Date: 10/12/07
Situation: Public Question at Town Hall Mtg. – Newton, IA
Question: Would Obama revisit his stance on Peru trade deal, noting that we do want a new way on trade, but that the AFL-CIO and no other allied groups felt the provisions of the deal are sufficient to merit support.
Answer: He responded that he had not voted yet, that this deal was not like NAFTA, that the AFL CIO was split, not opposed to the deal; that standards in Peru weren’t written by corporate lackeys, but by the ILO, that 90% imports from Peru already enter duty free, thats it’s a tiny economy, and, perhaps most interestingly, that he was going to vote for this deal so he could oppose the worse deals, and that once he was prez, he would support only good deals.
Follow Up, Handshake Line: Obama said that some people want to stop trade altogether (implying this applied to those lobbying against Peru FTA) and that its complicated. I told him that we do want trade, but that these deals were written by corporate interests who are overjoyed to have been able to placate us with ’standards’ , that standards are dubious to begin with but nonetheless insufficient to claim that the resluts of such a deal won’t be a net loss for real people in both countries.
He said that Rangel negotiated it, and Pelosi, and that they wouldn’t put weak deals together, that they knew that the Dems need to be able to be for trade and econ growth. I told him that the incentive to offshore still is greater with such a deal, that real people still lose and that democracy is still subverted b/c much of the text of the deal is about enshrining corporate rights etc.
We agreed to disagree and that we could supply more info to his staff.
