Don’t Let Pending Trade Deals Become Yet Another Corporate Power Grab

The Trump administration claims over 75 foreign governments have reached out to it seeking trade deals aimed at lowering tariffs. 

The provisions in any new trade deals matter!  

Whether with Vietnam, Japan, Argentina, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Kingdom or any other country, President Trump’s new trade deals cannot be rushed forward via a closed-door process that favors billionaire investors and corporate lobbyists, while shutting out the public.  People deserve the right to know what’s being proposed in our names.

Worryingly, many of the so-called “barriers to trade” listed for elimination in the Trump administration’s recent 397-page National Trade Estimate report (including food safety, access to medicine, consumer privacy, financial and other public interest policies) are the types of things corporate lobbyists have always pushed for — the same corporate giveaway provisions snuck into “free trade” agreements for decades.

The following checklist outlines trade provisions that would actually benefit working people and communities, instead of just big corporations.

   ENFORCE RIGHTS & REDUCE OFFSHORING: Establish strong labor and environmental standards backed by swift-and-certain, facility-specific enforcement mechanisms with meaningful penalties for violations — protecting rights and removing corporations’ major incentives to offshore jobs.

   RAISE WAGES: Condition application of any agreement’s benefits to goods and services produced by workers making a fair wage, and require supply chain transparency on wages.

   PREVENT CIRCUMVENTION: Include strong Rules of Origin to ensure the parts going into goods assembled in trade partner countries are made in countries meeting high standards and wage requirements (including the U.S.).

   RESPECT PROCUREMENT: Eliminate bans on “Buy American,” “Buy Domestic,” “Buy Green” and other public procurement preferences.

   STRENGTHEN RURAL COMMUNITIES: Safeguard governments’ rights to manage agricultural supplies at fair prices that at least cover farmers’ costs of production and through tariff protections that allow for stable domestic supplies and discourage dumping.

   ENABLE CONSUMER RIGHT-TO-KNOW: Establish mandatory Country of Origin Labeling rules for beef, pork, dairy, egg and seafood products.

   STOP DEMONIZING IMMIGRANTS: Address root causes of economic displacement and migration by strengthening opportunities for workers and farmers to earn secure livelihoods at home, while also better protecting the rights of migrants.

   END GIVEAWAYS TO BIG TECH: Eliminate “digital trade” provisions that help Big Tech offshore digital economy jobs and undermine online privacy, data security, AI accountability and anti-monopoly policies.

   END OTHER SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR CORPORATIONS: Eliminate Investor-State Dispute Settlement and so-called Good Regulatory Practices provisions that help corporations undermine industrial and public interest policies.

   EXPAND ACCESS TO MEDICINE: Affirm governments’ rights to use compulsory licensing to address public health needs and to negotiation for lower prescription medicine prices, while eliminating any “TRIPS-plus” provisions that establish special rights for pharmaceutical monopolies.

   RESIST HIJACKING OF TRADE DEALS: Don’t allow unrelated demands on border militarization, territory grabs and other unjust and authoritarian policies to hijack trade negotiations.

   EMBRACE TRANSPARENCY: Adopt a fully transparent and participatory negotiating process, including by making U.S. position proposals available for official public comment before tabling them and by publishing any composite negotiating texts between countries in near real-time.