Skip to content

NAFTA

US Trade Deficits, Trump Trade Policies, And Capitalist Globalization

Understandably concerned about the consequences of the large and sustained US trade deficit, many workers have grown tired of waiting for so-called market forces to produce balance.  Thus, they cheer Trump administration promises to correct the imbalance through tariffs or reworked trade agreements that will supposedly end unfair foreign trade practices. Unfortunately, this view of trade encourages workers in the United States to see themselves standing with their employers and against workers in other countries who are said to be benefiting from the trade successes of their employers.

No Trade Justice Without Economic Justice

As trade issues become increasingly prominent in the national political agenda we must maintain that there can be no trade justice without economic justice. As loud as Trump can be about his announcements on global trade, his policies have still resulted in no tangible benefit for workers or the environment. To the contrary, his tax bill, immigration policies, and the attack on labor, financial, and environmental regulations have represented constant attacks against working class communities across the country. But Trump must know that the social movements of the United States will not tolerate blaming all of the US's problems on other countries or on people of color when it is major corporations and corrupt politicians who are responsible for the incredible inequality, the constant attack on workers' rights, and the environmental destruction that this country and much of the world faces. We want real change both on domestic and international policy that puts people and the planet before profits and war-mongering.

The TPP Has Been Signed, We Need to Build Power

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was signed this Thursday, March 8th by the eleven countries that remained in negotiations after the United States abandoned the deal. The agreement, re-marketed as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), will set standards in more than 13 percent of the global economy, a total of $10 trillion in gross domestic product. The TPP’s signing shows that the trade model the Obama administration had sought will remain in the global panorama and that the signing governments of Asia and the Pacific still have hope that the United States could potentially join. The lobbying effort for the United States to reconsider joining the TPP has continued amongst legislators and industry leaders alike. 

5 Reasons Mexican Workers Would Cheer The Demise Of NAFTA

Mexicans have plenty not to like about Donald Trump: his racism, his wall, his tirades against immigrants. But if there’s a disruption provoked by Trump we should actually embrace, it’s the renegotiation of NAFTA—or even the trade pact’s possible end. Along with Mexico’s upcoming presidential elections on July 1—in which center-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO, as he is popularly known) is the clear front runner—the possible unraveling of NAFTA has the country’s business elite and political establishment freaking out. While AMLO sees the renegotiation of NAFTA as an opportunity for meaningful changes that would benefit the majority of Mexicans, Mexican negotiators from the ruling establishment party have been very busy trying to secure a deal before the vote, in order to keep the status quo as intact as possible.

Three Canadian Solar Panel Companies Sue U.S. Over Tariffs

The companies state that the International Trade Commission made no recommendation of tariffs on Canadian solar cells, and that the imposition of them goes against rules in NAFTA. Three Canadian solar panel manufacturers have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the 30 per cent tariff it set on solar cell imports last month. Ontario-based Silfab Solar Inc., Heliene Inc., and Canadian Solar Solutions Inc., along with U.S.-based distributor Canadian Solar (USA) Inc., filed the challenge at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York on Wednesday. The lawsuit claims that an investigation last year by the International Trade Commission found Canadian products don’t significantly hurt U.S. manufacturers and don’t account for much of the overall imports of solar cells to the country.

Poll Shows Growing Public Opposition To NAFTA

An independent public opinion poll published late last year shows growing public awareness of US job loss due to imports, as well as growing public support of the view that NAFTA has been bad for the US. The poll was carried out by the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, surveying 2,745 Americans. The report is entitled: Globalization and Trade, A Study of American Attitudes. The researchers conducting the poll compared the results to similar polls in 2016 and in 1999. The results show a clear trend of greater awareness of the negative consequences of unfettered free trade. The pollsters asked the panel if they agreed with the statement “On balance, do you think that more jobs are lost from imports or more jobs are gained from exports?” The panel agreed strongly that more jobs were lost from imports, with a 59% majority agreeing. That’s up from 46% in 1999.

Renegotiating NAFTA Could Make Trade Policy Right

The United States, Canada, and Mexico are currently in talks over changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Renegotiating NAFTA offers an opportunity to create a new labor template based on long overdue and urgently needed labor standards that are consistently enforced and upheld. In order to accomplish this, we need to update and strengthen current language (based on the May 10, 2007 template). Among other things, there should be fewer limitations on the kinds of labor violations that are covered, and each signatory must be in compliance with the standards set forth prior to joining the agreement. The following recommendations constitute some of the steps needed to achieve these essential improvements to the labor chapter...

Act Out!: 400+ Reasons To Eat The Rich And More

By Eleanor Goldfield for Occupy.com. This week on Act Out!, tempting though it may be to ignore all things real and political for the next few days, hiding behind cranberry sauce and turkey legs won't change the ever-widening and gaping abyss before us. Dive in with us as we survey our grotesquely top-heavy economy and where people like you and me stand today. Next up, some headlines from Scotland to Syria to why the oil and gas industries are racist. And finally, NAFTA renegotiations plus an expert take on what's to come and what we can do about it.

NAFTA Renegotiation More Important Now Than Ever

By Celeste Drake for AFL-CIO - The need to fundamentally improve the labor provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement took on a new urgency over the weekend, as a group of armed civilians, calling themselves the “Tonalapa Community Police,” (Policía Comunitaria de Tonalapa) attacked striking workers, killing two, at the Media Luna mine in Guerrero, Mexico. The murders occurred just five hours south of Mexico City, where representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico are in the midst of their fifth round of talks about rewriting NAFTA. The aggressors, meanwhile, were released after being briefly detained by an army squadron. The striking workers, who want to be represented by the National Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican Republic (Los Mineros) and are demanding the removal of the employer-dominated "labor" federation CTM (Confederación de Trabajadores de México), identified local CTM leaders as among those responsible for the attack. The practice of false unions siding with the employer over workers is a common feature of Mexico’s failed labor relations model. Employer-dominated "labor" federations are antithetical to the idea of democratic worker-led unions whose goal is to help workers build better lives.

NAFTA’s Neoliberal Foundations Need To Be Dismantled From The Left

By Jeff Schuhrke for In These Times - Rejecting both economic nationalism and free-market fundamentalism, workers across North America are building transnational solidarity and demanding labor rights for all. Last week, nearly 60 representatives of unions and civil society organizations from Mexico, Canada and the United States gathered in Chicago for a two-day meeting to discuss strategies for collaboration as their governments renegotiate the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The meeting was coordinated by the United Electrical Workers (UE), UCLA Labor Center and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, an international civic education institution affiliated with Germany’s Left Party. While many Mexican unions are dominated by the government, only the country’s more independent and democratically run labor organizations attended. “We’re discussing what kinds of relationships can be built, either bi-nationally or tri-nationally,” Benedicto Martínez, a national co-coordinator of Mexico’s Frente Auténtico del Trabajo, or Authentic Labor Front (FAT), told In These Times. “At the forefront of our vision would be the rights of people, including better wages, better education, better healthcare and immigration rights.” Critics argue that NAFTA has accelerated the global “race to the bottom,” where governments dismantle workplace and environmental protections in order to attract capital investment.

The Third Track: Trade That Builds Our Economy Anew

By Staff of IATP - President Trump is playing high stakes poker in the NAFTA talks, with his US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, at the helm. Laura Dawson, director of the Wilson Centre’s Canada Centre published an op-ed on 11 October in which she suggests there are two tracks to the NAFTA talks – one is moving ahead with the “easy consensus” (i.e. tracking new issues that gained prominence in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations), while the other, driven by Trump’s tweets and America First Agenda, is putting the whole enterprise at risk with incendiary statements and impossible demands. The agenda moving ahead for NAFTA reform seeks regulatory harmonization (to the lowest standard), longer monopolies on technology through tighter patent controls, and an extension of foreign investor rights over domestic legislation. It is an agenda much of the U.S. business community is squarely behind, and Canada’s and Mexico’s business communities, too. That agenda was moving along, its path likely smoothed by the fact that many of the negotiators knew one another from the TPP talks. NAFTA empowers an economics many civil society organizations have resisted for decades, whether trade unions, farm organizations, environmentalists, women’s organizations or church groups.

Online Censorship, Learned Patriarchy & No NAFTA 2

By Eleanor Goldfield for Occupy - This week on Act Out!, can you see me from your digital filter bubble? The scary thing is you probably don't even realize that everything you see online is, in fact, filtered. We dive into the various kinds of online censorship that are shaping our ever-more-narrowed world view. Up next, what women learn from the patriarchy's ills. And finally, No NAFTA – a ghost from trade deals past is back, and so is the fight for fair trade over free trade.

NAFTA Talks Falter, Time To Increase Pressure

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. The NAFTA-2 negotiations seem to be faltering after the fourth round of talks recently held in the United States. The Trump administration is pushing Mexico and Canada aggressively to include provisions from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in order to renegotiate NAFTA in a way that benefits US corporations. Mexico and the US are under particularly high pressure to complete the talks successfully as each country has major elections in 2018. News reports of the highly secretive talks describe the negotiations as hitting roadblocks.

NAFTA Renegotiation: What’s At Stake For Food, Farmers And The Land?

By Staff of IATP - The re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Mexico and Canada begins on August 16, and there is much at stake for farmers and rural communities in all three countries. Despite promised gains for farmers, NAFTA’s benefits over the last 23 years have gone primarily to multinational agribusiness firms. NAFTA is about much more than trade. It set rules on investment, farm exports, food safety, access to seeds, and markets. NAFTA, combined with the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the 1996 Farm Bill, led the charge to greater consolidation among agribusiness firms, the loss of many small and mid-sized farms and independent ranchers, the rapid growth of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and further corporate control of animal production through often unfair, restrictive contracts with producers. The Trump administration’s negotiating objectives reflect relatively small tweaks to NAFTA, while adopting deregulatory elements of the defeated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Family farm groups have called for the existing NAFTA to be scrapped and propose a fundamentally new agreement with a goal of improving the lives of family farmers and rural communities in all three countries.

Protesters Demand End To Corporate Courts, Transparency In NAFTA

By Daniel Cooper Bermudez for Trade for People and Planet. Arlington, VA - Official negotiators were met by protesters demanding that the deal do away with the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a system of tribunals through which multi-national corporations have sued governments for millions of dollars for implementing stronger labor and environmental standards, and to implement transparent and participatory practices in the deal’s remaking. Activists stood in front of the Sheraton in Arlington, Virginia – where negotiations are taking place from October 11-15 – with a giant Trump puppet and signs that read “Democracy not Corporatocracy” and “Transparency: Release the Text!”
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.