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First signs from Obama not looking promising on trade…
By Michael Cebon | November 6, 2008
The first signs on what Obama’s policies on the global economy might look like are not encouraging at all – it has been reported today that Obama has asked former Clinton Administration official Rahm Emanuel to be his chief-of staff – making Emanuel potentially the second most powerful person in the US.
Unfortunately, Emanuel is remembered as the man who pushed the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) through congress – he recalls that “In 1993, I was President Clinton’s point man in ratifying NAFTA”.
While his views have clearly mellowed a little since then – he now admits that “the fact that our party is still debating this trade agreement 15 years later is proof it hasn’t lived up to its hopes” – he still clearly supports expanding the US’s free trade agreements, albeit with environmental and labour standards to protect US workers. Clearly, the impacts of the US’s agreements on people and environments in other countries don’t enter his thinking.
I’ll leave the last word to David Sirota over at Open Left, which describes itself as “a news, analysis and action website dedicated toward building a progressive governing majority in America”:
According to Inside US Trade . . . “Among the House Democratic leadership, Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) is actively advocating that Democrats would be better off having the votes on pending [free trade agreements] this year for a number of reasons, sources said. They said that one of the reasons Emanuel cites is that there are likely more Republican members in this Congress than there will be in the next, which would mean that fewer Democrats would have to take a potentially divisive trade vote now.”
Correct: Emanuel – one of the original architects of NAFTA – wants congressional Democrats to pass controversial NAFTAs with Colombia, South Korea and Panama right now, so as to avoid inevitably STRONGER opposition from his own party in the next Congress.
To really fathom how incredible this is, understand that Emanuel – the Democratic leader – is effectively acting as the House Republican whip. He’s saying that he wants these bills up for a vote because there are enough Republican votes right now in the House to pass it over current Democratic objections – and there won’t be enough GOP votes in the next Congress.
How many polls have to come out showing that the vast majority of Americans do not want their jobs and wages crushed by hacks like Emanuel? And how come Democrats are led by con artists who spent their White House career shilling for Wall Street, then cashed in as an investment banker, then bought a congressional race, only to go back to Washington to continue his corporate crusade over the dead body of his own caucus?
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