Current Trade Deals Are Unfair, Slaughter Says
WASHINGTON — A member of Congress from Western New York is using the bully pulpit — and every legislative trick in the book — to try to stop the nation from entering free-trade deals many believe could cost America jobs.
And no, Jack Davis wasn’t elected to Congress.
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, DFairport, has quietly and not-so-quietly built a reputation as one of the House’s fiercest opponents of trade agreements she believes will put American manufacturers at a disadvantage.
“Jack Davis is right,” Slaughter said of the Akron industrialist and serial congressional candidate, who unsuccessfully ran for the House in a district adjacent to Slaughter’s, promising to make the fight against free trade the centerpiece of his congressional career.
And while trade is just one of several issues that’s central to Slaughter, she’s talked about it early and often, much as Davis would have, if he had been elected.
For proof, witness her tirade against the free-trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, which Congress approved last week.
“This Congress needs to wake up, and fast,” she said on the House floor. “If we continue the era of giveaway trade, we will utterly
lose this race with devastating effects across our economy. . . . We won’t maintain our superpower status by giving each other haircuts and serving each other dinner. We have to make things here at home, so that our businesses and our workers can finally benefit from fair free trade.”
Such strong words are nothing new from Slaughter, who, when asked by then-President Bill Clinton to support the North American Free Trade Agreement, asked him: “Why are you carrying George Bush’s trash?”
But now, after a quarter century in Congress, Slaughter has the seniority and the status to be a key figure in the trade debate.
Her current focus is the “Reciprocal Market Access Act,” a deceptively simple bill that could have vast consequences on every trade agreement America signs.
It would force the U. S. trade representative negotiating those deals to address the long-ignored non-tariff barriers that frequently allow foreign countries to construct arcane safety standards or other odd requirements in an attempt to keep out American products.
“I think this can be the new trade policy for the United States, or at least it should be— because it’s fair, which is something we’ve left out here,” Slaughter said.
Under the bill, if any U. S. trade partner breaks a deal by reintroducing non-tariff barriers, the United States would be able to slap new duties on that country’s products.
“All it seeks to do is establish what Americans do well with— a level playing field,” said Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, a cosponsor of the legislation.
Bill is a starting point
With only 50 co-sponsors, Slaughter’s bill remains a long way from passage, but there are signs it could gather momentum. Two Republicans have signed onto it, as have unions such as the United Auto Workers and companies including Corning Inc., Hart Schaffner Marx and Hickey Freeman.
Curtis Ellis, a longtime aide to Davis who now heads the American Jobs Alliance, a political action committee aimed at reversing America’s rush toward free trade, termed Slaughter’s bill “great.”
“It points out one of the glaring inequities in these agreements that we keep signing,” he said.
Ellis called Slaughter “a real champion” of the nascent movement among House Democrats to add some balance to America’s trade deals.
“She gets it,” he said. “As the situation has gotten worse, she’s really stepped up.”
Higgins and Rep. Kathleen C. Hochul, D-Amherst, are in exactly the same place as Slaughter on trade issues. But Slaughter is in a better position to make things happen.
As former chairwoman and now the top minority member of the House Rules Committee, she’s in an important leadership spot where she can influence what happens to just about every bill that comes to the House floor.
That makes it easier for Slaughter to push her own legislation — and to block legislation she doesn’t like.
For example, when Democrats controlled the House, she blocked the “fast-track authority” that would have rushed the Colombia trade deal to the House floor.
She’s also introduced legislation that would set up a Trade Impact Review Commission to determine how many American jobs have been lost because of NAFTA and China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.
Another Slaughter bill would require the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to buy U. S.-made electronic components.
And beyond that, she’s cosponsored countless other pieces of fair-trade legislation, including an effort to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation.
All that effort remains stuck, though, behind a hard fact. The majority of members of Congress and the president are ardent free-traders.
Last week’s trade deals passed overwhelmingly.
“Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States,” said Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, who supported the deals. “More exports of New York products means more jobs for New York’s workers. This is a win for the upstate economy.”
And President Obama — who campaigned as a free-trade skeptic — said: “The landmark trade agreements and assistance for American workers that passed tonight are a major win for American workers and businesses. I’ve fought to make sure that these trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama deliver the best possible deal for our country, and I’ve insisted that we do more to help American workers who have been affected by global competition.”
Few benefits seen
Democrats such as Hochul and Slaughter see things very differently.
“There’s just too many vacant manufacturing facilities that we’re trying to bring back that are victims of earlier trade agreements,” said Hochul, like Higgins a co-sponsor of Slaughter’s reciprocal markets bill. “I get it because it’s something I see every time I’m home in the district.”
For her part, Slaughter said she’s perplexed about why Obama, like Clinton before him, has talked tough on trade only to sign new free-trade deals.
And she’s equally perplexed, she said, about why the United States would sign a trade deal with South Korea that projects that only 26,000 U. S. autos will be sold there, and about why U. S. companies like General Motors and GE keep sacrificing intellectual property rights to do business in China.
Hers is a simpler trade philosophy.
“So every time we talk free trade, you’ll notice that nobody ever says fair,” Slaughter said. “And it’s fair trade that I’m after.”