From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: In GATT They Trust (VIII -- penultimate)
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 13:04:38 GMT

In GATT They Trust (VIII -- penultimate)


The following article was taken from the _Covert Action_ Spring 1992
[special issue dedicated to  Native people's rights/struggles]
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Terry Allen is co-editor of CAIB [CovertAction Information Bulletin] 
and a journalist who has worked in the U.S. and abroad. 
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For more information about CovertAction Information Bulletin and
subscription information, please see bottom or email Rich Winkel at
rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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===================== 
Fast Track, Fast Buck 
===================== 

The Bush administration, faced with a rapidly changing global and 
domestic economic picture, is looking to the current Uruguay Round to 
institutionalize U.S.  financial advantages in the New World Order. 
Because he can use these agreementes to help him circumvent Congress, 
he is pushing both the Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and the GATT 
process rather than other mechanisms for setting U.S.  international 
trade policy. 

The use of international treatiesas executive tools started with 
Truman but it was not until Nixon that it began to show its full 
potential.  Nixon made sigificant changes in the way trade policy was 
set.  In place of the two-thirds vote by the Senate after full debate 
and amendment, he won from Congress the authortiy for the White House 
to negotiate foreign trade treaties on the basis of a "fast track" 
procedure. 

Under the fast track, the President has the power to negotiate trade 
treaties-renamed agreements-in secret.  Once completed, the President 
submits the imlementing legislation to Congress.  This implementing 
legislation, often thousands of pages long, amends every relevant U.S. 
law to be in compliance with the provisions of the secretly negotiated 
agreement.  Congress is barred from making any changes whatsoever and 
the time for debate is stricly limited, supposedly to prevent 
filibusters.  In the end, only a rubber stamp bote, either yes or no, 
is allowed. 

The fast track procedure won by President Nixon has turned out to be 
one of the most important weapons used by the White House in its 
struggle with Congress over who will control policymaking 

The power of the agreements was further enhanced simply by broadening 
the definition of trade issues to include anything that "directly or 
indirectly affects international trade."  The White House could then 
use secret trade negotiations to address a wide range of domestic 
economic, social, and ecological policies.  Laws passed by Congress or 
even state legislatures which the administration did not like, such as 
environmental protection measures, could be simple declared "trade 
distorting" and made illegal as part of a trade agreement.  And laws 
sought by th4e administration but rejected by Congress, such as 
further deregulation of the insurance or banking industry, could be 
slipped into bilateral or multilateral trade negotiations. 

The 1989 negotiation for a free trade agreement with Canada is a good 
example of the potential for abuse.  The Reagan administration used it 
to securechanges in both Canadian and U.S. laws that helped to promote 
his deregulation agenda.  This agreement resulted in a multitude of 
harmful social, economic, and environmental impacts on both sides of 
the border.  Canada, for example, was forced to weaken many of its 
environmental and food safetly standards, such as pesticide 
regulations.  Numerous provincial government programs designed to 
boost depressed local economies are banned by this accord.  Routine 
unemployment benefits which acted as a safety net for seasonal workers 
such as fishermen or agricultural workers were targeted as unfair 
trade practices. 

In the U.S., too, the agreement has caused havoc.  By opening U.S. 
borders to large increases in wheat imports, the grain multinationals 
were able to force family farmers in the U.S. to accept very low, and 
in some cases ruinous prices. 

The Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was presented to Congress in 
the form of a 2,000-page piece of implementing legislation.  Because 
this legislation was under the fast-track procedure, Congress had only 
two options.  It could either vote down the entire trade agreement, 
thereby rejecting potentially beneficial elements, or it could hold 
its nose and approve the entire package, bad along with good.  Used to 
the stink of protecting its self-interests, Congress approved the 
agreement. 

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Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:43893 ca.politics:7475 ba.politics:5061