Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ways and Means Approves US-Peru FTA
The measure now moves to the House Floor for consideration by the body on Thursday Nov. 8.

Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) offered the following opening remarks during today’s markup:

I want to reinforce the importance of the changes that took place in our American trade policy earlier this year to make it clear that, at the end of the day, no matter what agreement we are talking about, certain basic principles would be included in a bipartisan way. The inclusion of core standards for labor and important environmental protections, including an historic agreement on logging and greater access to life-saving medicines represent the culmination of a decade-long effort to incorporate these principles into the text of US trade agreements. By including these provisions, we make it possible for members to consider these agreements on their merits and substance, rather than feel as though they have been excluded from the process.

Unfortunately all major labor and environmental groups in the United States and Peru oppose the passage of this agreement. While there were “steps forward” in the areas of environmental protections and workers rights there is still a broad base of Americans that know this trade agreement is bad for the middle class of this country and worse for the poor of Peru. There is no longer an opposition party I am afraid and corporations come before citizens in the minds of law makers. Help us stop it!

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The 2006 elections clearly demonstrated that the public wants a new model for trade. While the Peru Free Trade Agreement includes some significant improvements regarding labor and environmental protections and access to medicines, it still contains many of the NAFTA/CAFTA problems.

- The Peru FTA contains a NAFTA/CAFTA-style foreign investor chapter that promotes off-shoring and subjects our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge directly by foreign investors in foreign tribunals. It allows challenges by foreign investors in foreign tribunals of timber, mining, construction and other concession contracts with the U.S. federal government, and affords foreign investors greater rights than those enjoyed by U.S. investors.

- The Peru FTA’s procurement rules subject many common federal and state procurement policies to challenge in trade tribunals, continue the NAFTA/CAFTA ban on anti-off-shoring and Buy America policies, and expose U.S. renewable energy, recycled content and other requirements to challenge.

- The Peru FTA’s agriculture trade rules undermine U.S. producers’ ability to earn a fair price for their crops at home and in the global market place. They favor multinational grain trading and food processing companies while farmers on both ends will be hurt. The Peru FTA is projected to increase hunger; illicit drug cultivation; undocumented migration; and continue the race to the bottom for commodity prices, pitting farmer against farmer and country against country to see who can produce food the cheapest, regardless of standards on labor, the environment or food safety.

- While the amended text of the Peru FTA removes the most egregious, CAFTA-based, provisions limiting the access to affordable medicines, it still includes NAFTA provisions that undermine the right to affordable medicines for poorer countries.

- The Peru FTA, like NAFTA and CAFTA, still contains language requiring the United States to accept imported food that does not meet our safety standards.

Additionally, I am concerned about the changes to the labor provisions. The Peru FTA allows discretion for FTA dispute settlement panels to interpret and apply the terms of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work differently than the Declaration has been interpreted and applied by the ILO itself.

Moreover, in the end the provisions of the Peru FTA dealing with labor and environmental enforcement are dependent on the Executive Branch for enforcement. The current administration, with a consistent record of undermining domestic labor and environmental enforcement, is unlikely to enforce the labor and environmental provisions of the agreement.

For these reasons, I urge you to oppose the US-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.