Green Party Platform:
Foreign Policy
U.S. foreign policy should emphasize promoting other nations' self-sufficiency and self-determination, rather than ensuring security for overseas American business interests and the retention of military bases. A general international trend towards democracy and self-determination now prevails; the U.S. must end its practice of economic colonialism.
International business practices have taken advantage of countries lax environmental and safety standards and a needy labor force that is easily exploited. Such practices are often in conflict with local efforts to establish work place democracy, and to address environmental and safety problems.
In the past, establishment of bases and stationing of service personnel overseas heightened Cold War tensions and tended to make the U.S. military a global police force. Together with economic leveraging, such military presence assured that self-serving U.S. businesses would encounter little resistance.
U.S. foreign aid programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) have promoted U.S. development methods without adequately examining their feasibility, appropriateness or cultural implications for the host country. Aid is given in inordinately greater amounts to countries that are considered strategically important to the U.S.
The Greens believe in policies consistent with participatory democracy and global responsibility:
- Insist that U.S. corporations maintain foreign business practices that don't jeopardize workers, damage their environment or interfere with their government.
- Negotiate a General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) that promotes the economic development and self-sufficiency of recipient countries, rather than profitability for the G-7 countries. [see the Global Fair Trade plank]
- Reevaluate our government's aid practices (USAID, for example) by emphasizing appropriate-level technologies, ecologically sustainable infrastructures and business projects, cultural sensitivity and monetary aid consistent with countries' real needs.
- Encourage U.S. cities to develop municipal foreign trade policies centering around local trade agreements, "sister city" arrangements and cultural exchange programs.
- Support and endorse United Nations conventions. Putting aside "new world order" rhetoric, we believe that the UN should finally be utilized for its intended purpose: it should act as an objective, multilateral body to maintain world order. The U.S. could help attain this objective by paying its U.N. dues on time.
- Close all foreign military bases as soon as possible and clean up any toxic wastes left behind. Fair and responsible business practices would eliminate the need for such bases.