{"id":2395,"date":"2014-08-26T13:55:30","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T13:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/hillary_clinton_s_hard_choices_shows_she_is_committed_to_spreading\/"},"modified":"2020-08-20T14:51:43","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T14:51:43","slug":"hillary_clinton_s_hard_choices_shows_she_is_committed_to_spreading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/hillary_clinton_s_hard_choices_shows_she_is_committed_to_spreading\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton&#8217;s &#8220;Hard Choices&#8221; a commitment to U.S. values when interacting with other nations &#8211; National Consumers League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- content_before_flip_start --><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"float: left; border: 1px solid black; margin: 5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/92_new_sg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"92\" height=\"92\">In Hillary Clinton\u2019s fascinating new memoir \u201cHard Choices\u201d about her work as Secretary of State under President Obama, she devotes a section to the issue of what she calls a \u201cmore open trading system,\u201d arguing that it has lifted \u201cmore people out of poverty in the last thirty five years than any comparable time in history.\u201d She quickly adds, knowing that the labor movement has looked with dismay at so called \u201cfree trade agreements\u201d that have shipped jobs overseas to places where the pay is a fraction of ours, that she is \u201cdetermined to do everything [she can] do to help American businesses and workers seize more of the legitimate opportunities already available.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- content_before_flip_end --><\/p>\n<p>I was glad to read from the woman who may be the first viable female candidate for President that she puts a priority on raising standards in foreign markets on key issues like labor rights and environmental protection. She also notes that, \u201cFor too long we\u2019d seen companies closing factories and leaving the United States because they could do business more cheaply in foreign countries where they didn\u2019t have to pay workers a living wage or abide by U.S. rules on pollution.\u201d In response, she believes that \u201cusing diplomacy and trade negotiations to raise standards abroad could help change that calculus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These are exactly the concerns that consumer groups have expressed through the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue about the trade negotiations between the European Union Countries and the U.S.. We want our safety, health, and environmental regulations strengthened \u2013 not watered down \u2013 through the negotiation process.<\/p>\n<p>Clinton feels \u201cparticularly passionate about improving working conditions around the world\u201d and that she had met workers, \u201cmany of them women and even children, who labored under atrocious conditions.\u201d Her observation that the most \u201cheartbreaking were victims of human trafficking and forced labor that amounts to modern-day slavery,\u201d hit close to home given NCL\u2019s history of working to eradicate child labor. She talks about a meeting with women workers coordinated by the Solidarity Center in Cambodia. The Solidarity Center is an active member of the Child Labor Coalition, which NCL coordinates. She talked about children forced to \u201ctend fields, bake bricks, and beg in the street,\u201d and the scourge of child trafficking for sex. She event mentions her appointment of Ambassador Luis CdeBaca to \u201cramp up our global anti-trafficking efforts,\u201d which he has done with a passion. Indeed, CdeBaca spoke at a recent CLC meeting about his work.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I loved that Clinton gave inspiration to labor activists in Bangladesh by reflecting on our own U.S. labor history, noting \u201cYou go back to the 19<sup>th<\/sup> and early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century when labor unions were just getting started\u2026we passed laws at the beginning of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century against child labor, against too many hours for people to work, but that took time. It took time to develop a sense of political will to address those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clinton has written an important book but it\u2019s also a page-turner. I learned more about how the U.S. makes decisions about foreign policy from this one tome \u2013 at 600 pages it IS a tome \u2013 than from anything else I\u2019ve read. But most satisfying for me was the acknowledgement she gives to keeping front and center some core U.S. values \u2013 workers\u2019 rights, safety, and environmental protection concerns in our interactions with nations abroad.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Hillary Clinton\u2019s fascinating new memoir \u201cHard Choices\u201d about her work as Secretary of State under President Obama, she devotes a section to the issue of what she calls a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2395"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13966,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions\/13966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}