Trade: Time for a New Vision, 20pp

to read or download the 20-page Alternative Trade Mandate from January 2014, click on

http://www.alternativetrademandate.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Trade-time_for_a_new_vision-JAN14-PRINT.pdf


"Trade should be about exchange, with ecologically
and culturally distinct regions equitably sharing their
products, skills and creativity. But in recent decades,
trade has become less about exchange of goods and more
about eliminating social and environmental safeguards
in pursuit of corporate profit. The proposed EU-US free
trade agreement – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership – is a good example: while the elimination of
trade barriers between Europe and the US is touted as a
way out of the economic doldrums for these two blocs, in
reality it is set to seriously erode social, environmental and
labor rights.

This ever-quickening race to the bottom has destroyed
lives, livelihoods and communities. Today, trade is used
as a system of control by the powerful, and to promote the
specific interests of the few..."