al organizations like the International Monetary Fund, workers in the United States are increasingly being put in the position of having to compete with desperate Third World workers in Mexico, China, Vietnam and other countries who are forced to work for wages as low as 20 cents an hour. Clearly, Congress must make radical changes in our trade policies and our relationship to such international financial organizations as the IMF and the World Bank. The goal of U.S. policy must be to improve the standard of living of workers in both the United States and the developing world and not simply protect the interests of multinational corporations. We must support fair trade and not free trade, and demand that corporate America start reinvesting in the United States.World Trade Organization After five years of operation, there is now concrete evidence of the WTO's enormous power to require changes in our existing national, state, and local laws. WTO decisions, made largely in secret and undemocratically, effect a wide range of public policies concerning the environment, procurement, public health, food and product safety and basic human rights. Increasingly powerful multinational corporations based in the U.S. and elsewhere, acting through national governments, are using the WTO to tighten their grip on a one-world economy. In recent years, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has forced changes in the Clean Air Act, U.S. Dolphin Protection laws and US Turtle Protection laws. Currently a Massachusetts law prohibiting companies doing business in Burma from bidding on Massachusetts state contracts is being challenged in the WTO. Further, any national or state initiative which encourages preferential treatment for local, state or American companies ("Buy American" or "Buy Vermont") is also subject to challenge. The people of this country have the right to maintain the level of environmental and food safety standards that they feel are appropriate, ...
