Edwards Press Release: Today I am announcing my opposition to the Peru Trade Agreement negotiated by the Bush Administration and being considered for approval by Congress. Despite strong efforts by many Democrats in Congress, labor organizations and fair trade advocates to embed international labor standards into the Agreement, what resulted were references to general principles and not specific standards. And the Agreement still replicates and in fact expands all of the other most damaging aspects of past trade agreements. In short, this agreement does not meet my standard of putting American workers and communities first, ahead of the interests of the big multinational corporations, which for too long have rigged our trade policies for themselves and against American families.
For far too long, presidents from both parties have entered into trade agreements, agreements like NAFTA in 1994 and the WTO in 1995, promising in each case that they would create millions of new jobs and trade surpluses. Instead, since these agreements were put into place we have lost millions of manufacturing jobs, seen wages decline, and storied U.S. firms close - and towns all over this country have been devastated. And we have run up larger and larger trade deficits. This irresponsible squandering of our national wealth now makes it increasingly difficult for us to control our own destiny.
NAFTA, which was one of our worst trade agreements ever, was written by corporate interests and insiders in all three countries, and it has served them well. But it absolutely hasn't served the interests of regular workers in any of the three countries. When NAFTA was passed, the American people were promised that by 2006 U.S. exports to Mexico would exceed Mexican imports by $10 billion. But right now, hundreds of thousands of lost American jobs later, Mexican imports are $70 billion more than U.S. exports to Mexico. And Mexican workers have lost too - average wages for Mexican workers have declined since NAFTA was passed.
