What Oxfam is doing
Oxfam is advocating a new trade policy that spreads the benefits of trade in developing countries by placing development at its core.
In particular, the US must strengthen the multilateral trading system; prioritize the completion of a pro-development trade deal at the WTO; and expand trade preference programs, including passage of legislation providing for duty-free and quota-free market access for all LDCs. This would send a clear signal of a break with old, flawed trade policies focusing on bilateral FTAs.
As trade negotiations at the WTO fail to make significant progress, the US has turned to bilateral and regional FTAs as a means of forging new markets for US goods and services. But FTAs in the Americas, Africa, and Asia could devastate millions of poor people. Oxfam is working to defeat such trade agreements that threaten people's rights to livelihoods, local development, and access to medicines.
More specifically, Oxfam is calling for the following:
- Restart the WTO talks and get the Doha Development Agenda back on track to make global trade more open while addressing developing country needs. The new US administration should take leadership early on to move WTO negotiations forward on the basis of the original Doha agenda, thereby reaffirming the priority of the multilateral system and the imperative of placing development needs at the heart of the agenda.
- Restore Bolivia's designation as a beneficiary country under the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA/ATPDEA). President Bush recently took unprecedented action to suspend such status, meaning that tens of thousands of working people and poor people, who have benefited from employment generated through Bolivia's diversification of exports to the US, could lose their livelihoods.
- Enact legislation providing trade preferences to all LDCs while also improving upon existing preference programs. Congress should make it a priority to enact a bill to provide duty-free and quota-free access to the US market for all LDCs, while authorizing funds for trade capacity building to promote small businesses, agricultural development, and poverty reduction. An example of such a bill is the New Partnership for Development Act (H.R. 3905).
- Put an end to bilateral FTAs, such as the one proposed with Colombia, because they impose far-reaching rules that undermine development.
