The talk from Washington and the office of the USTR is that this next FTA will somehow be better than all of the others. But the truth is that we are putting the cart before the horse, because we first need to establish a protectionist system for all our trade relations.

My view on trade is like the OWS -- I don't have a simplistic political demand for fixing it, but I do know that there are systemic problems that require systemic reform. And as Buddy Roemer points out about USA politics, it's the money running things that messes up the system.

First, before entering into any more FTAs, we need to establish our own pro-America trade regulation system -- including such legislation as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act (that Boehner's has sunk in the House despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill).

We need a system that is established under US law that essentially treats all trading partners alike -- that is, a system that establishes standards for the protection of US workers and industry, making distinctions according to objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners. That description (establishing objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners) applies to the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act that came out of the Senate recently only to be torpedoed by Boehner in the House, despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill.

We need to put a complete halt to the idea that domestic policy can be changed for the better by legislating through the backdoor of 'fast track' FTAs. If a trade agreement requires some change in domestic policy -- for product standards, national defense, patents, environmental law, food and drug safety, employment-labor law and the preservation of USA work force -- then, those areas need to be legislated separately before any trade agreement can be implemented.

In short, opposition to fast-track FTAs by the working people of America must be, and is becoming, total.

The preference system that has been enshrined as a Holy Cow in the WTO bureaucratic mess has been proven dysfunctional and in need of thorough-going reform. We should know by now that we cannot reform the entire world through fast-track 'free' trade agreements, and we should also know by now that the basis of successful trade for USA must be a rational protectionist system.

We need to go all the way back to the philosophical or idealistic foundations of the Uruguay Round and consider how those foundations have been shown to be faulty. To continue building on a poorly laid foundation, when we see structural problems developing everywhere around the world, is insanity.

The economic miracle of postwar Japan was built on a solid policy of protectionism since the formation of the  Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1949. Is it any wonder that Japan is slow to abandon its right to determine its import policies based on its own political priorities?

The following is excerpted from Wiki article, "Japanese post-war economic miracle" --

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was instrumental in Japan's post-war economic recovery. According to some scholars, no other governmental regulation or organization had more economic impact than MITI. “The particular speed, form, and consequences of Japanese economic growth,” Chalmers Johnson writes, “are not intelligible without reference to the contributions of MITI” .... Established in 1949, MITI’s role began with the "Policy Concerning Industrial Rationalization" (1950)  .... The extent of the policy was such that if MITI wished to “double steel production, the neo-zaibatsu already has the capital, the construction assets, the makers of production machinery, and most of the other necessary factors already available in-house” ....

MITI also boosted the industrial security by untying the imports of technology from the imports of other goods. MITI's Foreign Capital Law (1950) granted the ministry power to negotiate the price and conditions of technology imports. This element of technological control allowed it to promote industries it deemed promising. The low cost of imported technology allowed for rapid industrial growth. Productivity was greatly improved through new equipment, management, and standardization.

MITI gained the ability to regulate all imports with the abolition of the Economic Stabilization Board and the Foreign Exchange Control Board in August 1952 .... in effect giving MITI full control over all Japanese imports. Power over the foreign exchange budget was also given directly to MITI.

MITI's establishment of the Japan Development Bank (1951) also provided the private sector with low-cost capital for long-term growth. The Japan Development Bank introduced access to the Fiscal Investment and Loan Plan (FILP), a massive pooling of individual and national savings. At the time FILP controlled four times the savings of the world's largest commercial bank. With this financial power, FILP was able to maintain an abnormally high number of Japanese construction firms (more than twice the number of construction firms of any other nation with a similar GDP).

Does that sound like a plan ... or what? (But first we would need a government committed to the well-being of America and of American working families!)