The TRADE Act

(Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act)

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) have worked with an array of labor, environmental, consumer, faith and family farm organizations to develop a bill that presents a progressive vision of what a good trade agreement must and must not include.

What does the bill do?

The TRADE Act requires a review of existing trade pacts, including NAFTA, the WTO and other major pacts, and sets forth what must and must not be included in future trade pacts. It also provides for the renegotiation of existing trade agreements and describes the key elements of a new trade negotiating and approval mechanism to replace Fast Track that would enhance Congress' role in the formative aspects of agreements and promote future deals that could enjoy broad support among the American public.

The TRADE ACT includes:

• Section 2: Lists of which trade agreements must be reviewed and definitions of the labor and environmental standards all agreements must contain.
• Section 3: Requirements for the Government Accountability Office to conduct a comprehensive review of existing major trade agreements by June 10, 2010, including economic outcomes in the U.S. and abroad and various security and social indicators. The TRADE Act also requires an analysis of how the current agreements measure up against the detailed description in the bill of what must and must not be included in future U.S. trade agreements.
• Section 4: Labor, environment, food and product safety standards; national security exceptions; and trade remedy and federalism protections that must be included in all American trade pacts. Because NAFTA-model trade agreements extend far beyond traditional trade matters, this section also sets requirements with respect to public services, farm policy, investment, government procurement, and affordable medicines.
• Section 5: Requirement for the president to submit renegotiation plans to remedy the gaps identified by the Comptroller General between our current pacts and the criteria for good agreements listed in section 4 prior to negotiating new agreements and prior to congressional consideration of pending agreements.
• Section 6: Establishment of a committee comprised of the chairs and ranking members of each committee whose jurisdiction is implicated by today's expansive "trade" agreements to review the president's plan for renegotiations.
• Section 7: A sense-of-the-Congress provision that sets out criteria for a new mechanism to replace the Fast Track negotiating process. To obtain agreements that benefit a wider array of interests, this new process includes Congress setting readiness criteria to select future negotiating partners; mandatory negotiating objectives based on the Section 4 criteria of what must be and must not be in future trade agreements; and the requirements that Congress must certify that the objectives were met, and then vote on an agreement before it can be signed. These criteria for a new trade negotiating mechanism to replace Fast Track have been supported in AFL-CIO, Change to Win and National Farmers Union resolutions.

Read the complete text of the TRADE Act (PDF, Adobe Reader required)

TRADE Act supporters:

• Change to Win
• AFL-CIO
• Communication Workers of America
• International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
• International Brotherhood of Boilermakers
• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
• International Brotherhood of Teamsters
• International Union of Painters and Allied Trades
• United Steelworkers
• UNITE HERE
• United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society
• Friends of the Earth
• Sierra Club
• National Farmers Union
• National Family Farm Coalition
• Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
• Americans for Democratic Action
• Public Citizen
• Citizens Trade Campaign

Excerpted from fact sheet on TRADE Act (PDF) by Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.