Edwards decries U.S. trade policy

Contending that corporate profits dictate the nation’s foreign trade pacts, Democratic presidential contender John Edwards on Monday called for a “zero tolerance” policy that would freeze imports of harmful food, toys and other goods.

Speaking with an eye toward a forum of Democratic candidates to be sponsored by the AFL-CIO today in Chicago, Edwards proposed new rules on trade policies that he said would boost the standing of workers in the U.S. and across the world.

Edwards said he would not abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico. But, he said, he would renegotiate it to reflect his priorities for future trade pacts, including standards that allow for unionization of workers, environmental protection and controls on currency manipulation.

“When it comes to trade, the only thing that matters in Washington, D.C., is corporate profits,” the former North Carolina senator told nearly 300 people at the union hall of Local 405 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. “We need trade without trade-offs for America.”

Edwards said the nation needed trade rules that protected consumers. He said he would enforce mandatory labeling of foods and other products detailing their country of origin and give the Food and Drug Administration the resources needed to keep tainted food out of the country.

“We’ll enforce zero tolerance and immediately freeze the specific import of any food, toys, medicines or other goods that threaten the health of our families and our children,” Edwards said. “We will not let them in until we, in fact, know they’re safe.”

In recent weeks, the Tribune has reported on the importation of lead-tainted toys and other products from China. Last week, more than 1 million Fisher-Price toys were recalled, and before that, pet food manufactured with a tainted China-produced ingredient sickened and killed dogs and cats in the U.S.

Edwards maintained that past trade pacts, such as NAFTA, came at the expense of workers.

Although he criticized trade polices under President Bush, Edwards said the downside of economic globalization “isn’t just his doing.”

“For far too long, presidents from both parties have entered into trade agreements, like NAFTA, promising that they would create millions of new jobs and enrich communities,” said Edwards, who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004. “Instead, too many of these agreements have cost us jobs and devastated communities across this country.”

NAFTA was a major initiative of the administration of Bill Clinton, whose wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, is a main rival of Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Although Edwards brought up NAFTA, he did not mention either Clinton by name.

Edwards said he would eliminate business tax breaks that favor moving jobs overseas and would conduct economic-impact assessments of proposed trade deals to determine what industries, workers and communities might be harmed and how they could be helped.

“We need to restore some honesty to the trade-deal debate and not claim, like too many presidents have in the past, from both parties by the way, that trade will help everybody,” Edwards said.