COMMENTARY NAFTA agreement ‘free trade’ myth vs. reality By Edmund G Brown Jr nder the banner of free trade and corporate nrstmc turing. American employers have shifted millions of U.S jobs to lower-wage foreign production sites The reason is dear equally skilled foreign workers can do the same job for a lot less This is the dark truth lurking behind the notion that the North American Free Trade Agreement will create high-paying jobs. Much more likely is a slide downward in terms of wage levels and environmental standards Such a result is inev itnble if the Uniter! States links itself with Mexico, where average wage levels are a tenth of America's, env iromnental laws go unenforced, unions are i aptive to the state, and the political s\ stem is distorted by corruption and electoral fraud. Opening the trade border with Mexico should inspire open and honest public debate. Instead. NAKFA has been negotiated in secret and written in arcane language. Mnk ing things worse is the undemocratic "fast track” pror ess that will be used for congressional consideration of both NAKFA and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT). Under this restrii tod parliamentary procedure, the power ol Congress is reduced to a simple "yes or " no” vote and time allotted for debate is severely limit ed This makes j rnockerv of Article 1. Set lion H of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power "to regu late commerce with foreign nations What little debate there is on NAKFA is lost in a fog of outdated ideas. Only a trade spec mlist could take seri ously such vacuous slogan-words as "free trade and "pro tectionism" when a third of our "foreign” trade is actu ally American companies sending exports to Mexico that are not final goods to he received there, but intermediate products destined for return to the United States or to oth er markets after they have been enhanced in value by cheaper Mexican workers. The international flow of goods and services has dra matically expanded in recent years, but in such a perverse way that the gap between the rich and the poor has dou bled and the industrial assault on natural systems — marine Fisheries, tropical forests, topsoil, rivers and the protective ozone layer — has intensified. In this context, the slogan "free trade" misses the point. Instead of waste ful production and frenetic global exchange, we need a serious commitment to just and sustainable economic, policies. One would never guess, listening to those who argue so dogmatically for free trade, that the concept was only invented in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when conditions were totally different. I hen. capital was not mobile in the way it is today, when billions of dollars can move across the world in seconds to exploit the bene /'u tt*u« rr \ fr V30*fx jou*»* ’ gavt&er P«irN«nUA0 Ucywwam. fils of pathetically low wages am! environmental stan dards Tile very concept of a multi-national c orporation with no allegiance except to its own glotiat expansion w as unthinkable. And, of course, no one considered the pos sibility that human tx'ings might a< tually disrupt the life supporting processes of nature Washington insiders — the people who lobby Congress and pay for the campaigns or the media that reports it talk as though "free trade" nlwavs raises wages and generates good jobs The fads indicate otherwise. Sim e 197,1. American trade with other nations has doubled, but the value of American weekly paychecks has fallen 1H percent. In the last decade alone, the number of young men working full time, who only earn a poverty wage, has increased 100 percent. The U S. economy expanded — national income per capita grew 28 percent — but the benefits were channeled to those with the highest incomes Inequality grew ause the American economy was deregulated and subjected to destructive glolwl competition. Executives, investors, cor porate lawyers and media pundits who were insulated by foreign competition benefited, but tens of millions of Others, many of whom had once enjoyed high-paying jobs, did not. What was lacking — and still is was not expanding foreign trade, but anti trust, labor and trade policies that put community well-being at the top of Amer ica's priorities. Another danger of both NAKTA and (>A I I has been exposed by a series of re< cut legal challenges brought undercurrent GATT rules Both trade agreements use similar dispute resolution procedures whereby non-ele* I Opening the trade border with Mexico should inspire open and honest public debate. Instead, NAFTA has been negotiated in secret and written in arcane language. ed spei talists drawn from a short list of trade insid ers hint1 authority to declare environmental, health and safety standards non-tariff or tei hnicnl barriers to trade and therefore suhjet t to fmmu ial san< turn In August 1 U't t. a three-person ms ret (i,\ I I dispute panel in (ieneva ruled that the I' S Marine Mammal Pro lix tion Ai t of to?;' u.i-. an illegal harrier to trade twcause it restricts importing tuna into the United States that are i aught using !e< hnnpies that kill large uumhers of dol phins I he case was brought bv Mexico In I ehruarv lU'i.!. a GA IT panel ruled that numerous l S states' alcohol taxes ami regulations were mi onsistent with (.A I I . and that as ,i matter of international law (. \ 11 was superior to U S state and lot id law These i uses i learlv underline the sharp conflit t lietwix'n international trade agreements and national sovereignty Ameru an deitltK rai \ rests on a system that ret oglii/ex signifu ant different es among i arious state and lot ablins GAT!’mid NAFTA. however, m the name of eliminating "technii al" harriers of trude resirh t lot al citizens and communities from setting their own standards I oiler both NAFTA and GA IT ur will he suhjet ted to a super government of distant and non-elei ted trade experts, whose narrow frame of relereni e has noth mg of the robust diversity of democratu port it ipalion What is needed in plot e of (