EXPLOITATION UNDER GUISE OF `FREE TRADE'

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 9, 1993                   TAG: 9302090363
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK SCHONBECK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
EXPLOITATION UNDER GUISE OF `FREE TRADE'
TWO INTERNATIONAL "free trade" agreements now under consideration would make it even easier for giant corporations to produce goods wherever labor is cheapest (most exploited) and sell them wherever they can make the highest profits. National sovereignty, public health, human rights and ecological balance would suffer all over the world.
By restricting each signatory nation's powers to set high environmental, labor rights and consumer-health standards, the North America Free Trade Agreement would aggravate unemployment in the United States, labor exploitation in Mexico, and environmental and public-health problems in all of North America. NAFTA could destroy up to 550,000 U.S. jobs over the next few years, as large firms move their factories into the Maquiladora sector of the Mexican economy where workers make starvation wages (average 55 cents per hour) and face repression if they attempt to form labor unions. Maquiladora industries also have a terrible environmental record, and the entire U.S.-Mexican border region is contaminated with their hazardous wastes.
The worldwide General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade could do far more damage. A revised GATT currently under negotiation would disallow all "nontariff barriers to trade," including environmental, consumer-health or labor-rights regulations higher than a very low common denominator set by GATT. For example, the new GATT would oblige the United States to accept imported vegetables containing 10 to 50 times the Environmental Protection Agency's current limits for DDT residues. Trade disputes are negotiated by secret panels of nonelected trade officials, who are answerable to no one except the multinational corporate interests who pull their strings. The U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, state restrictions on exporting old-growth logs from Oregon and Washington, British and Thai laws regulating the advertising of tobacco products, and even the weak environmental standards encoded by NAFTA would all be subject to challenge under GATT if the current negotiations are "successfully" concluded.
These "free trade" agreements would accelerate the concentration of economic control in the hands of the powerful few, a process that not only wreaks starvation and "ecocide" on developing countries but also bankrupts family farms in the United States and plunders rural communities such as those in the Blue Ridge region of Virginia. Plummeting wool and milk prices, which have forced some Virginia dairy and sheep farmers out of business in recent years, are examples of the kind of disruption that would become more common under these agreements.
Truly free and fair trade would respect the rights of every human being to a decent living, and of every nation not to trade in certain items if they so choose. If all the world's farmers and workers were paid adequately, and the full environmental costs of long-distance transport of goods were taken into account, imports would naturally cost much more than locally produced goods. Arbitrary tariffs would not be needed, and fewer trade disputes would erupt. Small businesses catering to local markets would thrive, farmers could make a living growing food for nearby populations and rural communities would prosper.
President Clinton has expressed some desire to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in NAFTA, and Vice-President Gore's book, "Earth in the Balance," advocates international trade agreements that promote environmental protection. Congress will vote this spring on NAFTA and possibly on GATT. Now is the time to write to the president, vice president, Sens. John Warner and Chuck Robb and Congressman Rick Boucher to urge them to reject any version of NAFTA or GATT that does not adequately protect workers, farmers, rural communities, the environment and public health from shortsighted exploitation.
Mark Schonbeck lives in Check.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB