KWRU participates in National Trade Strategy Meeting in Washington D.C.

On January 6 – 7, KWRU/PPEHRC participated in the National Trade Strategy Meeting in Washington DC. We started the meeting with a training on various trade proposals by Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, Kathy Ozer of the National Family Farm Coalition, Dennis Olson of IATP and Ellen Shaffer of the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health. Then the meeting officially began with John Nichols of The Nation speaking about the role of trade in the recent elections, and in particular about the significance of the struggle against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) this year. Matt Shlobohm of the Maine Trade Coalition spoke about local victories, and Jim Jontz of Americans for Democratic Action summarized the evening’s discussion. John Nichols made particular reference to KWRU’s efforts to unite the poor and workers in the US with the poor across the Americas against the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), the CAFTA and other "Free Trade Agreements." That evening we participated in a reception at the Motz building, in which congressional Representative Sherrod Brown spoke about the need to share the stories of real people whose lives have been devastated by such trade policies.

The next day began with a discussion on how to build a movement against “free trade” policies that devastate the lives of the poor and workers both in the United States and across the world. The first session included Sarah Anderson from IPS, Jim Jontz from Americans for Democratic Action, David Leshtz from the Iowa Fair Trade Campaign, Cathy Duvall from America Votes and Judy Ancel of the Institute for Labor Studies, all of whom spoke about “changing the politics of trade.” We continued with a session on CAFTA which included speakers Scott Paul from the AFL-CIO, Burke Stansbury from the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Amy Shannon from Enlaces America, Larry Weiss from Citizens’ Trade Campaign (CTC), Karen Hansen-Kuhn from the Alliance for Responsible Trade. Timi Gerson from Public Citizen then led a strategizing discussion on how we can develop various messages and tactics in the struggle against CAFTA, and in particular for reaching a variety of people in fighting for just trade.

Our afternoon sessions focused on challenging the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and other trade institutions and agreements that violate basic economic and other human rights and harm the environment. Speakers included Deborah James from Global Exchange, Timi Gerson from Public Citizen, David Waskow from Friends of the Earth US, Tom Buis from the National Farmers' Union, Dennis Olson, Kathy Ozer, Stephanie Weinberg from Oxfam, Karen Hansen-Kuhn from ART, Jessica Walker Beaumont from AFSC and Jeff Vogt from WOLA.

Among other topics, we talked about the importance of sharing our stories and pictures of the human rights violations caused by NAFTA, the GATS and the WTO, and about the need to build a movement in the US against such devastating “free” trade policies and institutions. We shared some of the efforts that we as the KWRU and the PPEHRC have been involved in to organize the poor, homeless, landless, farmworkers and unemployed of the US, the victims of such policies, into a movement for EHR in this country and worldwide. We left agreeing on the urgent need to educate and organize the people of the United States to say no to the CAFTA, the FTAA and similiar agreements that violate our basic human rights.