50,000 Americans Speak Out on NAFTA Renegotiation

Over 50,000 Americans submitted public comments to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) prior to the original June 12th deadline calling for the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to put working families and healthy communities ahead of corporate interests.  Most also urged that NAFTA’s renegotiation take place in a transparent process that gives the public access to negotiating texts, rather than privileging corporate advisors.

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“NAFTA has been a disaster for working people and the environment across the United States, Mexico and Canada,” said Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Trade Campaign.  “Americans are demanding that NAFTA’s forthcoming renegotiation be used as an opportunity to halt the pact’s ongoing damage and to create a replacement deal that actually prioritizes the needs of people and the planet, instead of just big corporations.”

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Hours before the deadline, civil society groups representing labor, environmental, consumer, human rights and faith organizations announced that their supporters had generated a combined 50,214 written submissions into the USTR in response to the official request for comments on “Negotiating Objectives Regarding Modernization of North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.”

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Comments were collected by groups including the AFL-CIO, Citizens Trade Campaign, Communications Workers of America, Friends of the Earth, Popular Resistance, Presbyterian Church USA, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Teamsters, United Steelworkers and Witness for Peace.

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“CWA members know that trade deals like NAFTA have been a string of one broken promise after another, and they are determined to make sure that their concerns are heard during the renegotiation process. We will no longer tolerate bad trade deals negotiated in back rooms and behind closed doors by multinational corporations, with no transparency and no public input,” said Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Chris Shelton.

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“Trump’s renegotiation of NAFTA, like the Trans Pacific Partnership deal, will encourage corporations to pollute our air and water, poison our food and accelerate climate change,” said Doug Norlen, Director of Economic Policy at Friends of the Earth.

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“NAFTA has harmed communities across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for more than two decades by undermining environmental protections, eliminating jobs, increasing pollution, eroding wages, and facilitating climate change. The people are speaking out and demanding a fundamentally different approach to trade, putting the needs of the people and our planet first, not corporate profits. These comments show that any deal that falls short of supporting a stable climate, healthy communities, and good jobs will face the vigorous opposition that defeated the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” said Anthony Torres, Associate Campaign Representative at the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program.

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Civil society groups are planning to deliver additional petition signatures to USTR pertaining to NAFTA’s renegotiation shortly.  You can sign the petition demanding that NAFTA renegotiations benefit working people, not corporate power, online here.