just received....

The Global Trade Watch Team at Public Citizen

p.s. Want to do more? After you call, send a letter to your Congressional (House) representative here:
http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=3664. A house vote is likely in Congress the week of July 10th, and Representatives will be flying back home to you to do town hall meetings and other public events next week. Consider "Bird-Dogging" your member of congress about NAFTA expansion. Find out more here: http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=3307


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Oman Free Trade Agreement


More NAFTAs mean more lost U.S. jobs. A decade of NAFTA has resulted in the largest U.S. trade deficit ever-a deficit caused by a flood of job-killing imported goods and the export of three million U.S. manufacturing jobs. Real wages are scarcely above their 1972 levels, even though productivity has grown by over 80 percent. We can't afford any more NAFTA-like trade deals. We need to change this broken trade model!

Oman bans independent labor unions! Currently in Oman it is illegal to form independent trade unions. Workers can only join "representative committees" that include management representatives. The OFTA, like CAFTA and NAFTA, has strict intellectual property rights protections with tough enforcement - but no enforceable labor rights. OFTA merely requires Oman to enforce its own labor laws, and while the Sultan has promised "reform," OFTA would provide no recourse if he changes his mind. Under OFTA, there's not even any penalty for weakening this existing bad law further.

This Oman FTA will lead to serious human rights abuses. The majority of the private sector workforce in Oman are foreign-born "guest workers" from China, Bangladesh and other poor countries. Recent horrific reports about the results of the U.S. Free Trade Agreement with nearby Jordan show how labor rights abuses and human trafficking can greatly increase with the introduction of a free trade agreement. The State Department has noted that Oman "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking."

The Oman FTA gives foreign corporations more rights than U.S. citizens. OFTA contains the same type of "investor-state" provisions as NAFTA and CAFTA, which would allow an Omani company (or a company from any other country incorporated in Oman) to sue the United States government in a secret tribunal, demanding payment from our tax dollars, if the company feels that any U.S. government policy is restricting their ability to make profit.

OFTA could undermine U.S. national security. The OFTA goes beyond even CAFTA and NAFTA in explicitly promoting rights for foreign companies - including government-owned companies - to operate our sensitive infrastructure: electricity grids, port operations and more. OFTA allows foreign investors to take the U.S. government to secret tribunals if the profitability of any foreign investment in these sensitive sectors is threatened by an act of the US Congress.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. They should call it what it really is.... GRAFTA.... and be done

with it.