Green Party Platform:
Global Fair Trade
Green Parties around the world stand for international trade policies that respect the planet's ecology, peoples' social needs and the self-determination of communities, regions and nations.
The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) constitutes a major step toward internationalization of commerce that, in many instances, supersedes local and national governments' authority. GATT's World Trade Organization and NAFTA's Trilateral Commission allow transnational corporations to circumvent national environmental, health, and labor standards and laws. Corporations characterize these laws, intended to protect people and the planet, as impediments to trade.
GATT and NAFTA seek to equalize protective regulations at the lowest possible level. Effectively, this is international deregulation of trade. Under GATT, for example, practices that have already been challenged include: U.S. Clean air Act rules; U.S. fuel efficiency standards; European regulations on hormones in beef; Thailand's restrictions on importation of cigarettes; Indonesia's halting of rattan exports to protect their forests; the U.S. ban on importation of asbestos; the U.S. ban on importation of tuna caught in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act; and Massachusetts' ban on state purchases from companies doing business in Burma. Moreover, under NAFTA a U.S. corporation is suing the Canadian government for damages it claims are caused by Canada's pollution laws on gasoline additives. This trend implies a subversion of national sovereignty by multinational corporations. Issues such as child labor, resource conservation, worker health and safety, and environmental protection can now be compromised by corporations' unchecked pursuit of profit.
The inclusion of Low Income Countries (LIC's) into the high-roller world of unregulated global trade increases the pressure on these fragile economies to become export oriented. This complements the austerity programs of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that have imposed economic colonialism on debtor LIC's (see Third World Debt plank). GATT and NAFTA also limit a country's ability to regulate foreign investment, and open markets to services such as banking and lending. This can result in smaller countries losing control of their own national economies.
To foster economic, social and environmental justice in the internationalization of trade, the Green Party calls for supplementing these Trade Agreements:
- Maintain governments' authority to regulate the health and safety of its workers, protect its environment, and preserve its natural resources.
- Implement protective tariffs and trade barriers to protect local, state and national health, safety, labor and environmental standards against lower standards in other countries. These trade restrictions should only be used to promote better environment and labor conditions, and not to protect domestic employers from competition.
- Counterbalance commerce becoming global by labor unions doing the same. The well established unions of the developed countries should expand their organizations to assist, or help establish, viable unions in LIC's. [see the Unions plank]
- Allow countries to refuse trade for human rights, workers' rights, social justice or other legal and moral concerns.
- Insist international trade policies, agreements and institutions promote ecologically sustainable economic self-reliance in all countries. [see the Third World Debt and Foreign Policy planks]