Michaud's TRADE Act Earns Support of 106 Congresspeople

Congressman Mike Michaud's “Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act,” (H.R. 3012) has been introduced with the support of 106 members of Congress, including Chellie Pingree. According to Michaud's office, the TRADE Acts mandates trade pact reviews, establishes standards, protects workers, and helps restore congressional oversight of future trade agreements.

“We all know that we live in a globalized world. But we need to ensure trade is fair for our workers and economy. The TRADE Act shows what we are for in future trade agreements – and paves the way on how to fix our existing agreements,” Michaud said in a statement.

“This is an exciting day for trade policy,” said Michaud. “Last year, we had 74 cosponsors of the TRADE Act and this year we have 106. Members are sick and tired of being against trade agreements and they want to stand for something. I have no doubt the number of cosponsors have increased because the American people are demanding a new course on trade. The TRADE Act is a tremendous step forward in the debate and could help shape the future of our trade policies.”

The full bill is available on Michaud's website. Below is a summary of the bill, along with its supporters:

Summary of Key Provisions of the TRADE Act:

Review: The bill requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a comprehensive review of the major trade pacts that comprise the model on which U.S. trade agreement have been based, such as NAFTA, WTO, and CAFTA. The review, which must be completed before new trade negotiations or congressional consideration of pending pacts, includes an assessment of economic outcomes in the United States and abroad and various security, human rights, social and environmental indicators. The GAO must also report on how the current pacts measure up to the bill’s criteria with respect to what must and must not be included in trade pacts.

What Must and Must Not Be in All Agreements: The bill contains a detailed description of the key provisions that must be included in all future U.S. trade agreements and what aspects of the current model must never again be replicated to ensure that trade pacts provide broader benefits. It sets forth the environmental and labor, food and product safety, agriculture, trade remedy, human rights, federalism safeguard and currency anti-manipulation rules and national security exceptions that must be included in all U.S. trade pacts. This section also lists what aspects of the NAFTA-WTO model cannot be included in future deals, including bans on Buy American and anti-sweat shop or environmental procurement policies; new rights and privileges for foreign investors to promote offshoring and expose domestic health and environmental laws to attacks in foreign tribunals; service sector privatization and deregulation requirements; and special protections for Big Pharma to limit affordable access to drugs. This section comprises over half of the bill, given that today trade pacts extend far beyond traditional trade matters to cover so many different essential policy topics that are the crux of Congress’ domestic agenda - from access to essential services such as health care and education to regulation of financial services to medicine patents to investment, procurement and local development policy to procurement and food and product safety policy.

Renegotiation: The bill requires the President to submit a plan to address through renegotiation the gaps identified between our current major pacts and the criteria for what must and must not be included in U.S. trade agreements. The bill establishes a special congressional super committee chaired by the Ways and Means and Finance Committee chairs to work with the President on formulating this plan. The super committee also includes a role for the chairs and ranking members of other committees whose core jurisdiction is directly affected by today’s expansive trade pacts.