If you liked NAFTA, you’ll love this

Florida? Yup, part of the money for Iraq—or at least $8.5 million of it—is going to the Miami City Commission.

But first, some recent history. In September, the World Trade Organization—a group that sets trade rules for global industry—met in Cancun, Mexico to try to reach global trade agreements. The talks fell apart when 22 developing countries (such as Brazil, Egypt and Pakistan) stood together in opposition to agreements that favored developed countries, such as the United States.

For one, the agreements would have made it even easier for corporations to end up with government contracts or ownership of services, from utilities to hospitals to libraries to schools. That’s a problem because the WTO negotiators’ efforts—called the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or GATS—ties a local government’s hands when issues of corporate control come along. An unregulated corporation can pay its workers peanuts or worse. It can force them to work in unsafe conditions. It can pollute the planet at will. And a national government can do nothing to protect its citizens or its natural resources, as WTO rules forbid making laws that get in the way of the supposed “free trade.”

Think it couldn’t happen in the United States? Wrong. In just one example this week, the WTO ruled that the United States can no longer impose tariffs on steel products. Since last year, tariffs of up to 30 percent on steel imported into the United States have protected U.S. steelworkers from losing jobs. The American market had been flooded with cheap steel imported from nations with no expensive industry regulations.

This puts President Bush in a quandary. His rich corporate executive friends like the laissez-faire promise of the WTO. But voters, especially those facing unemployment in steel-producing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, are going to be furious if Bush caves to the WTO’s demands.

Sorry, Bush. The WTO makes the rules, and you can’t protect those folks who voted for you.

So, in Miami from Nov. 17-21, tens of thousands of protesters are again taking to the streets like they did in Cancun to take a stand against global corporate domination. At issue isn’t the WTO this time; it’s the Free Trade Area of the Americas—a trade agreement that some fear will be even worse that the WTO. The FTAA creates the largest free-trading zone in the world out of North and South America. Its rules for services “open the door to a wholesale assault on our health, safety, labor and environmental laws,” according to a FAQ from the California-based nonprofit Global Exchange.

“To meet FTAA requirements, countries will have to change their laws governing obligations placed on business,” the FAQ states, as the FTAA would prevent governments from passing regulations that are “more burdensome than necessary.”

FTAA promoters hope the agreement will be finalized in 2004. Now if they can just keep a lid on the debate. That’s where the $8.5 million comes in. The little-known packet of money tacked onto the $87 billion spending bill for Iraq is being used to fund police salaries in Florida. Cops will be working overtime to protect FTAA negotiators, so that Miami protests don’t get out of hand like they did at WTO talks in Seattle in 1999. Journalists are now being “embedded” with Miami police—an obvious move that keeps the media on the pro-FTAA side of the debate.

The Miami City Commission and the Florida FTAA (with funding from the Miami Herald Publishing Co.) aren’t only hoping that the trade agreement will succeed, they want their city to be home to the FTAA’s international headquarters.

By the way, Congress, Miami says thanks for the Iraq money.