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Ufuoma Otu, (202) 454-5108, uotu@citizen.org
An event on Capitol Hill today launched the national #ReplaceNAFTA Day of Action during the last North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiation talks in 2017, which are now underway in Washington, D.C. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), and union and civil society leaders joined Americans nationwide calling, emailing and tweeting at Congress to demand a successful renegotiation of NAFTA to eliminate its outsourcing incentives and add strong labor and environmental terms.
NAFTA renegotiations have reached a pivot point. Business lobby groups are urging Mexico and Canada simply to ignore U.S. proposals to cut NAFTA's job outsourcing incentives and Buy American waiver, to limit Chinese content in NAFTA goods and to add a five-year review. The corporate strategy increases the chances that talks deadlock and President Donald Trump withdraws from NAFTA, which he has authority to do in no small part because Congress has delegated swaths of its constitutional trade authority to presidents in recent decades.
U.S. civil society groups and activists participating the #ReplaceNAFTA Day of Action are urging the administration to eliminate NAFTA's outsourcing incentives and add strong labor and environmental provisions that meet fundamental international standards, include swift and certain enforcement, and raise wages for all workers. Callers to Congress are demanding that a vote on a renegotiated NAFTA not be held until these essential standards are met.
Among key activities for this national NAFTA Day of Action and leading to it:
Almost one million U.S. jobs have been certified as lost to NAFTA, with more outsourced every week to Mexico where wages are 9 percent lower than before NAFTA and a tenth of what they are in the United States and Canada.
Statements from Members of Congress:
"The biggest economic challenge of our time is that people are in jobs that do not pay them enough to live on - and NAFTA has only exacerbated that problem by allowing companies to outsource American jobs and pay workers even less," said DeLauro. "That is why NAFTA must be rewritten to raise wages and level the playing field for workers. We cannot let corporate special interests write the rules once again and rig this trade agreement against workers."
"Trade deals like NAFTA have decimated families and communities across North America, just so corporate executives can pocket even more in profits," said Ellison. "This is an opportunity to learn from what hasn't worked and come up with an approach to trade that serves the common good. We have to stand strong for a trade policy that lifts up workers, safeguards human rights and protects the environment, not one that simply hands more power and profit to massive corporations."
Statements from Participating Organizations:
"For millions of working families, NAFTA has meant lost jobs, closed factories and call centers, and lower wages, with most unable to find jobs that provide similar levels of pay and benefits. For communities, it's meant a loss of important public services and cuts in education and other programs as employers abandon cities and towns to relocate out of the country," said Chris Shelton, president of the Communications Workers of America. "CWA members understand what's at stake, and that's why we are leading the fight to make sure that a new NAFTA works for workers."
"Americans have had enough with trade deals that make it easier to outsource jobs to wherever workers are the most exploited and environmental regulations are the weakest," said Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Citizens Trade Campaign. "It's time to replace NAFTA with a new agreement that prioritizes the creation of good-paying jobs, the protection of human rights and increased wages for all working people. Central to that is ending NAFTA's outsourcing incentives, and the addition of labor and environmental provisions that are based on fundamental international standards and include swift and certain enforcement."
"Across the political spectrum, Americans reject the status quo of NAFTA helping corporations outsource more jobs to Mexico every week and attack health and environmental safeguards in secretive tribunals. We are fighting for a new deal that cuts NAFTA's job-outsourcing incentives and corporate tribunals and adds strong labor and environmental terms to level the playing field," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "The corporate lobby is urging Mexico and Canada not to engage on U.S. proposals to improve NAFTA, which increases the prospects that talks deadlock and President Trump withdraws."
"Congress must ensure that NAFTA renegotiations are used to stop the ongoing bleeding from NAFTA while also adding new protections for our environment, creating jobs and raising wages," said Murshed Zaheed, political director of CREDO. "If phony populist Donald Trump gets his way, NAFTA renegotiations will hand over even more power and wealth to the superrich and out-of-control mega-corporations."
"National Farmers Union and its 200,000 farm and ranch families support a renegotiated NAFTA that preserves duty-free market access for agricultural goods with Canada and Mexico, but fixes the flawed framework that has created a substantial trade deficit," said Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union. "Such an agreement should reinstate country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on meat and other food products and should only contain dispute settlement processes that are consistent with the U.S. judicial system."
"People will not stand by and let Donald Trump trade away their jobs, wages, climate, air and water to the highest corporate bidder," said Ben Beachy, director of the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program. "To avoid the fate of the corporate-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, NAFTA's replacement must reverse the outsourcing of jobs and pollution and protect workers and communities across borders by requiring swift enforcement of core international labor, environmental and climate standards."
"Trade agreements have human consequences. For more than 20 years, NAFTA has devastated Mexico's most vulnerable communities. People have been pushed out of their homes by economic, labor and environmental factors and forced to migrate in order to survive," said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice. "This renegotiation gives us an opportunity to address the desperate need for better agricultural policies as well as stricter labor and environmental guidelines. The U.S. should approach these negotiations with respect for human dignity. The effects of NAFTA transcend the economy and deeply affect the lives of people who need the benefits of trade the most. We must set things right for our communities; it is the faithful way forward."
"A renegotiated NAFTA must take concrete steps to raise labor and environmental standards throughout the continent," said Peter Knowlton, president of the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America. "It must increase Mexican workers' wages and eliminate repressive labor laws, including so-called 'right to work' laws in the U.S."
"NAFTA has failed farmers in all three of its partner countries - the U.S. Canada and Mexico - all the while lining the pockets of large-scale corporate agribusiness," said Juliette Majot, executive director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "At its very essence, trade is meant to improve the livelihoods of people residing in all partner countries. NAFTA never has. It is time for a new approach to trade aimed at ensuring fair prices to farmers and fair working conditions and livelihoods for farmworkers."
"As NAFTA renegotiations continue, it is more important than ever that we work together to find solutions to trade that protect workers, the environment and the common good," said Patrick Carolan, executive director of the Franciscan Action Network. "Rather than having a trade deal that benefits corporations looking to make a profit or gain more power, we must find ways to protect the most vulnerable that are in the best interests of workers, public health and the environment."
"NAFTA renegotiations need to be taken very seriously. They represent an opportunity to do what's right. We can eliminate incentives for companies to leave the United States and move jobs overseas, while strengthening the labor and environmental side agreements, turning them into something enforceable with teeth," said Gabriela Lemus, president of the Progressive Congress Action Fund. "NAFTA has greatly disrupted workers' lives in all three countries -- this is our opportunity to fix it."
"The underlying crisis afflicting rural America - rural poverty - is a result of federal agriculture, dairy, food and trade policies that do not provide farmers a fair price that cover our costs of production," said Brenda Cochran, a Pennsylvania dairy farmer with Progressive Agriculture Organization, a member organization of the National Family Farm Coalition. "Farmers do not need NAFTA - we need a fair price - and NAFTA should be terminated unless farmers and workers are paid fairly."
Organizations Participating in the #ReplaceNAFTA Day of Action Include:
AFL-CIO | Jobs with Justice |
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) | Just Foreign Policy |
Alcohol Justice | Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) |
Alliance for Global Justice | National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) |
California Labor Federation | National Farmers Union (NFU) |
California Nurses | National Nurses United |
California Trade Justice | NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice |
Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. (CDM) | NH Labor News |
Center for International Environmental Law | No Maiz Gringo |
Citizens Trade Campaign | Occupy the SEC |
Columban Advocacy | Oregon AFL-CIO |
Common Frontiers | Oregon Fair Trade |
Communication Workers of America (CWA) | Our Revolution |
Connecticut State Council of Machinists | Occupy Wall Street Special Projects Affinity Group |
CREDO | Pennsylvania Council of Churches Ministry of Public Witness |
CT Fair Trade Coalition | Pride At Work |
Demand Progress | Progress for All |
Democracy for CT | Progressive Congress Action Fund |
Fair World Project | Public Citizen |
Family Farm Defenders | Question your Shrimp |
Fight for $15 | Replace NAFTA |
Rock County Progressives | |
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center | |
Global Exchange | Sierra Club |
Global Progressive Hub | South Florida LCLAA |
Good Jobs Nation | Southeast Minnesota Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO |
Greater Boston Trade Justice | SumOfUs |
Green America | Teamsters |
IAMAW District Lodge 26 | 350 Seattle |
IBEW Local 1837 | United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) |
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy | United Steelworkers (USW) |
Institute for Policy Studies | Washington Fair Trade Coalition |
International Association of Machines and Aerospace Workers | Witness for Peace |
International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) | Women's International League for Peace and Freedom |
Iowa99Media |
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000"The polls are tight and the Electoral College is rigged to give Trump an edge, but Our Revolution can turn the tide by turning out progressive voters in key battleground states."
Just over a month away from the U.S. general election, the largest progressive political organizing group in the country announced Friday that it is aiming to encourage 5 million voters in seven battleground states to vote against former Republican President Donald Trump.
Our Revolution hopes to reach voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin via door-knocking, phone calls, and text messages ahead of the November election, in which Trump is facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The get-out-the-vote effort comes after surveying over 1,400 Our Revolution members who live in swing states. The results, the group said, "present worrying signs for the Harris campaign" and "suggest that the Trump campaign is actively engaging young and progressive voters."
Joseph Geevarghese is the executive director of Our Revolution, which grew out of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2016 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The group leader said Friday that "the polls are tight and the Electoral College is rigged to give Trump an edge, but Our Revolution can turn the tide by turning out progressive voters in key battleground states."
In the 2020 election, President Joe Biden "narrowly beat Trump by less than 300,000 votes in these states four years ago, which means that our 1.2 million supporters in the swing states could be the margin of victory in 2024," Geevarghese noted.
"After hearing from progressive swing state residents and our organizers on the ground, we are sounding the alarm on the lack of enthusiasm amongst this key voting bloc," he added. "In the coming weeks, Our Revolution will continue urging the Harris campaign to release bold policy plans aimed at motivating the party's progressive base, and we are committed to doing everything we can to mobilize support against another disastrous Trump presidency."
As the group detailed Friday, its polling—first reported by Semafor—found:
Since the president passed the torch to Harris this summer following a disastrous debate performance against Trump, she has racked up endorsements from leading groups, including People's Action, Popular Democracy, and the Working Families Party. Harris won the first-ever endorsement of the youth-led gun violence prevention movement March for Our Lives and has support from various reproductive rights, labor, and climate organizations—even some that declined to back Biden.
However, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse for the first time since 1996, and the Uncommitted National Movement—which is critical of U.S. support for Israel's annihilation of Gaza—announced last month that "Harris' unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her."
Uncommitted also made clear that it "opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing," and "is not recommending a third-party vote in the presidential election, especially as third-party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country's broken Electoral College system."
Despite recent polling that suggests U.S. voter support for Harris would grow if she backed an arms embargo against the Israeli military, Harris is not making clear attempts to win over Uncommitted voters. Leaders from the movement toldReuters that they were not invited to her Friday meeting with Arab American and Muslim leaders in Flint, Michigan.
Efforts to convince Michigan voters to support Harris will continue this weekend. Sanders and United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain—whose union endorsed her this summer—have three events in the state in the coming days. They plan to talk about corporate greed, healthcare, and manufacturing in the state.
Meanwhile, Harris this weekend plans to head to North Carolina, which was just devastated by Hurricane Helene.
The Sunrise Movement—a youth-led climate group that launched a campaign to defeat Trump and reach 1.5 million young swing state voters in August—intends to boost efforts to elect Harris in the weeks ahead, specifically focusing on North Carolina.
"Young climate voters could decide the election in North Carolina and put Harris over the edge," Sunrise organizer Paul Campion said in a statement Friday. "We're focused on reaching a group of 84,000 young voters between the ages of 18 and 26 who are very concerned about climate change but aren't regular voters. We're talking with them about the devastation of Helene and how Donald Trump's Project 2025 agenda would worsen the climate crisis, making disasters like Helene more frequent and severe."
Shiva Rajbhandari, a North Carolina student organizer, said that "people are angry. We're watching homes be swept away, entire towns consumed by floodwaters, and Donald Trump is joking about how climate change will create more waterfront property."
"Big Oil just murdered 200 people," the 20-year-old declared. "People know who's responsible for the climate crisis, and we're going to hold them accountable in November."
"Numerous credible reports of gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces have rightly placed U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law in sharp focus."
As the death tolls from the U.S.-backed Israeli assaults on Gaza and Lebanon neared 42,000 and 2,000 respectively, a group of House Democrats this week urged the Biden administration to hold Israel accountable to human rights standards established under existing domestic law.
In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin dated September 30 but first published Friday by HuffPost, the Democratic lawmakers—Reps. Jim McGovern (Mass.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Betty McCollum (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Joaquin Castro (Texas)—expressed their "deep alarm regarding the lack of U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law as it pertains to U.S. assistance to Israel."
Named after its author, former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Leahy Laws were approved in two rounds in the late 1990s. The legislation built on the Foreign Assitance Act of 1961, which prohibits U.S. military aid to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations.
"We strongly urge you to apply the law as written and act swiftly to bar any Israeli military unit that faces credible accusations of committing a gross violation of human rights from receiving U.S. assistance or training," the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
"As longtime friends and allies of Israel, we have supported, and continue to support, security assistance to Israel for the purposes of legitimate self-defense," the letter states. "Israel continues to face serious threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. As it defends against these threats, Israel must ensure it is using U.S. security assistance and funding in compliance with U.S. law—whether in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, or elsewhere."
According to the letter:Numerous credible reports of gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces have rightly placed U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law in sharp focus. Israeli and international human rights organizations have released credible reports of Israeli security units subjecting Palestinians in Israeli detention facilities to torture, ill-treatment, prolonged detetion without charges or trial, and rape under color of law. Extensive investigations by reputable media outlets have also documented multiple instances of civilians carrying white flags being shot and killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.
The letter comes ahead of the anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and that country's retaliation, which has left more than 148,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, and sickened.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice, and International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for leaders of Hamas.
In recent weeks, Israel has also ramped up airstrikes and launched a ground invasion in Lebanon, from which Hezbollah has been launching aerial attacks on Israel since shortly after October 7. Thousands of Lebanese have been killed or wounded.
All of this is enabled by tens of billions of dollars worth of nearly unconditional U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions. While the Biden administration delayed shipment of a limited number of heavy bombs of a type that Israel was using to massacre civilians in densely populated areas, those shipments soon resumed, even as the Gaza death toll soared ever higher.
"The failure of the United States to consistently apply our own laws has contributed to a culture of impunity in the IDF that actively endangers the lives of U.S. citizens," the lawmakers asserted before highlighting "gross violation[s] of human rights" perpetrated by Israeli forces against several Americans.
These include Omar Assad, an elderly former Milwaukee grocer who in January 2023 was dragged from his vehicle, blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed before falling silent while being detained in Jiljilya; renowned Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who multiple probes found was deliberately shot dead while covering an IDF raid in the West Bank in May 2022; and, most recently, 26-year-old International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot in the head during a September 6 demonstration against Israel's illegal West Bank settler colonies.
Israeli impunity for killing Americans far predates the examples listed in the letter. For example, in 2003, ISM activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a U.S.-supplied Israeli military bulldozer while trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. In 1967 Israeli warplanes and warships repeatedly attacked the spy ship USS Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 34 sailors and others and wounding 171 more in what numerous senior U.S. officials including the then-secretary of state and CIA director said was a deliberate act.
At least one American has also been killed by Israeli bombing in Lebanon this week. Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad, 56, of Dearborn, Michigan was killed in an airstrike Tuesday while in Nabatieth in southern Lebanon caring for his sick mother and volunteering to help elderly, disabled, and injured patients at a local hospital.
"When it functions properly, the Leahy Law serves two crucial purposes: It prevents U.S. complicity in gross violations of human rights, and it deters violations by incentivizing foreign governments to hold perpetrators accountable," the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their letter. "However, the Leahy Law can only serve these purposes when it is enforced."
Indeed, successive U.S. administrations have supported some of the world's worst human rights violators—including the perpetrators of genocidal mass murder in Indonesia, Paraguay, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bangladesh, East Timor, Kurdistan, and Gaza—since the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act and Leahy Laws.
"We strongly urge you to uphold the rule of law, bar assistance to any unit that is credibly implicated in a gross violation of human rights, and ensure perpetrators of crimes against American citizens face accountability and justice," the letter's signers concluded.
"The Supreme Court has sensibly rejected two efforts by industry to halt critical safeguards," an advocate said.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected two industry-backed petitions to issue injunctions on new Biden administration rules for methane and mercury in a rare, if temporary, victory for the environment at the nation's top court, which normally rules in favor of industry interests.
The two cases deal with rules issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—one to limit methane gas emitted by oil and gas companies, and the other to limit mercury emissions at coal-fired power plants.
Friday's rulings, which emerged from the court's emergency or "shadow" docket, mean the rules remain in place for now and the emergency applications to block them have failed. However, the cases remain active in lower courts, still to be heard in full, and could eventually return to the Supreme Court.
The justices didn't detail their reasoning and there were no noted dissents in either case. The court didn't yet act on a separate petition to block an EPA rule on power plants' carbon dioxide emissions.
"The Supreme Court has sensibly rejected two efforts by industry to halt critical safeguards," David Doniger, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, toldNBC News. "The court should do the same with the effort to block EPA's power plant carbon pollution standards."
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to pause new EPA rules on mercury and methane emissions, allowing stricter limits on toxic pollution from coal plants and methane from oil and gas. A rare win for environmental regulation amid ongoing challenges. #ClimateAction #EPA #CleanAir pic.twitter.com/j4heO0sqFq
— SustainableSphere (@Sphere__X) October 4, 2024
The EPA finalized the methane rule in March, saying it will cut emissions of the gas by up to 80% over 14 years. Methane is a climate "super pollutant"—a greenhouse gas far worse than carbon dioxide in the short run, as it traps heat far more effectively. Methane leaks are common in natural gas production.
A group of more than a dozen Republican-controlled states, led by Oklahoma's attorney general, and fossil fuel industry interests filed suit and then asked for an injunction at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit while the case was ongoing. The D.C. circuit court rejected the emergency bid in July, leading the group to bring it to the Supreme Court. The group called the rule an "authoritarian national command from the EPA" in a court filing.
The EPA announced the mercury rule—which also deals with other toxic metals—in April as part of a broader package of regulations. Mercury is a neurotoxin especially dangerous to children. Coal has higher mercury concentrations than other fossil fuels. The rule requires coal-fired power plants to reduce toxic metal emissions by 67%, with slightly different rules set for those fired by lignite coal.
A group of similar legal challengers, also led by Oklahoma's attorney general, went through the same effort at the D.C. circuit as with the methane rule—with what for them was the same negative result.
Whether the rules will hold up in court over the long term remains unclear. Right-wing justices hold a 6-3 advantage on the Supreme Court and have an issued numerous significant pro-industry, anti-environment rulings in recent years, cutting away at the power of the EPA.