From Publishers Weekly
Brown, a Democratic congressman from northeastern Ohio’s steel belt, is a veteran of legislative battles—described here in gory, arm-twisting detail—over NAFTA, GATT and other trade agreements, and in this impassioned polemic, he rebuts the usual rationales offered by free traders. Our current free trade agenda, Brown insists, is an un-American departure from a history of tariffs and government intervention aimed at developing the nation’s economy and protecting workers and the environment from the excesses of the market. He contends that free trade doesn’t promote growth in either developed or developing countries, but simply shifts well-paying American jobs to Third World sweatshops. There, miserably underpaid workers, denied workplace safety regulations or the right to unionize, can’t buy the products they make, which creates imbalances of supply over demand and thus contributes to global economic stagnation. Rather than spreading American values around the globe, he argues, free trade buttresses the power of authoritarian regimes like China’s. Indeed, in Brown’s view, no one benefits from unregulated trade except corporations and rich investors, eager to deploy their assets wherever labor and the environment are most profitably exploited. Although not systematically developed, Brown’s fact-filled argument is a cogent critique of American trade policies in a punchy left-populist style that is rarely heard in Washington these days. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
From the ranking Democrat on the House's Commerce committee, a myth-busting guide to free-trade ideology —ten years after NAFTA. "We discovered that the Chilean government had hired Bob Dole to represent them against U.S. salmon farmers. Dole had served as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, the panel with jurisdiction over trade. After my office alerted the media, Dole angrily demanded to know who that Ohio Congressman was who had outed him." —from Myths of Free Trade Myth #1: Corporate globalization is inevitable Myth #2: Free-trade agreements help fight the war on terrorism Myth #3: Free trade leaves most people better off — rich or poor Myth #4: Free trade will bring democracy, human rights, and freedom to authoritarian governments Myth #5: NAFTA has been a success Myth #6: Free trade is a great American tradition From the editorial pages of the New York Times to the streets of Argentina, ever more people are questioning the extravagant claims made on behalf of free trade. Now Sherrod Brown, a leading progressive member of Congress, takes apart the free-trade faith, myth by myth, providing a front-row seat to the widescreen spectacle of corporate lobbying and political intimidation that keeps the free-trade mantra alive as American policy, despite all evidence that free trade is failing. Ten years after NAFTA, free-trade policies have not brought prosperity to Mexican workers, and more than one million American jobs have been lost. Brown draws on his travels to meet with Mexican maquiladora workers and laid-off Americans —as well as visits paid to him by corporate lobbyists —to take on the free-trade proselytizers.

About the Author
Congressman Sherrod Brown has represented Ohio's 13th Congressional District since 1992 and serves on the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection. He is the author of Congress from the Inside. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Cleveland, Ohio.

FROM THE PUBLISHER