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Fast Track Renewal

This year, Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority is expiring on June 30th – and we have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to change how trade agreements are negotiated and create a more democratic and inclusive mechanism.

Fast Track is the process we currently use to negotiate trade agreements, from bilateral to multilateral agreements. It was created by Richard Nixon as a power-grab for the Executive Branch in 1974.

Since the early 1990s, with NAFTA and the WTO, debate about Fast Track became more controversial. Fast Track was granted to the Bush administration in 2002 in the middle of the night on the last day of legislative session by a one vote margin. Many of you may know Fast Track also as “Trade Promotion Authority,” which is what the Bush administration renamed Fast Track, to call it one thing when it does the other, much like “Clear Skies” or “Healthy Forests.”

Fast Track bypasses democratic and constitutional processes for negotiating trade by leaving little role for Congress and ignoring states all together. Fast Track limits Congress’ role to an up or down vote with no amendments and 20 hours of floor debate on a pre-packaged and signed deal. Congress doesn’t even have the opportunity to tweak legislation. States are ignored all together but still bound to many non-trade areas of trade agreements, including procurement, investment and services language.

We also have extended trade advisory committees, which sound good, but the way the administration has handled these confirms suspicions that trade policy is set by certain special interests.  Although there are over 500 business sector advisors, there is less than a dozen labor, environmental, or public health advisors involved in the process.

The results are trade agreements that are negotiated outside of a democratic process without any accountability to the people and unnecessarily handcuff state governments in their ability to pursue important policies to safeguard the well-being of citizens in their states. 

On June 30th, Fast Track expires. This is our opportunity to improve the way we trade. It is near conventional wisdom in DC that up or down renewal of Fast Track is almost certainly not going to happen.  However, what this means is we can propose an alternative that creates fair trade policies and includes states in the process.

Fast Track is intended to give latitude to the Executive. But what’s clear now, especially after this election, is that this type of Fast Track is way past its due date. This Congress will rein in the latitude.

New Congress members were elected on trade issues, and the freshmen are taking seriously the need for more than just “tweaks,” so there have been many serious discussions in DC about how we can change this. What is needed is a “floor of decency” and transparency in the process – given that so much is classified and people including Congress are kept out of negotiations.

But one thing that not many people are talking about is a role for states in the process, even as the provisions of the trade agreements threaten state sovereignty. This is where you all come in – if you think there hasn’t been a meaningful role for states in the current trade policy-making process that needs to start becoming part of the discussion. There is a real need for state consultation “with teeth” in any replacement of Fast Track.

 

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