Say anything – literally anything – to sway working-class voters. Get elected, then loot the country. Hey, it worked for this guy. If there was a singular issue Trump campaigned on, it was trade. Everywhere he went, Trump swore the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere” and “a rape …
President Donald Trump met with a bunch of CEOs at the White House last week, prompting the same old, tired and untrue round of assertions that America lost millions of manufacturing jobs because of automation, regulation, illegal immigration and lack of education. The real culprit is globalization – fostered by a series of bad trade …
President-“elect” Donald Trump today announced his nomination of Robert Lighthizer for the cabinet-level office of US Trade Representative (USTR). Lighthizer, who served as deputy USTR under President Ronald Reagan, is known for criticizing Republican “free trade” ideology. Before serving in the Reagan administration he was chief of staff for the Senate Finance Committee. Lightizer’s nomination …
Trump Nominates Non-Free-Trader Robert Lighthizer to Trade Office Read More »
Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) dead or not? The President-elect says he is against TPP. TPP may be the thing that cost Clinton the election. The voters obviously were against it. The head of the Senate says he won’t bring it up for a vote. But House Speaker Paul Ryan hasn’t said a thing. And, …
Trade agreements can be used to boost prosperity on all sides of trade borders by increasing business opportunities, raising wages and increasing choices. Or they can be used to concentrate corporate power, cutting wages and choices. Guess which model our country’s corporate-written trade agreements have followed? (Hint: look around you: we have ever-increasing concentration of …
AFL-CIO Report Warns TPP Will Force Another Mass-Migration Into US Read More »
People have figured out that our country’s “trade” deals haven’t been working our so well for “our country.” A visit to Flint, Detroit or almost any town, city, state or region that was built around manufacturing make it clear what we have done. Shifting jobs and factories to places where people are paid squat and …
In 2011, President Obama, speaking in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, called inequality the “defining issue of our time.” Now Jason Furman, chair of the Council on Economic Advisors, argues that Obama “narrowed the inequality gap” more than any president in 50 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office echoes the observation that income inequality …
Inequality Is Still the Defining Issue of Our Time Read More »
The 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union (APWU) is holding its biennial convention in Orlando this week. As part of that convention, there will be a rally to publicize opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The rally will take place Tuesday, August 23 at 3:30 pm beginning in the Hemisphere Ballroom of Orlando’s Dolphin Hotel. APWU …
Few issues are receiving a more insipid—and thus more harmful—treatment in our public discourse than world trade. Along with immigration, “free trade” is now the foremost symbol of a supposed either/or choice between globalism and nationalism. “Globalists” generally hail the liberal marketplace as the engine of economic prosperity and assail its critics as uneducated and irrational …
On Trade, Our Choices Aren’t Only Xenophobic Nationalism Or Neoliberal Globalization Read More »
Elites take “globalization” as a given because “trade” deals have pushed sovereignty off the table and locked governments out of decision-making over things like stopping offshoring of jobs and protecting domestic industries. They smirk knowingly and wink and nod when politicians respond to citizen complaints about the disastrous effect this is having on populations, regions …
TPP Opposition: Make Them Do It And Hold Them To It Read More »
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
