The American People Don’t Want a Free Trade Agreement Either

The economic crisis of 2008 demonstrated what observers and analysts all over the world had been saying for years: Neoliberal globalization is a game where only a few win. In the case of the United States, its people have seen for nearly two decades how — because of free trade — their businesses have left the country, taking their jobs with them, to relocate in places with cheap labor. Without a doubt, this is good business for America’s multinational corporations, but not so for its own people.

Now, according to a survey carried out by the Wall Street Journal and NBC, 53 percent of Americans interviewed believe that globalization has hurt their country and feel that they are the losers in this global economic model (El Tiempo, Oct. 4, 2010).

Americans aren’t mistaken when they fault free trade for the deep economic crisis forged by their own leaders, who implemented a policy that provoked a rupture between corporate interests and the rest of American society. Even so, the proposal from the administration is a more concentrated dose of free trade. Obama has promised to double exports, which requires that American businesses become more “competitive.” This will encourage them to find cheaper manual labor inside or outside U.S. borders and further separate the location of labor from that of consumption. This is the situation the economist Nouriel Roubini warns about when he says that U.S. “job losses are greater than believed. There is no job growth in the private sector, consumption is weak, exports are weak, as is real estate” (Portafolio, Sept. 7, 2010), and the IMF managing director, Strauss-Khan, recognizes this when he declares that “the risk of a jobless recovery” is real (Portafolio, September 2010).

The scenario is complicated by the growing tension which, at a global level, is generating massive depreciation of the dollar, which could result in a “currency war” involving the U.S.’ main trade partner, China. What’s more, a proposed law in Congress, called Currency Reform for Fair Trade, seeks to prevent the Asian country from “dumping” its currency, impeding the devaluation of the yuan relative to the dollar, which leads to another contradiction: The U.S. could end up “shooting itself in the foot, given that a large portion of Chinese exports to the U.S. are products that American businesses have relocated there.” (Amylkar Acosta, Oct. 4, 2010)

Meanwhile, the new Colombian government of Santos and Garzón, acting as if nothing had happened in the world, insists that the way forward is through free trade agreements. Fortunately, the American people are increasingly more conscious that this model will deepen the global economic crisis and are expected to be inclined to reject politicians who hope to arrive in Congress in November proposing that the solution is the same as what caused the problem: free trade.

Reflecting the same sentiment, the principal Colombian social organizations, forming Recalca* and assembling as a network on Oct. 2, have affirmed their commitment to deepen the effort to prevent the Colombian government from receiving support for a free trade agreement that would impact Colombians and, as we have seen, the American people, as well.

* Recalca is a group of the primary Colombian civic organizations and trade unions for coordinating educational strategies, information dissemination and mobilization against free trade agreements and the economic model that drives the national government. www.recalca.org.co recalca@etb.net.co