Sellout on Trade?

What a busy day. Gonzales testifies all day in the House, a series of Iraq votes and now this very scary prospect of a "deal" on trade agreements which at first glance does not seem friendly to progressives and populists.

The Bush administration and the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, breaking a partisan impasse that had dragged on for months, were expected to reach agreement late Thursday on the rights of workers overseas to join labor unions. Both sides predicted that the agreement would clear the way for U.S. congressional approval of several pending trade agreements.

Democrats said the accord would be a major victory in their campaign to ensure that trade deals provided for the rights of workers to organize and that trading partner countries banned child labor and slave labor [...]

Trade specialists say that approval of these deals, with labor guarantees, could provide a template for future trade accords winning approval in Congress, where sentiment against trade deals in general is high. Many Democrats elected as part of the party's sweep last autumn ran by promising to block future trade deals.

Despite the endorsement of Rangel and Pelosi, many Democrats say that half or more of the Democrats in Congress may vote against the deal. But the agreement is expected to pass with strong backing among Republicans, whose leaders will urge them to vote with President George W. Bush on the matter.

The Bush administration hopes that this agreement paves the way for a much broader deal to extend Bush's authority to negotiate future trade accords and get a quick up-or-down vote on them.

That authority, known as "fast track" trade negotiating authority, expires June 30.

A very large portion of the Democratic rank and file in the Congress, particularly a number of so-called "moderates," ran on a progressive populist trade policy that demands that American jobs aren't shipped overseas to the lowest bidder. This is an issue where an old-school fair-trader from a textile family and Lou Dobbs are in absolute agreement. Unless you have global labor, human rights and environmental standards, you cannot give multinational corporations this kind of power. And by the way, with "fast track," essentially a line-item veto for trade, the President can strip out all of the agreements made in this "deal" anyway. The fact that no details have been released, the fact that the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition was instrumental in the deal, the fact that the most slavish corporatists love the deal, all of this is extremely troubling. The trade policy of this country has destroyed the middle class and threatened our economic security.

The good news is that the fair trade Democrats are unhappy with the process, and appear to be willing to fight for it. I think that populist Democratic Senators like Jon Tester, Jim Webb and Sherrod Brown should simply put a Senatorial hold on any legislation of this kind until the Democratic leadership listens to the majority of their membership on this.

Stay tuned.