Eyes on Trade

Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch blog on globalization and trade

What's New -
Global Trade Watch

Aug. 20 - Blog: Huffington Post: Does the U.S. Trade Rep. Secretly Love Higher Tariffs?
Aug. 9 - Report: Investment Rules in Trade Agreements: Top 10 Changes to Build a Pro-Labor, Pro-Community, and Pro-Environment Trans-Pacific Partnership
Aug. 5 - Map: Under the Korea FTA, These Multinational Corporations Could Challenge U.S. and Korean Law
Aug. 4 - Blog: Huffington Post: Tribunal OKs Mining Corp's CAFTA Attack on Green Policy: Did Team Obama Really Need More Reasons to Renegotiate Bush's NAFTA-Style Trade Deals? 
Aug. 3 - Press Release: Pac Rim CAFTA Challenge of Salvadoran Environmental, Mining Safety Policies Given Go-Ahead by Tribunal
Jul. 30 - Blog: Huffington Post: Turn Away from the Cliff on Trade, State Legislators Group Tells Obama
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Trade: State and Local Governance

Trade is no longer simply a federal matter. Today's international trade agreements delve deeply into matters of state law. Pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) contain numerous policy obligations and constraints to which U.S. federal, state and local governments are bound to conform their domestic policies.

These types of "trade" agreements are pushing an ever-increasing number of issues away from local or even national democratic decision-making and into inaccessible international venues where few citizens or even their elected representatives can follow.

Latest News

NCSL Calls for Trade Reform at 2010 Legislative Summit

 At the the National Conference of State Legislatures' (NCSL) July 2010 legislative summit, state legislators passed a policy calling for major reform of the U.S. trade pact model as the battle looms over renegotation of Bush's Korea FTA! The Free Trade and Federalism policy articulates some of the trade policy changes needed before state legislators will support a specific trade agreement or presidential trade promotion authority. This includes:

 - Ensuring that trade agreements do not provide greater procedural or substantive rights for foreign investors by including an investor-state dispute resolution or including greater substantive property rights than available under U.S. law;
 -  Requiring that federal trade negotiators obtain the explicit consent of state legislatures - not just governors - before a state can be bound to comply with trade agreement procurement policy constraints;
 - Limiting U.S. commitments under trade pact service, investment and procurement rules to a "positive list approach" so that only state sectors and policies explicitly committed will be covered by the agreement's policy constraints; and
 - Improving consultation with state legislators on procurement, services and investment provisions of trade agreements before the onset of negotiations.

For more information:

  • Read the National Conference of State Legislatures' policy on "Free Trade and Federalism"
  • See Lori Wallach's Huffington Post Blog, "Turn Away from the Cliff on Trade, State Legislators Group Tells Obama" (7/30/2010)
  • Read Global Trade Watch's Press Release on the resolution (7/28/2010)

 

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