by frog
Pundits are about the call the election for Barack Obama by the looks of it. For the planet this is probably a good thing, with Obama having a better platform on climate change, environmental standards and peace.
The big story for little Aotearoa, is what this means for trade. And Obama has been equivocal. But occasionally he says things that can give us hope that for the first time in a generation at least US trade policy will be based on ethics rather than either protectionism or exploitation of other countries:
“It is absolutely critical that we engage in trade, but it has to be viewed not just through the lens of Wall Street, but also Main Street, which means we’ve got strong labor standards and strong environmental standards and safety standards, so we don’t have toys being shipped in the US with lead paint on them. There are also opportunities in our economy around creating a green economy. We send $1 billion to foreign countries every day because of our addiction to foreign oil. For us to move rapidly to cap greenhouse gases, generate billions of dollars that we can reinvest in solar and wind and biodiesel that can put people back to work.”
That sounds like the framework for the type of international trade that the Greens could work with, rather than the current model that promotes unsustainable growth, destruction of local diversity and self sufficiency and a race to the bottom on labour and environmental standards.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Wed, November 5th, 2008
Tags: Barack Obama, Free trade, frogblog, green party, new zealand, USA
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Well Obama is the new president. We just need to wait for McCain to concede and for the polls to close in CA in like 45min.
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Currently 202 vs 80, looking like a landslide unless the west coast gets very red…
Given we have troops in Afghanistan, and one of the very few things that President Elect Obama has said he will do is bomb the place, the more pressing question is what is NZ’s role going to be in this impending mess?
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I like the sound of Obama’s trade policy, but is it actually up to the president? or is it up to congress?
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its up to congress Kahikatea because all treaties need to be approved by the congress unlike in NZ where the executive has the power.
Good luck getting a treaty through the special interest groups in the congress, ask the Aussie’s how their trade treaty is working out for them.
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All the american news networks have just called the election for Obama.
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Well, I must just be able to cope for three years even if our election results suck
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nz not so different from usa – treaty provisions still need to be passed into law by legislature after exec has negotiated & signed them
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Not like the US, as the only thing that comes to the House are the law changes needed as a result of the Treaty, which the Executive commits the country to on its own.
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not quite – treaties signed by the president need to be ratified by 2 thirds majority of senate.
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# andrew Says:
November 7th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
> not quite – treaties signed by the president need to be ratified by 2 thirds majority of senate.
eh?
you seem to be saying that as if you were disputing Valis’s claim that they’re different, but your evidence actually backs up Valis’s claim.
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I believe andrew thinks I was talking about the US House, but I was talking about the NZ House. Apologies for not being more clear.
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thanks valis that is indeed the misunderstanding i was labouring under. but still, what kind of provisions of a treaty would the executive be able to execute without a law being passed? seems to me that is as good as a ratification requirement.
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The point is still that NZ becomes bound by the treaty before the House gets to consider anything. This means no select committee scrutiny nor public submissions. These things happen for the law changes which get used as a surrogate, but that isn’t enough in my view. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the law changes were ever rejected, which I don’t think the House has ever done. I expect in most cases this is because it would hurt NZ given that we still have to meet the treaty obligations. The law changes are meant to enable this, so not making them would cost us somewhere.
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i agree it would be better if the whole of parliament (& the nation) could participate in the negotiating process, but i disagree that the country is “bound” by anything other than a law passed by parliament. we don’t “have to” meet any obligations not ultimately authorised by parliament.
failing to meet one of the terms of a treaty only costs us in the sense that the other party is not obligated to meet their commitments to us if we don’t reciprocate.
the main reason parliament has not (to my or your knowledge) rejected any provision of any treaty is that the executive is typically also in control of a majority in parliament – something that mmp at least may help fix
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