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Motion of the Council of Allegheny County expressing the Council of Allegheny County's opposition to the extension of certain foreign trade policies.
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WHEREAS, U.S. trade deals for the past 25 years have been corporate-driven, incorporating rules that skew benefits to economic elites while requiring working families to bear the brunt of such policies; and
WHEREAS, the growing trade deficits, driven by the North American Free Trade Agreement, China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, have displaced 700,000 jobs and 3.2 million jobs, and 75,000 jobs respectively; and
WHEREAS, U.S. employment in manufacturing dropped by 5 million from 2000 to 2015; and
WHEREAS, jobs lost due to trade devastate families and entire communities and can permanently reduce lifetime earnings for hundreds of thousands of workers; and
WHEREAS, the long decline of the American manufacturing base - exacerbated by bad trade policies that reward outsourcing - has undermined our economic security and poses a direct threat to our national security; and
WHEREAS, the offshoring of manufacturing and service jobs deprives local and state governments of sorely needed revenues, jeopardizing the livelihoods of millions of public servants as well as construction workers whose jobs depend upon infrastructure building, repair and maintenance; and
WHEREAS, under NAFTA-style trade rules, the U.S. annual trade deficit has increased dramatically from 70 million in 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, to more than $508 billion in 2014; and
WHEREAS, the disproportionate voice of powerful global corporations in the formation of U.S. “free trade” agreements has advanced an agenda that undermines the public interest and threatens democracy; and
WHEREAS, NAFTA and all but two of the U.S. trade deals that followed it include special legal rights for foreign investors, known as “investor-to-state dispute settlement” or ISDS, that allow fo...
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