opinion

Naive trade policies
by Eric Jackson

The battle is joined over the holdover Bush administration free trade agreements. President Obama's trade commissioner designate Ron Kirk wants a relatively quick ratification of the US-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement and approval of the treaties with Colombia and South Korea only after setting "benchmarks" for progress on certain issues of concern like the death squad murders of Colombian labor activists. The battle will be fought out principally within the Democratic Party, beginning with Kirk's confirmation hearings.

Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas and an enthusiastic supporter of neo-liberal international economic policies, has had a little tax problem on the way to confirmation. He did public speaking appearances for substantial honoraria, which he never saw because he donated them to a scholarship fund. Still, those were taxable events and he was supposed to declare them as income. He's had to pay nearly $10,000 in back taxes, but this was not about crass greed on his part and should not block his appointment.

Kirk will, however, get a hard time about his views on trade policy from some Senate Democrats. It will be a first impression on the sense of the new Congress on this sensitive issue, a subject made all the more touchy because of the hard times in which the United States finds itself.

The real battle will be in the House of Representatives over the treaties themselves. Panama will be the first hurdle. If that agreement doesn't pass, the Colombia and South Korea deals will probably never come up.

The labor unions, environmentalists and people who represent depressed industrial areas are leading the charge against these deals. With respect to the Panama agreement, they are making an issue of this country's banking and corporate secrecy laws. The United States has not had a free trade deal with a country that has laws of this type, which opponents say help wealthy individuals and large corporations cheat the IRS and move American jobs overseas.

With all due respect, the FTA opponents understate the case. There is also the matter of Panamanian campaign finance secrecy, which combines with banking and corporate secrecy to vitiate the rule of law in this country.

This secrecy does little to help the average Panamanian. Actually, it has done a lot to harm this country. 

Hundreds of families whose breadwinners were poisoned to death by cough syrup laced with diethylene glycol have been left without effective recourse to the law. That's because the Panamanian company in the chain of negligence is an empty shell whose owners can't be identified and held civilly responsible thanks to the corporate secrecy laws. 

Sure, the banks have thrived on anonymous numbered accounts. However, for the average person here the banking service is dreadful. The great majority of those who work at the banks will tell you that the aristocratic people at the top don't share the wealth with the employees. 

Now we are seeing an election campaign in which a jailed 28-year-old Colombian hustler --- probably not a pyramid scheme man as formally alleged but actually a drug money launderer for the Valle del Norte Cartel and its neo-fascist AUC paramilitary allies --- says that he was approached for support by the campaigns of the ruling party's two top candidates. The voters will just have to take the candidates' word for what really went on (or not) because there is campaign financing secrecy here. We have no opportunity to know which special interests are bankrolling --- or bribing --- our public officials.

These infrastructures of corruption with impunity block the public policy reforms that most Panamanians need. They also make a mockery of any talk on Capitol Hill about "a level playing field for US investors."

"Benchmarks" for progress by the benighted Colombian administration of Álvaro Uribe? Oh please. This guy's start in politics was based on a family fortune made from drugs, his path to the presidency was highlighted by his ties with paramilitary death squads when he was governor of Antioquia, and his presidency has been all about a new division of racketeering proceeds rather than the suppression of organized crime. 

Let us also not just write off the murders of labor activists as a peculiarly Colombian perversion. A lot of this sort of thing was paid for by US-based corporations like Chiquita Brands and Drummond Coal.

The NAFTA-model free trade agreements are about US corporations shifting jobs to places with cheaper labor and fewer regulations, and American agribusiness cornering vulnerable markets. It's hardly surprising that organized labor, environmentalists and Americans who are concerned about the de-industrialization of the United States hate these things.

It's going to be an interesting fight up on Capitol Hill. The results will go well beyond the passage or rejection of the proposed treaties.

On the Democratic side, a minority that's ideologically committed to globalization as we have known it will be joined by an undetermined number of representatives who believe it important to uphold their party's president. Notwithstanding Obama's recommendation, most House Democrats are going to side with their constituents and vote against the unpopular agreements. 

On the Republican side, a majority of uncertain size, one that's committed to the ideas of cheaper labor, fewer regulations and higher corporate profits, will vote to ratify the deals. They will be opposed by a certain number of GOP members who either fear the consequences of their support for legislation that's unpopular back home, relish the thought of handing Obama an embarrassing defeat or sincerely believe that these agreements are not in America's best interests.