White House threatens to hold up trade deals unless Congress expands aid for US workers

Source: Associated Press

White House threatens to hold up trade deals unless Congress expands aid for US workers
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, May 16, 11:30 AM

WASHINGTON — The White House is threatening to hold up final passage of three coveted free trade agreements unless lawmakers expand retraining assistance for American workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition.

The move comes as administration officials begin talks on Capitol Hill to finalize the agreements the White House reached to expand trade with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. President Barack Obama has said the deals are an integral part of his economic agenda, and the pacts have broad Republican support.

While administration officials have long said they supported expanding the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, or TAA, Monday’s announcement was the first time aides said they would be willing to delay the deals without it.

“We will not submit the FTAs without an agreement on an enhanced TAA,” said Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council. “But we also believe we can work on congressional leadership to get that accomplished.”



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/white-house-threatens-to-hold-up-trade-deals-unless-congress-expands-aid-for-us-workers/2011/05/16/AFJKWq4G_story.html

:cry:

workers that workers already have enough aid & protections - BULSHIT! If ALL workers were sleeping on the street and force to work for a buck an hour ....Republicans would still insist workers have enough protection

Republican agenda and ideology is solely to increase corporate profits at the workers expense while making the rich, richer and workers stagnate or poorer...This is a FACT and has always been the republicans goals and agenda - divide the idiot workers and conquer them....Keep the morons in fear, whether it's USSR, Muslin who oil the corporations are stealing through our military OUR taxes are paying for or to fear some person of color who the republicans (like pigman Limbaugh)convince ignorant workers are going to steal their job, encouraging and telling workers it's Okay to hate people of color and gays and women keep them fighting among themselves as the republican continue to pass legislation to benefit the rich and their corporations.

I realize that I'm not being very "centrist" by asking this, but why do "we" need to "trade" with them AT ALL?

I can see why a 3rd world nation or a corporation might *need* to trade for things, but I cannot really see why the USA does.

I thought "trading" implied that you exchange something that you dont have or cant get for something that the other guy does not have or cant get.

What is it that these countries are producing that we did not use to make here, and that we could not resume making?

What is it that we need to "trade" them for? Computers? No, we could go back to making those here. Coffee? Nope. We can grow that in Hawaii just fine. Dont they have something we cant do without that we dont have or cant make?

No? Then WTF do we even need them for?

Unless there is some exotic tiger balm or something that we cant make, they dont have a damn thing to "trade" with me.

The only thing being "traded" is their labor for ours.

It's like telling me that "we" need to "compete" with China and India. Why? Rigged game aside, "We" should only need to "compete" with other Americans. China, India, Korea, etc. should not have a damn thing that I should need to *trade* them for.

to make it here and then bring it back here and sell the imported item for the same price that the product that was once made in the USA cost, then the corporation makes far more money. The corporation wins...the American worker gets the shaft. It's about dodging labor costs and other operating expenses, OSHA and EPA regulation, unionization, pensions and taxes.

Without real protection for American workers the "Free Trade" deals will continue to destroy the American working class's quality of life.

At first the foreign made goods are CHEAP...but once the companies that once produced those goods here in the US are all out of action, the cost of the goods produced offshore is then raised to what the US made items once cost, due to the lack of American competition.

Every time an American company moves a factory to another country the American worker loses ground, in the hard right's/KochRoaches battle to defeat the unions and the middle class working American.

I see- we had jobs, then we "traded" that for joblessness.

Sounds fair to me!

Koch? Tired of hearing 'bout them. Those are the guys who were recently rewarded with masive tax breaks by the Obama admin. Tax breaks of the like that you and I will never see, ever.

I'm not trying to come down on you, but call me back when Pelosi, Reid & Obama start saying "Koch Brothers" every 5 minutes like we do around here. Hint: DEMS dont give a crap about "the Koch Brothers" beyond using them as a fundraising boogey-man.

anybody in Washington. We the people seem to be more on our own every day. "Globalization" is bringing this country down to the banana republic level, one shut down American factory at a time.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

want a job! Take myself for instance they shut my plant down ten days after my 61st birthday. What the f--- am I going to train for at that age and who will hire me? After a year on unemployment I took my SS and pension.

Support an international minimum wage and enforce international environmental standards that will help keep jobs here. Training? For what jobs?

I'm surprised people still fall for this scam. Clinton couldn't stop pushing re-training when nafta was shoved through.

It's a bunch of baloney. Almost a million people applied for 50,000 mcjobs recently and these politicians with their crappy free trade neo con agreements make a huge public fuss over tried a failed "retraining" program for the victims of their greed.

How about ditch the neocon/freidmanite free trade agreements and call it a day.

environmental safeguards. Rather, they're being held up until the repubs agree to extend the worker retraining program for those who are layed off because of the slave trade agreements, while at the same time we're being told that these agreements are job creators. Does this make sense? Sure doesn't to me.

Republic, Mexico, Honduras, and China into peaceful industrial economies independent of trade

We will have these "free" trade agreements only if we get a little bit of training on how to sell hamburgers or say "Welcome to Wal-Mart".

Have you looked at the regulations for applying for this retraining? You, the unemployed, have to prove you lost your job due to the trade agreement. If the corporation says, no we sent our jobs to South Korea because we just love the climate. Too bad for you, no re-training.

A real Democratic President would never approve these misnamed "free" trade deals.

These trade deals are nothing but labor arbitrage agreements. That way a corporation only has to pay 2 cents an hour for child labor to make crap in South Korea and then sell it, tariff free, here in the US for 5 times the cost of making the crap.

American citizens are nothing but trade bait.

:banghead: I swear this place is going to turn into a third world country.

Marcos wrote this back in the 90's. If we extrapolate on what 15 more years of globalism have done to our country and the world since this was written, we get a very frightening look at how difficult it will be to overthrow our corporate conquerors.
---
The progress of the great transnationals does not imply the advancement of developed Nations. To the contrary, while the great financial giants earn more, poverty sharpens in the so-called "rich nations".

The chasm between the rich and poor is brutal and no tendency appears to the contrary, indeed it continues. Far from lessening, we won't say eliminating it, the social inequality is accentuated, above all in the developed capitalist nations: in the United States,1% of the wealthiest Americans have conquered 61.6% of the total national wealth between 1983 and 1989. 80% of the poorest Northamericans share only 1.2% of the wealth. In Great Britain the number of homeless has grown; the number of children who survive on social welfare has gone from 7% in 1979 to 26% in 1994, the number of British who live in poverty (defined as less than half of minimum wage) has gone from 5 million to 13,700,000; 10% of the poorest have lost 13% of their purchasing power, while 10% of the richest have gained 65% and in a period of the past 5 years the number of millionaires has doubled (statistics from LMD,IV/97).

At the beginning of the decade of the 90's "...an estimated 37,000 transnational companies held, with their 170,000 subsidiaries, the international economy in its tentacles." Nevertheless, the center of power situates itself in the most restrictive circle of the first 200: since the beginnings of the 80's, they have had an uninterrupted expansion through mergers and "rescue" buy-outs of companies.
----
The global power of the financial centers is so great, that they can afford not to worry about the political tendency of those who hold power in a nation, if the economic program (in other words, the role that nation has in the global economic megaprogram) remains unaltered. The financial disciplines impose themselves upon the different colors of the world political spectrum in regards to the government of any nation. The great world power can tolerate a leftist government in any part of the world, as long as the government does not take measures that go against the needs of the world financial centers. But in no way will it tolerate that an alternative economic, political and social organization consolidate. For the megapolitics, the national politics are dwarfed and submit to the dictates of the financial centers. It will be this way until the dwarfs rebel . .

http://www.raptorial.com/Zine/Marcos/Marcos1.html

White House draws worker aid line over trade pacts
May 17, 2011 3:46 PM GMT

The White House will not submit legislation to Congress to implement free trade pacts with South Korea, Panama and Colombia without a deal to extend aid to U.S. workers affected by overseas competition, senior officials said on Monday.

The Obama administration would like to see long-sought free trade agreements with those countries approved this year, but officials made clear on Monday they would not move forward without an expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance Program to retrain and support displaced workers in the United States.

"The administration will not submit implementing legislation on the three pending FTAs until we have an agreement with Congress on the renewal of a robust expanded TAA program," White House senior economic adviser Gene Sperling told reporters in a conference call.

"We are hopeful and optimistic that we can work out such a bipartisan agreement, but again we feel its important that that agreement be locked in before we submit the implementing legislation."

More:
http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/147029/20110517/white-house-draws-worker-aid-line-over-trade-pacts.htm

Chiquita & the Colombia FTA -- Murder in the Interest of Profit
Posted: 05/16/11 09:54 AM ET

Recent documents obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University from the U.S. Justice Department show that Chiquita Brands International, in direct contradiction of the claims of both Chiquita and the U.S. government for many years, made illegal payments to both guerrilla groups and then AUC death squads over the course of about 14 years in return for security from these groups.

Just as importantly, these documents show that the U.S. Justice Department was aware of this fact when it accepted a plea bargain from Chiquita in which it pleaded guilty to paying these groups a total of over $1.7 million and running them 3000 guns as "protection" from "extortion."

In return for this plea to the lesser crime of paying "protection" from "extortion" (rather than making payments as a quid pro quo for security for its operations), Chiquita was given a slap on the wrist by the Justice Department -- a mere $25 million fine, which Chiquita was permitted to pay over 5 years. Chiquita was given this light sentence, with no jail time whatsoever for the offending officials, despite the fact that, according to Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguaran, these payments resulted in the murder of almost 4,000 people and helped to give the AUC death squads a foothold throughout Colombia, and despite the fact that the AUC was designated as a "terrorist organization" by the U.S. State Department.

Again, the recently-released documents, which had been in the possession of the U.S. Justice Department, show that the Justice Department, as well as current U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder who helped negotiate the plea deal as a defense lawyer for Chiquita, were very aware that Chiquita had been involved in a far worse crime (the knowing supplying of guns and money to a terrorist group in return for security) than they pleaded to and than they were punished for. What this shows is that the Justice Department, contrary to its mandate, actually aided and abetted Chiquita in covering up its crimes.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/chiquita-the-colombia-fta_b_861784.html

~snip~
As to the second point, the U.S. has provided the Colombian military, which has carried out its own share of massacres -- including the admitted murder of at least 3,000 civilians killed during the administration of President Alvaro Uribe and his Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos (now President) in what has become known as the "false positive" scandal -- with over $7 billion since the year 2000. And the U.S. did so even as the U.S. State Department itself concluded year after year that the military has been collaborating with illegal death squad groups, including the AUC, by providing them with weapons, ammunition, soldiers and logistical support. In short, by protecting Chiquita, the U.S. was covering up its own culpability for heinous violence in Colombia.

And now, the U.S. is set to pass the long-stalled Colombia FTA even as massive violence is being carried out in Colombia against labor leaders (7 of whom have been murdered so far this year), peasant leaders, Afro-Colombians and Indigenous. Indeed, the FTA is designed to benefit companies, just as Chiquita, in their quest to intensify the exploitation of Colombian land and labor -- many times through violence. For example, the FTA will support the massive expansion of palm oil companies, about half of which are actually owned and controlled by paramilitary death squads.

And, what's more, such violence in Colombia is only accelerating in order to prepare for the FTA. And so, according to the The Black Communities Process (PCN) of Colombia, a group advocating on behalf of Afro-Colombians, the Colombian army has been forcing Afro-Colombians from their home -- including by burning down their homes and bombing their villages, leading to the deaths of civilians, including children -- in order to make way for new ports and tourist infrastructure which will be built once the FTA is passed. In one area alone, the PCN reports, 3500 Afrocolombian families have recently been displaced for such purposes, adding to the more than 1.5 million internally displaced Afrocolombians.

In total, Colombia already has over 5 million internally displaced peoples -- the largest in the world, even surpassing that of The Sudan. And, the FTA, by accelerating the further exploitation of Colombia by corporate interests; by allowing cheap, subsidized agricultural products from giant U.S. agricultural interests to be dumped into Colombia duty-free, thereby wiping out the livelihood of tens of thousands of small farmers (just as such trade policies did in Haiti and Mexico), will only add to the violence, displacement and misery plaguing Colombia.

~~~~~
Unbearably wrong, all WRONG. The murders, and murder threats should have ended long ago before this FTA could EVER be considered.