Steven Weisman of the Times reports that the agreements the parties reached "guarantee workers the right to organize, ban child labor and prohibit forced labor in trading-partner countries. It would also require trading partners to enforce environmental laws already on their books."
I'm skeptical. Why would we need an agreement to enforce laws that already exist, unless we really had no intention of ever enforcing them?
I'm also curious as to whether Pelosi and the Democratic leaders believe that the enforcement of international labor standards guaranteeing workers the right to form unions is going to include the United States of America. Is there going to be some international trade body that the United States will submit to judgment over fair labor practices?
Meanwhile, everybody involved in the negotiations is patting themself on the back.
“I think today is a recognition of the results of the November election,” Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference. “It doesn’t mean that this paves the way for trade agreements where we have other obstacles. But where it comes down to labor standards and environment, this is enormous progress.”
As Sirota says, there's so much riding on the terms of this agreement as far as the future direction of trade, but we don't even know the specifics of any of the provisions yet.
we have not yet seen the details of this deal. While the secrecy and this information aggregated in this dispatch certainly raises very serious concerns about what the White House and this handful of Democrats are trying to hide, we have to reserve final judgment on what the deal ultimately means until these players decide to disclose their deliberations to the American public.
Nonetheless, there are very real reasons to be concerned.
I'm skeptical.
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