NDN Statement on the Bi-partisan Agreement on a New Trade Policy

Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, Director of our Globalization Initiative, and I just released the following statement. Feel free to comment below.

We congratulate Speaker Pelosi, Chairmen Baucus and Rangel, the White House and other Congressional leaders - including the New Democrats - for finding common ground and fashioning together a new approach to trade policy.

The agreement shows that this White House and the new Congress are capable of doing what the American people want them to do – come together and offer forward-looking, pragmatic solutions to the tough problems facing our nation today.

 

This new agreement creates a new and better framework for our trade arrangements, one that will put labor and environmental issues front and center in future trade deals, and no longer relegate these important issues to side agreements. This new path may allow America to once again be a leader in fashioning the new rules of the road for the global economy, a role that up until now has been neglected by the Bush Administration.

 

This new agreement will be remembered as an historic one if it leads the White House and Congress to forge a new national strategy that seeks prosperity for all Americas in this intensely competitive economic era. Even as the economy as a whole is well positioned to prosper in a time of globalization, too many Americans are struggling to get ahead. By undertaking the necessary governmental actions and making the needed investments in education, skills, technology, infrastructure and communities, America will be able to ensure that our workers and our kids the same broad opportunities that all proceeding generations have enjoyed.