Making Trade Work for Everyone
by David MobergIn These Times, May 7, 2007
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From ”In These Times”:
Voters aren’t happy with the reality of free trade—and Democrats are starting to listen.
The majority of Americans want their elected leaders to know that globalization isn’t working for them. Democratic politicians have heard the message and are now taking a few first steps to better regulate America’s integration into the global economy.
The November elections—when 37 House and Senate seats changed from “free trade” to “fair trade”—created a Democratic majority that needed to stake out a new position on trade. Globalization and offshoring of jobs ranked among the electorate’s top issues, according to polls by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and Public Agenda. Results in key races indicate that Democrats could have picked up even more seats with a stronger message on global economic issues, according to an analysis by Chris Slevin and Todd Tucker of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, an organization critical of corporate-backed free trade.
Recent public opinion surveys reveal that Americans often support globalization in theory but criticize the reality. Steelworkers President Leo Gerard put it this way: “I don’t know any worker or trade unionist who is against trade, but we’re against exploitative trade that pits worker against worker, and country against country, and that’s what this current round of globalization has brought.”
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Tags: global_economic_issues, greenberg_quinlan_rosner, Leo-Gerard, offshoring, Public-Citizens-Global-Trade-Watch, todd_tucker, trade_globalization