from the Citizens Trade Campaign
Pax Christi USA has signed onto a letter to Congress opposing the just-reintroduced Fast Track legislation.
The Ryan-Hatch Fast Track bill would allow pending trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to be rushed through Congress, circumventing ordinary review, amendment and debate procedures. Defeating this legislation is our best way of ensuring that we aren’t saddled with a massive new “NAFTA on Steroids” that hurts the economy, environment and public health in our communities and beyond.
Last year, hundreds of groups joined together to voice their joint opposition to the Camp-Baucus Fast Track bill — creating a tidal wave of opposition that helped defeat it. With your help, we’ll defeat the Ryan-Hatch Fast Track bill as well. Signing on to this letter is an important step.
The letter reads, in part, “After decades of massive trade deficits, devastating job loss, downward pressure on Americans’ wages, attacks on environmental and health laws and floods of unsafe imported food under our past trade agreements, America must chart a new course on trade policy. To accomplish this, a new form of trade authority is needed that ensures that Congress and the public play a much more meaningful role in determining the contents of U.S. trade agreements.”