International Trade, including NAFTA/CAFTA and the WTO: The jobs promised by these trade agreements has not only failed to occur, but have also decimated many industries in the U.S. and Canada.  NAFTA's failure in Mexico has led to a huge influx of immigrants to our country. 

It is clearly time to eliminate or renegotiate these agreements to address human rights, the environment, and wage parity with strong enforcement mechanisms.  Each of our trade agreements include requirements “that a party shall not fail to effectively enforce its labor/environmental laws, through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction, in a manner affecting trade between the parties.” (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09439.pdf)

Trade policy has been treated in the past years the same way our financial institutions have been treated – they’ve been given free reign. At least four agencies responsible for ensuring these agreements are met.  At least four agencies responsible for ensuring these agreements are met:

● The U. S .Trade Representative is responsible for coordinating the monitoring of foreign government compliance of the agreements and pursues enforcement of these agreements.

● The U. S. Commerce Department is responsible for monitoring compliance with economic and commercial aspects of the agreements;

● The U. S. Labor Department is responsible for enforcement of the labor protections outlined in the agreements.

● Several departments with the State Department are responsible for in country monitoring:

◦ Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Bureau (labor matters)

◦ Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Bureau (environmental issues)

The State Department has no dedicated funding for and no structured approach to this monitoring. The intentionally broad agreements provide little basis to pursue enforcement; terms are written using non-enforceable terms such as “strive to ensure” or “not fail to effectively enforce its environmental laws, through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction, in a manner affecting trade between the parties.”

And, while the U. S. Department of Labor confirms there is focus for trading partners to open their markets, this is not true for the labor provisions of these agreements. The Labor Department does report, however, that the President's Fiscal Year 2010 budget includes additional funding for this purpose.

It is clear these agreements must be renegotiated to establish a new “rules of the road” covering what is expected with regard to labor improvements, environmental improvements, monitoring requirements for each party to the agreement and clearly established enforcement mechanisms that provide for immediate penalties for violations of these rules, including suspension of imports/exports and/or tariffs established for violations of the agreements.  If there cannot be agreement on these issues, then we must end the agreements.

Americans want fair trade policies with enforcement of rules that level the playing field and are actually enforced.