| Fact
Sheet - Resolution to Establish Minimum Trade Standards
February 13, 2007
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has introduced
a resolution that establishes some minimum standards for the
trade agreements into which our nation enters. The legislation
addresses the major problems with our nation’s failed
trade policies and sets forth principles for future trade
agreements. It is a break with the so-called NAFTA model,
and instead advocates the kinds of sound trade policies that
will spur economic growth and sustainable development.
Feingold’s resolution to establish minimum trade standards
would:
- Call for enforceable worker protections, including the
core International Labor Organization standards.
- Preserve the ability of the United States to enact and
enforce its own trade laws.
- Protect foreign investors, but states that foreign investors
should not be provided with greater rights than those provided
under U.S. law, and it protects public interest laws from
challenge by foreign investors in secret tribunals.
- Ensure that food entering into our country meets domestic
food safety standards.
- Preserve the ability of federal, state, and local governments
to maintain essential public services and to regulate private
sector services in the public interest.
- Require that trade agreements contain environmental provisions
subject to the same enforcement as commercial provisions.
- Preserve the right of federal, state, and local governments
to use procurement as a policy tool, including through Buy
American laws, environmental laws such as recycled content,
and purchasing preferences for small, minority, or women-owned
businesses.
- Require that trade negotiations and the implementation
of trade agreements be conducted openly.
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