[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 44 (Monday, April 10, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H1989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   ANY PARTICIPATION IN MULTILATERAL ORGANIZATIONS THAT AFFECTS THE 
 INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY OF UNITED STATES IS WRONG AND SHOULD BE 
                              DISCONTINUED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, many have asked me why I have cosponsored 
House Joint Resolution 90, which gives Members of this body the 
opportunity to vote on the United States continued participation in the 
World Trade Organization. A simple answer: I firmly believe that any 
participation in multilateral organizations that in any way affects the 
independence and sovereignty of these United States is wrong and should 
be discontinued.
  Unfortunately, it has become obvious that the WTO will be able to 
remove jurisdiction over virtually any economic activity from Federal, 
State, and local governments. Global elitists have gravitated to the 
new centers of power, the transnational corporations, believing that we 
are evolving beyond the nation state. If that is the case, we are 
moving from a condition of rule under law, created by representative 
government, representing all the needs and interests of society, toward 
rule by unelected elites representing only the most powerful of 
interests, the only entities which have the power and reach across the 
world to really influence new international forms such as the WTO.
  Corporate governance, in fact, is the newest concept being pressed 
forward at the WTO, the OECD, the IMF, and the World Bank. There has 
been little written on the topics outside the confines of independent 
governance organizations. The independent state is to be replaced with 
the corporate state; the concept of the people as sovereigns replaced 
by the notion of corporations as the new sovereigns.
  The increasing centralization of industries, through monopoly mergers 
and acquisitions, has been given much of its global impetus through the 
mechanism of the WTO. This anti-competition evolution, when far enough 
along, will end any sense of free enterprise being the normal global 
market norm. Corporations are not good or evil, but corporate boards 
prioritize actions that increase the profitability and power of the 
corporation. Their officers increasingly speak and act as if they do 
not affiliate or identify with any one country or any one home.
  Do the large transnational corporations have the same degree of 
concern for the defense of the United States as the average citizen? 
What about environmental standards which are the product of our system 
of governance, or hard-fought labor protections jeopardized by drastic 
wage and labor standard differentials between the United States and the 
Third World? What decisions will be made by the unelected, corporate-
influenced members of the WTO in the long run?
  Corporatism never implied a need for democracy. We hear about the WTO 
adhering to recognized international core labor standards, but we do 
not hear how little the wages of foreign workers have increased, how 
often they have fallen to new lows, just how little the standards of 
living have changed for the average citizens of these countries. The 
only way to protect American jobs from further disappearing to lesser 
developed countries is by foreign workers receiving higher wages. 
Lowering trade barriers is lowering standards, period.
  When we read about the growing irrelevancy of national governments in 
dealing with the transnational corporations, we must ask where does 
that leave the citizens of our Nation? Every nation that is a free 
republic, based upon democratic principles, has a citizenry who are the 
sole sovereigns. If they are not sovereign, there is no true democracy. 
This is why the word sovereignty has real meaning. This is why this 
fight for the sovereignty of the United States, challenged by the 
emergence of the WTO, is a real fight for the constitutional rights of 
each and every American. Many believe the undemocratic WTO, ruling far 
from our homeland, can be reformed. I sincerely doubt this, and I ask, 
are we really willing to take that kind of a gamble with American 
independence, with the liberty that we aspire to for each citizen? I 
hope not.

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