However, as Nader and other critics of free trade have pointed out, multinational corporations are unwilling to share the decision-making process with citizen organizations. Citizen groups have not been able to play a parallel role. The global game allows corporations to pit country against country to compete for the lowest wages, lowest environmental standards, and lowest consumer safety standards. Nader says EPA test results show that U. S. companies in Mexico dump an industrial solvent, xylene, at around 50,000 times the level allowed in the U. S., and they dump methylene chloride at around 215,000 times U. S. standards. Nader also mentions a National Safe Workplace Institute report showing Mexican workers suffer much higher levels of injuries than American workers, and that babies born to Mexican workers in U. S. plants have an alarming rate of birth defects.
Corporations work to remove environmental and health standards they dislike.
As Nader says, the companies develop an argument about how a given environmental or health standard violates the rules of a trade agreement and then insist the health standard be revoked. For example, in 1991, Puerto Rico upgraded its milk supply quality with the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, a tough system of regulation. High temperature milk from Canada was unable to meet the standards, so Puerto Rico banned the Canadian milk. Canada then challenged Puerto Rico's consumer safety standards. Puerto Rico had to either allow the Canadian milk in or face sanctions.