MORNING MESSAGE
Leo Gerard
Chinese trade officials are in Washington, D.C., this week in high-stakes negotiations. U.S. negotiators are trying to curb China’s illegal trade practices. They are talking tough, which is appropriate, since no previous agreement and no previous penalties have even dinged China’s free-market-defying trade regime. The U.S. figures aren’t available yet, but China says the trade deficit in 2018 was $323 billion, as Chinese exports to the U.S. increased 11.8 percent over the 2017 figure. Meanwhile, U.S. exports to China inched up a paltry 0.7 percent. If China’s figure is correct, it’s a 10-year high. What this means is that exploited workers in China are employed making the cameras, clothes, televisions and trinkets that Americans buy. And they’re doing it in Chinese factories that pollute with abandon. It means Americans are not manufacturing those things; Americans no longer have those jobs. The U.S. administration is right in its current negotiations to demand enforcement mechanisms, because China’s promises have proven worthless. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is right to stand tough in negotiations. The United States could use a partner to gain maximum strength in this effort, and Canada is the obvious choice. Just like the United States, Canada has been weakened by China’s trade cheating. The two countries share many trade problems, including the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico. GM, for example, just announced it would cut manufacturing and 14,800 jobs in the United States and Canada, but none in Mexico or China. To get Canada’s cooperation, the United States would have to exempt it from the steel and aluminum tariffs. Canada, a close, free-market trading partner to the United States, never should have been subjected to those tariffs anyway. The United States must end the abusive trade relationship it has with China. Canada, America’s closest ally, could help.
IL Signs $15 Minimum Wage
Illinois workers celebrate ‘Life-Changing’ $15 minimum wage. Common Dreams:“Illinois workers and local Fight for $15 organizers celebrated a win on Tuesday as newly elected Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law that will gradually raise the state’s hourly minimum wage from $8.25 to $15 by 2025. “Fifteen dollars an hour will be life-changing for me. I can barely afford the basic needs for my two sons on my minimum-wage salary. Simple things like whether to buy school supplies for my older boy or formula and diapers for my little one become agonizing choices,” said Fight for $15 member Ieshia Townsend, who works a McDonald’s in Chicago. Pointing out that the new law comes just two years after former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner—who was voted out in November—vetoed similar legislation, Patriotic Millionaires and Illinois residents Michael and Joan Pine said in a statement, “Illinois’ working families will finally get the boost they deserve.” “So long as the federal minimum wage does not keep up with increases in the costs of goods and rising inflation, it will be necessary for states to step in,” the Pines charged. “By Gov. Pritzker making a living wage one of his first priorities, he has shown a commitment to the working class and the businesses that service them.” Reflecting on the past six years of grassroots organizing to raise wages across the state, Townsend shared that “as a single mom and a Black woman on the south side of Chicago, I felt invisible before I joined the Fight for $15 and a union. But by coming togethe and speaking out, our voices have been heard.” While welcoming the victory on Tuesday, she vowed to continue the fight for a union.”
NJ Signs Paid Family Leave
Big changes coming for paid family leave in N.J. as Murphy signs law. NJ.com: “Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law Tuesday an extensive expansion of New Jersey’s 10-year-old paid family leave program, allowing workers in the state to take off more time to care for a newborn or sick relative and to collect a larger piece of their pay while on leave. The program’s overhaul was sought after by progressive advocates who said its payouts were too low and many low- and middle-income families still could not afford to take time away from their jobs. Murphy said the ‘temporary loss of a paycheck because of the need to care for a loved one can be a daunting and stress-inducing hurdle’ for those families. ‘But paid family leave can be vital in allowing them to focus their attention on where it is most needed: on their family,’ the Democratic governor said before signing the law at JFK Library in Piscataway.”
Lobbyists Run Amok At Interior Dept.
Ethics complaint shows ex-lobbyists cozy up with former employers. The Intercept: “short weeks after President Donald Trump nominated David Bernhardt, a former oil and agriculture industry lobbyist, to run the Interior Department, the agency is facing a slew of new allegations that top officials violated federal ethics rules by keeping cozy ties to their former employers. A lengthy ethics complaint filed Wednesday by the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, outlines “a disturbing pattern of misconduct” at the scandal-plagued Interior Department, including meetings that violate the White House’s own ethical pledge and good governance standards. The Campaign Legal Center used public records, some of which were first obtained by The Intercept, to lodge the complaint against six top Interior Department officials, including Benjamin Cassidy, a top official at the department’s external affairs office and former National Rifle Association lobbyist; Assistant Secretary for Insular Affairs Douglas Domenech; White House liaison Lori Mashburn, a former Heritage Foundation staffer; and others. The officials are among a little-known but powerful group of Department of Interior political appointees — many of whom joined the agency after careers with fossil fuel groups or conservative lobbying organizations. Amid an environment of persistent ethics issues at the Interior Department, these officials are responsible for the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign to roll back environmental protections and open public lands to extractive industry interests. Among other allegations, the Campaign Legal Center contends that some of these officials have apparently used their government positions to provide their former private employers with access and insight into the Interior Department’s activities. Under the White House’s own ethics pledge, executive branch officials are explicitly prohibited for a period of two years from the date of their appointment from meeting or communicating with previous employers to discuss specific policy matters.”
Trump Tries To Sabotage Investigations
Intimidation, pressure and humiliation: inside Trump’s two-wear war on the investigations encircling him. NYT: “As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, according to several American officials with direct knowledge of the call. Mr. Whitaker, who had privately told associates that part of his role at the Justice Department was to ‘jump on a grenade’ for the president, knew he could not put Mr. Berman in charge because Mr. Berman had already recused himself from the investigation. The president soon soured on Mr. Whitaker, as he often does with his aides, and complained about his inability to pull levers at the Justice Department that could make the president’s many legal problems go away. Trying to install a perceived loyalist atop a widening inquiry is a familiar tactic for Mr. Trump, who has been struggling to beat back the investigations that have consumed his presidency. His efforts have exposed him to accusations of obstruction of justice as Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finishes his work investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Trump’s public war on the inquiry has gone on long enough that it is no longer shocking. An examination by The New York Times reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. Interviews with dozens of current and former government officials and others close to Mr. Trump, as well as a review of confidential White House documents, reveal numerous unreported episodes in a two-year drama.
Progressive Breakfast is a daily morning email highlighting news stories of interest to activists. Progressive Breakfast and OurFuture.org are projects of People’s Action.
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