Drop in on the 17th to your Representative's district office, or take action any time during the Congressional Thanksgiving Recess

On Friday, November 17, your Representative returns for the Thanksgiving Congressional Recess. We are asking you to invite friends, maybe from groups you work with, to join you in a visit to your Rep's District Office that day to talk about NAFTA renegotiation. If November 17 is not convenient for you, the recess runs through November 27.

This mobilization coincides with the first day of the next round of NAFTA negotiations taking place in Mexico City, and in solidarity with the “Inter-Continental Days of Action on NAFTA.” 

Alliance for Democracy asks you to please deliver these two items
to your Representative…

● This letter with Citizen’s Trade Campaign’s NAFTA demands. Please edit the template letter to add your Congress member’s name and Washington office address, and your contact information.

● A factsheet about NAFTA’s impacts on your state. Click here for “50 Reasons Why We Need to Replace NAFTA.” On the map, click on your state and then click on the statement or statements that pop up for a link to a detailed factsheet. These well-researched handouts give you the information to talk effectively about local and state impacts that must not be repeated in NAFTA-2. 

● Here’s a general NAFTA factsheet to keep your Representative well informed.

We are at a crossroads. NAFTA renegotiation is moving rapidly. The outcome could still go in multiple directions.

We must push Congress members to support OUR DEMANDS for a NAFTA replacement, while we can make a difference. If our demands are not met, we will work to defeat a TPP-style NAFTA-2 that is worse than NAFTA-1. We want:

√  ISDS secret trade courts eliminated

√  Enforceable labor and environmental standards: TPP must not be the basis for NAFTA-2

√  Release draft chapter texts now. 

Corporate lobbyists are demanding the renegotiation deliver a TPP-style NAFTA 2.0 that would be worse for people not just in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, but across the planet. Meanwhile, there are proposals on ISDS (the secret trade courts), labor rights, environmental protections, Buy Local/Buy American, and possible sunset or 5-year review of NAFTA. Some proposals have been tabled by negotiators from one or another of the NAFTA countries. The prospect of a US NAFTA withdrawal by Trump hangs over the negotiations.

Mexico’s President wants negotiations completed by March 2018 to avoid NAFTA being a contentious topic in the country's presidential election, which takes place in July. Remember, we defeated the TPP by delaying negotiations into the 2016 election year.

Here are excellent summaries of where negotiations stand to date: “NAFTA Talks:  What’s the Deal?” and “NAFTA Talks Falter: Time to Increase Pressure,”  and a Citizen Trade Campaign’s Letter to President Trump Detailing Civil Society NAFTA Demands.

It's possible that you might be able to make an appointment with your member of Congress or with an aide, but if not don't be deterred from a quick visit on the 17th. Show up, be friendly, introduce yourself and ask if you can speak to your Representative or to the District Director. Bring the letter and relevant fact sheets, stress your demands for an end to ISDS, enforceable and strong labor and environmental standards, and a release of the text.

Here are some more office visit tips. Don't forget to take pictures—share them online if you're a social media user, and email them to us at afd *at* thealliancefordemocracy *dot* org, and to photos *at* citizenstrade *dot* org. Then let the Citizens Trade Campaign know how the meeting went by filling out this online form. Groups working nationally and in district on trade justice will use the information you report to plan next steps in the campaign.

Thank you for taking action!

Nancy Price and David Delk, Co-Chairs

It looks like the 11 remaining TPP countries may be trying to revive the deal, more or less. But if it remains a "dockable" agreement, in that other countries can sign in after the original nations ratify it, it may not be the kind of agreement that US-based corporations want.

For instance, New Zealand's new Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden, is already claiming the deal is "a damned sight better." She's an opponent of Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a mechanism that allows foreign corporations to sue a nation in order to overturn domestic laws or regulatory decisions that infringe on the corporation's "right" to profit. ISDS was one of the aspects of the TPP that both left and right in the US and elsewhere rightfully objected to. While Arden may not be able to keep ISDS out of the CPTPP, she has said she will push for recognized side agreements between countries that will say that there will be no ISDS cases brought against either nation. 

Electronic Frontier Foundation has also taken a look at what a new-ish TPP might mean for intellectual property, if the US is in or out of a final agreement. What the US negotiators wanted was far more extreme than what other countries called for, so it's not a surprise that that chapter is now on hold. EFF rightfully notes, however, that there is still much to object to in the chapters that remain, and that any negotiations from here on need to be conducted with much more transparency than the ones for the original TPP.

Meanwhile Vox offered this extremely shallow look at what's happening. Granted, Vox is an opinion site and not a news site, but jeez louise, guys! There is a much better story that needs to be covered, instead of this "Twilight of the Meritocracy/I Should Have Gone to B-School in Berlin" twaddle, and it's this: What kind of trade does the rest of the world think it needs? What kind of trade is fairer and are these countries turning to their people more and to multinationals less in an attempt to deliver? What kind of trade policy is more in line with the continued economic and social health of developed democracies--a type of nation that the US just isn't, despite having so many noisy gazillionaires. With US mainstream media both partisan and unable to see past pro-corporate business as usual, we'll have to count even more on international and alternative media to follow what's going on, and to figure out what this all might mean for our own trade justice work.

With the TPP temporarily defeated, the Boston-area activists formerly known as "No TPP Boston" have renamed themselves Greater Boston Trade Justice. 

The group will be visible at many upcoming events, including the Tax Day March on April 15, and the March for Science on April 23. Look for them and sign a postcard to Donald Trump demanding that NAFTA be replaced, not renegotiated: No ISDS or investor-state protections, robust and enforceable protections for the environment, climate, workers and food safety, protect and expand "Buy American" provisions.

GBTJ is also planning a town hall forum on NAFTA and immigration in Boston in May, and will be working with a community arts center in Central Massachusetts on a NAFTA talk focusing on the loss of manufacturing jobs in factory and mill towns throughout New England.

The group's "Bad Trade Kills Jobs No TPP" highway banner has been rolled up for now but pictures of their summer standouts have been incorporated in a presentation on US grassroots trade activism which will be given in Germany this spring. 

The most recent round of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations ended with several issues unresolved, and gave those of us who are working to defeat this attack on democracy a little more time to organize. Our TPP Free Zone campaign is taking this opportunity to connect with local activists and encourage passage of ordinances that defend local laws that otherwise might be under attack through suit by foreign corporations. We're writing material directed specifically at local government officials, whether city or county, detailing how the TPP threatens local decision-making.

Several cities and a few counties here have already passed TPP Free Zone ordinances, or resolutions against the TPP and Fast Track reauthorization. You can see where these votes have taken place here.

It's easy to be cynical about these local actions--after all, Fast Track passed despite several major cities, including Pittsburgh, Seattle, and New York, publicly and officially voicing their objections and concerns. And it's true that passing a TPP Free Zone, or even a resolution, is a lot of work: you often need the help of an ally on your city council, and you need to bring as many constituencies as possible in on your side: labor, environmental organizations, faith groups, farmers, human rights organizations, and patient advocacy groups.

But all these organizations have a stake in the TPP and can speak forcefully to the need for its defeat. If you doubt the passion with which diverse groups can bring to this issue, watch the public testimony for the March 30 Seattle resolution. Testimony came not just from TPP activists, but people who had come to speak on homelessness also stepped in to support the anti-Fast Track resolution. They understood how a measure like TPP could drive rights and opportunities down to a global lowest-common-denominator, and they were happy to join the fight to stop it.

People are celebrating because corporate dominance suffered a major setback as Congress refused to grant Fast Track Authority to President Obama.  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx