When people hear “trade,” the first thing that comes to mind is giving opportunity to businesses to export or to expand their enterprise into other markets. In Hawaii, where some of our largest foreign partners are involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it’s easy to understand why this is appealing.
I say that we can and should expand trade, but it has to be fair trade, not just free.
The issue is not pro-trade versus anti-trade, but whether we can shape trade agreements to spread the benefits broadly, including to middle class Americans. Unfortunately, through heavy reliance on Industry Trade Advisory Committees that include the world’s largest corporations, I fear a process that sorely lacks transparency will leave a broad swath of Americans behind.
A trade agreement as sweeping as the TPP should have venues for public input, yet none currently exist beyond the U.S. government-appointed trade advisory committees. Congress gave up much leverage when it passed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or “fast-track” in a razor-thin vote last month, relegating itself to a simple up or down vote from a Republican-controlled Congress.
It’s clear that a much bigger majority of Congress is required to win support of the American people for TPP.
But now that the fight over the process of TPA is behind us, Congress must focus on issues at the forefront — the substance of the TPP. So far, the Obama administration has yet to finalize many of the most sensitive chapters currently being negotiated in an agreement that encompasses 40 percent of the global economy.
From the few details that have been released or even leaked to the public, it’s clear that more trade alone isn’t enough — it must be based on competition governed by fair standards.
I believe Congress must prevent repeating the mistakes of failed trade policies that have contributed to stagnating wages and increasing inequality. I embarked on a trip to the Asia earlier this year, and many aspects of past U.S. trade policy became transparent while I was there.
In South Korea, a partner in one of the more recent trade agreements enacted by the U.S., I wondered why I saw few American cars on the streets. After returning, I was very troubled to find out that in the three short years since implementation of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the deficit in auto sales between our nations has increased by over 25 percent.
We need transparency in TPP negotiations to insist that our trading partners offer truly reciprocal access to their domestic markets.
Labor reforms in many of the countries the TPP is being negotiated with must mean more than lip service – they must mean concrete actions that comply with basic international standards before, not after, an agreement.
The administration has yet to reveal its plan to bring many of the countries into compliance prior to TPP implementation, and I fear that without more transparency and oversight, we will find our nation once again in a race to the bottom in wages and worker protections.
These are the types of problems that deserve public input and deliberation outside of a secretive process that excludes the majority of Americans. Some proponents of the TPP argue that the agreement is necessary to solidify America’s position in the Asia-Pacific. I say that we can do that, but the implementation is not zero-sum.
We need not strengthen our foreign policy by weakening our domestic economy. The TPP agreement cannot just be about access to cheap goods and labor — it has to deliver a boon to the strength of America here at home for our nation to have strength abroad.
