NationStates Jolt Archive

The Republic of Leialand has proposed the following resolution regarding fair trade agreements. Leialand encourges member nations to approve this proposal and bring the resolution to a vote before the United Nations.

Background information can be located at http://www.citizen.org/trade/ for member nations wishing to further research this subject.

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WHEREAS, many member nations have put into place strong environmental and labor protections;

WHEREAS, strong environmental and labor protections are in the public interest and should be encouraged;

WHEREAS, free trade agreements put member nations into direct competition with nations that have no such environmental and labor standards;

WHEREAS, the cost of goods and services is typically lower in nations with fewer environmental and labor protections;

WHEREAS, these cost savings can be attributed to a failure to use more expensive, environmentally friendly materials and manufacturing processes and/or the existence of lower labor standards such as low pay, long hours, or unsafe work environments;

WHEREAS, nations with strong environmental and labor protections are forced to lower their environmental and labor standards in order to compete on a cost basis;

WHEREAS, for this reason, free trade agreements can be considered "pull down" treaties;

WHEREAS, free trade agreements are typically undemocratically administered by unelected representatives;

WHEREAS, undemocratically administered, pull down treaties override the soverignity of member nations;

WHEREAS, "fair trade" agreements are democratically administered by elected representatives of the member nations and include environmental and labor protections;

WHEREAS, for this reason, fair trade agreements can be considered "pull up" treaties;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by the member nations of the United Nations that free trade agreements shall not be forced upon any member nation and all new trade agreements shall be democratically administered, fair trade agreements that include environmental and labor protections.

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Background information can be located at http://www.citizen.org/trade/ for member nations wishing to further research this subject.

Excellent resolution.

Free trade is a myth and a ploy where 1st world countries let the rest of the world suck and feed off the toil of generations, while at the same time not allowing 1st world nations equal access to their markets. Its a joke and complete lie perpetrated by multi-national corporations, so that they can move jobs to the 3rd world thereby paying virtually no wages, but not suffer any tariffs when they import those products back in.

Free trade is greed. Free trade is the death of western civilization.

Free trade is something that, in the space of twenty years, has doubled the per capita GDP of third-world nations. Quite oppressive. :roll:

The Republic of Leialand respectfully notes that member nations have the right to set their own environmental and labor standards without the fear of being underminded by developing countries who have no intention to implement such standards. These developing nations should not be the benchmark against which world standards are measured, and developed nations certainly should not be forced to coform their standards to that of developing nations. So called free trade agreements are responsible for the exportation of hundreds of thousands of jobs from developed countries. Do the member nations want their industries and jobs exported as a result of such so called free trade agreements? Wouldn't the member nations much rather retain their soverignity by setting their own standards while encouraging developing nations to also adopt such standards? If so, what the member nations truly desire is fair trade.

Leialand humbly submits the following article in support of fair trade:

The Fiction Of Free Trade
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9490

The Global Market says: "Free trade is something that, in the space of twenty years, has doubled the per capita GDP of third-world nations. Quite oppressive."


That isn't the issue. The issue is why should that GDP growth come at the expense of the 1st world?

Lost jobs in America = GDP growth in the 3rd world.

Not only does GDP growth in developing nations come at the expense of developed nations as a result of so-called free trade agreements; but some corporations see free trade agreements as an opportunity to exploit labor in developing nations. The Republic of Leialand does not believe that GDP growth should come at the expense of the working people in developing nations or domestic workers who will lose their livelyhood.

It is likely that some corporations are simply moving their headquarters to a tax haven nation on paper while retaining actual operations in your nation in an attept to avoid taxation thus draining your national treasury. Lax banking laws in such nations make it extremely difficult to catch these corporate criminals. Unlike fair trade agreements with built-in protections, free trade agreements make it impossible for nations to address this problem.

The Republic of Leialand urges the member nations to APPROVE the Fair Trade Agreements resolution and bring this measure to a vote before the United Nations which is vital to guage world opinion on this matter.

OOC: I don't get it. Show me some examples of trade being forced upon a country and try not to mix up the RW with NS, it gets kinda confusing.
In the RW free trade hasn't helped anybody but developed countries, example; The North American Free Trade Agreement, what a great success for all those who participated in it, one of the conditions of NAFTA is that all government subsidizing to agriculture must be cut, which Mexico did and oddly enough everyone else who agreed to NAFTA ignored.....then come harvest time the other farmers dumped huge amounts of cheap grain on the Mexican market because it was all so subsidized. Result:Mexican agriculture market crashes and the resultant crash causes shortages of food in the major cities thus creating a wide-scale crisis - as if there wern't enough.

Another example; Boliva has been following "advice" from the World Bank and the International Monetery Fund for over 15 years and at the beginning it was the poorest country in the Americas and now it still is the poorest in fact its gotten worse with the country now more in debt and it's people worse off then before.
Free Trade Agreements another bright idea from the developed world :idea:

Tom Joad, you are confusing. You start your statement off by saying how great free trade is, and then in the second part you are trashing the World Bank and the IMF, which are creations of the WTO, which is the brain of free trade.

Which is it? Either you have schizophrenia, or you are seriously uninformed.

Also, What has NAFTA done for America? It helps the American consumer, but it destroys American manufacturers. It lowers the price of goods, but it lowers wages and steals jobs.

[quote="Leialand"]Not only does GDP growth in developing nations come at the expense of developed nations as a result of so-called free trade agreements; /quote]

So whatcha are saying is that free trade agreements are GOOD. After all the first world is helping the developing world through free trade.

Of course free trade helps the developing world, that has never been in question. The goal of FAIR TRADE is that trade helps developing, AS WELL AS developed nations, not just multi-national corporations.

GDP growth in developing nations means nothing without a similiar improvement in living standards in those developing nations. Unlike free trade agreements, fair trade agreements require developing nations to improve environmental and labor standards as a condition of trade. This is the best way to help developing nations--not by allowing mulitnational corporations to simply move to nations with the lowest environmental and labor standards thus encouraging those low standards for the entire world.

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To step out of character for a momement, in terms of the real world, free trade agreements such as NAFTA have been a colossal failure. Just ask the manufacturing industry what they think of so-called free trade. If you haven't seen the massive protests against the WTO in Seattle and the FTAA in Miami, you haven't been paying attention.

Even George W. Bush knows that so-called free trade dosen't work--that's why he put tariffs on steel imports and keeps them in place even today. Quite honestly, even if free trade agreements were successful, I don't want the laws of my nation overridden in secret, undemocratic proceedings that constitute the World Trade Organization.

I suggest that you visit http://www.citizen.org/trade/ and actually read the information available there.

The Global Market says: "Free trade is something that, in the space of twenty years, has doubled the per capita GDP of third-world nations. Quite oppressive."


That isn't the issue. The issue is why should that GDP growth come at the expense of the 1st world?

Lost jobs in America = GDP growth in the 3rd world.

Okay. So you admit you have no concern for people in the 3rd world. You can cast off the mask of humanitarianism now.

Well, let's talk about the first world. In America, we've been managing a healthy 2-4% yearly GDP growth as well. More trading partners means more diffusion of ideas, which lead to technological growth. Rich nations and poor nations both get richer.

Those same multinational corporations are also based in developed nations. This helps develop their economies as well, since those corporations create markets in both nations.

And Leialand, how can a nation with a GDP per capita of $600 afford to care about the environment? I defy you to tell a starving third-world peasant that the environment is more important than economic growth in developing countries. Once they get rich, THEN they can help the environment. This is how history worked the last two centuries.

Also the Feds repealed that steel tariff a few days ago, because it meant lost jobs in automotive, construction, appliances, and other steel related industries, which employ fifty-seven times more people than the steel industry.

Tariffs aren't so bad in the short-term, but long-term tariffs stifle economic growth. Look at Europe. Many of their economies are heavily tariffed and managing like what? 1-2% yearly growth?

Worse, increasing tariffs leads to an upward spiral that inevitably leads to economic collapse after a few years. Recall that the US tariffs hit a new low in 1919-1920, and they were subsequently raised throughout the Roaring Twenties. This caused Europe and Japan to raise their own tariffs, which deprived the world of the economy base it needed, which many would argue was a key cause in the Great Depression. Hawley-Smoot Tariff, passed in 1930, aggravated it considerably, and the US economy hit its worst point ever. Only after a series of multilateral trade agreements by which tariffs were lowered drastically in 1933-34 did the depression begin to fade away internationally.

Not only does GDP growth in developing nations come at the expense of developed nations as a result of so-called free trade agreements; but some corporations see free trade agreements as an opportunity to exploit labor in developing nations. The Republic of Leialand does not believe that GDP growth should come at the expense of the working people in developing nations or domestic workers who will lose their livelyhood.

It is likely that some corporations are simply moving their headquarters to a tax haven nation on paper while retaining actual operations in your nation in an attept to avoid taxation thus draining your national treasury. Lax banking laws in such nations make it extremely difficult to catch these corporate criminals. Unlike fair trade agreements with built-in protections, free trade agreements make it impossible for nations to address this problem.

The Republic of Leialand urges the member nations to APPROVE the Fair Trade Agreements resolution and bring this measure to a vote before the United Nations which is vital to guage world opinion on this matter.

1) No exploitation is going on. MNCs on average pay two to three times more than domestic employers in third-world nations.

You have provided NO credible evidence that globalization does not help developing nations. Your slighly more credible claim that it harms developed nations is also faulty.

Governments do not have the right to impose unreasonable taxation. Tax haven nations such as Bermuda allow redress against oppressive taxes. Moreover, they encourage growth through allowing more money for investment and less chance for the government to rob and the bureaucracy to waste.

Free movement is part of the fundamental human right to liberty. The government has no right to use physical force to stifle competition with other nations by denying the right of people to 'vote with their feet'. That is called 'oppressive government'. Emigration, except when violent criminals or top secret operations are involved, is a human right that no legitimate government can deny.

Moreover, domestic workers do not lose their livelihood. They switch to other industries. Developed nations have tremendous advantages in technology and education over developing nations. Most unemployment in countries such as the USA and Japan is caused by technological growth. This isn't a bad thing. When we invented the printing press, many scribes lost their jobs. So what? When we invented guns, knights would lose their jobs. I say again... so what? Structural unemployment is natural and is a sign of economic growth. If you want to strive for zero unemployment, don't fool yourself, you will lose all of your rights, experience very low economic growth, and 0% technological growth.

The check on government power created by corporations is both necessary and desirable. The past one hundred and fifty years, when corporations were a major economic force, saw greater improvements in economy AND human rights than any other period in human history.

Corporations, unlike governments, do NOT maintain a monopoly on physical force. As such, they are far less dangerous and checking their power is much less important than checking the government's power. Everything a corporation does [in theory] is voluntary. The government has the ability to coerce citizens into doing involuntary things, such as pay taxes. If you're worried about human rights, look at Congress before you look at General Motors.

If you're not, then I can understand where all your arguments flow from.

The Global Market said:

"The Global MarketTariffs aren't so bad in the short-term, but long-term tariffs stifle economic growth. Look at Europe. Many of their economies are heavily tariffed and managing like what? 1-2% yearly growth?




Europe is the birthplace of the Free Trade idea. What nations in Europe are heavily tariffed? Debating is a good thing, but don't invent things just because it makes your end look better.

Also, I was never coming from a humanitarian point of view, I was coming from a nationalistic point of view. Free trade is bad for America because it weakens us and we don't need it.

The problem with free trade is that it looks nice and pretty on paper, but it doesn't work in reality. People do not play fair. Go to China and see how many American cars you see. Go to Japan or Korea and see how many American cars you see. There aren't very many, and do you know why? Because they TARIFF American imports. They protect their own Auto industries from foreign competition.

Why do you want America to play fair, while other countries cheat and reap the profits?

No exploitation is going on. MNCs on average pay two to three times more than domestic employers in third-world nations.

These multinational corporations exploit the workers in developing nations by paying them significantly less than workers in developed nations. Workers are also exploited by the existance of working conditions far below that in developed nations.

You have provided NO credible evidence that globalization does not help developing nations. Your slighly more credible claim that it harms developed nations is also faulty.

The burden of proof is not on those nations which wish to retain their national soverignity to set their own standards. The burden of proof is upon nations such as your own, who wish to override the laws of other nations by forcibily imposing so-called free trade agreements. YOU have provided NO credible evidence that globalization helps either developing or developed nations; nor will you be able to provide such proof.

Governments do not have the right to impose unreasonable taxation. Tax haven nations such as Bermuda allow redress against oppressive taxes. Moreover, they encourage growth through allowing more money for investment and less chance for the government to rob and the bureaucracy to waste.

The Republic of Leialand is a Democratic Republic whereby citizens elect representatives to serve in their best interests. The people of Leialand, though their elected representatives, have every right to form any agreement between themselves, pool their resources, and set their own standards. In addition, the people have the right to protect themselves from economic attacks on the nation such as so-called free trade agreements. Corporations are artifical entities that are chartered by the public. Humans have rights which can only be abridged by law, corporations have no rights--only those powers so granted. This delegate is appalled that you would suggest that the peope have no right to decisions within their own democracy and that artifical entities, created by the people, should simply ignore the wishes and laws of the people as they so desire.

Free movement is part of the fundamental human right to liberty. The government has no right to use physical force to stifle competition with other nations by denying the right of people to 'vote with their feet'. That is called 'oppressive government'. Emigration, except when violent criminals or top secret operations are involved, is a human right that no legitimate government can deny.

As stated above, only humans have rights, corporations only have powers. No such power has been granted to corporations in the Republic of Leialand. They do not, and should not, have this power.

Moreover, domestic workers do not lose their livelihood. They switch to other industries. Developed nations have tremendous advantages in technology and education over developing nations. Most unemployment in countries such as the USA and Japan is caused by technological growth. This isn't a bad thing. When we invented the printing press, many scribes lost their jobs. So what? When we invented guns, knights would lose their jobs. I say again... so what? Structural unemployment is natural and is a sign of economic growth. If you want to strive for zero unemployment, don't fool yourself, you will lose all of your rights, experience very low economic growth, and 0% technological growth.

Unlike my collegue, THIS delegate is concerned by the loss of jobs.

The check on government power created by corporations is both necessary and desirable. The past one hundred and fifty years, when corporations were a major economic force, saw greater improvements in economy AND human rights than any other period in human history.

Government in the Republic of Leialand is of the people, for the people, and by the people. Government in the Republic of Leialand IS the people. We strive for Democracy, not Plutocracy, in Leialand; and as such, monied interests, such as corporations, which are ariticial entities that have no rights, have no right to check the power of the people who allow them to exist--the citizens.

Corporations, unlike governments, do NOT maintain a monopoly on physical force. As such, they are far less dangerous and checking their power is much less important than checking the government's power. Everything a corporation does [in theory] is voluntary. The government has the ability to coerce citizens into doing involuntary things, such as pay taxes. If you're worried about human rights, look at Congress before you look at General Motors.

Corporations only represent the interests of a select group of people--the shareholders--who may or may not even be citizens of the nation in question. Artificial entities, and especially foreign citizens, have no place checking the power of the people to govern themselves. This is inherantly undemocratic and completely unacceptable.

The Republic of Leialand urges member nations to APPROVE the Fair Trade Agreements resolution.

Voting for APPROVAL of this resolution ends tomorrow. Over one-hundred approvals are still needed to bring this measure to a vote before the United Nations.

Voting for the Free Trade Agreements resolution ends TODAY. The Republic of Leialand encourages all delegates who have not already done so to APPROVE this proposal so that it may come to a vote before the United Nations. Let the will of the people of the world BE HEARD!

This resolution seems to be stopping the very idea of fair trade. For fair trade to work, all need to participate. Fair trade would not work otherwise. However, this resolution would make it so that nations could introduce tariffs which is wrong. trade should be open and free and every nation should commit to it for the betterment of the world as a whole.