In yet another broken promise, President Donald Trump appears to be walking back his campaign rhetoric on the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA—preparing to deliver what one critic described as “a punch in the face” to those who trusted Trump to make the trade deal better for working people.
According to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, a draft proposal being circulated in Congress by the U.S. trade representative’s office “would keep some of NAFTA’s most controversial provisions, including an arbitration panel that lets investors in the three nations circumvent local courts to resolve civil claims.”
Such panels are regarded with suspicion by environmental, labor, public health, and democracy advocates, who say they put corporate welfare above the public interest. As Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica said Thursday, “These tribunals allow corporations to punish governments wishing to enforce sensible environmental and public interest regulations by imposing massive monetary damages.”
With the leaked proposal, Pica said, “Trump and members of his administration are proving that they will always prioritize CEOs over the working men and women who have suffered from NAFTA’s punishing trade policy.”
Citing trade scholar Jeffrey Schott, the Wall Street Journal further reported that “a number of the proposed negotiating objectives echo provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP], a 12-nation trade pact among Pacific Rim countries. Mr. Trump campaigned heavily against the TPP. The president pulled the U.S. from the deal on his first working day in office.”
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, agreed in her analysis on Thursday: “For those who trusted Trump’s pledge to make NAFTA ‘much better’ for working people, it’s a punch in the face because the proposal describes TPP or any other same-old, same-old trade deal.”
She continued:
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT