EU trade chief chides "protectionist" US Democrats

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The European Union's top trade official criticized U.S. Democrats on Tuesday for "turning their back on free trade" and pushing the United States toward protectionism.
During remarks at the National Press Club, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said he was "disappointed to see so many of the friends I have in my own Democrat party turning their back on free trade."

"Unfortunately, they seem to be dragging a number of Republicans down behind them," Mandelson said.

Mandelson's comments followed a bruising battle in Congress this summer over a U.S. free trade agreement with Central America, which most Democrats opposed on the grounds that its labor and environmental provisions weren't tough enough.

Mandelson was previously best known as a media strategist who reshaped British Prime Minister Tony Blair's left-leaning Labor Party into an electable force. He had twice served in Blair's cabinet before becoming EU trade commissioner in 2004.

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=9652221&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

[mazzarro]

1. Mandelson - part of the neo-corporate liberals of the world

The problem I have with Mandelson and Blair and their ilks is that they are wholesale the errand boys of the big/multinational corporations. I will accept the so called free trade if reasonable controls and guidelines are made integral part of it - such as requiring true workers rights, comparative minimum wages, requiring unions, anti-trust, environmental regulations, micro loan guarantees for the poorest regions, etc. I do believe that these issues belong in the fore front any free trade arrangements and are not ancilliary issues that have to be attended to after all is done. Just as the arch conservatives are craving for absolute big-corporation-free-trade, we should be struggling for balanced-and-guided-free-trade in which the environment and the poor and true competition are considered as integral parts of the policy.

[gratuitous]

2. Dear Mr. Mandelson

Fuck you. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. A free trade agreement that doesn't take into consideration the labor and environmental realities of the world isn't a serious document. A lot of people bought the bullshit line that those considerations would get further consideration in NAFTA, and that was a lie. The same lie is being recycled and repeddled in CAFTA.

We're not buying it. The architects of this modern day feudalism don't have any credibility. The fact that you're standing with the new robber barons means you're either one of them, or are sympathetic to their cause.

In which case, fuck you Mr. Mandelson.

[Kipling]

3. Ah, Peter "Satan" Mandelson, Third Edition.

Now garunteed unfortunate comment-free.
Or not. Feckless little shit.

[SomewhereOutThere424]

4. Nevermind the fact republicans are guilty of murder abroad!

Oh no free trade, the killing of animals and people around the world has to wait. Democrats don't agree with outsourcing jobs and pimping the US to foreign nationalities for money!

Maybe foreign officials should, y'know, shut their mouths until they'd sat in this country the past 4 years or so in this post 9/11 country. Maybe they'd see there's more important issues.

[Maple]

5. It used to be Republicans

that were protectionists and isolationists, and now the postitions have completely reversed.

Odd how that kind of thing works over time.

[melody]

6. Talk about protectionism

Mandelson's stance is its own form of protectionism, for everyone but the citizens of the US.

It's about time we start sharing in the power this nation supposedly has, and to which we've paid our empty tax dollars (with no benefit to citizens) for too friggin' long.

[replacement]

7. I guess he's bored with only being near-universally loathed in Britain...

And wants to make sure he's despised in the US, too.