Our Work on Trade
The Trade Matters program
Recognizing that global trade is here to stay, the Trade Matters Program of the American Friends Service Committee seeks to ensure that the United States government puts dignity and human rights at the heart of its international trade policies. The current model for U.S. trade liberalization promoted over the past two decades has seen mixed results creating both opportunities and problems for development and poverty reduction in many countries. Through public education on trade issues, the training of community leaders from directly affected communities in the U.S., and advocacy campaigns, AFSC builds support with both the public and policymakers to ensure U.S. trade agreements are either reformed to meet these standards or stopped in Congress. The Trade Matters Program also takes a leadership role in creating a social movement which effectively campaigns for alternative fair trade policies.
Work in the Field
With staff in five AFSC offices across the United States we work at the grassroots level—and on national and global policy. Each Trade Matters team member brings a different expertise to the work and provides an excellent speaking resource for events, press interviews, and lobbying visits.
Jessica Walker Beaumont (National Coordinator) coordinates the team and focuses on national and international trade policy, including:
- Tracking trade negotiations and U.S. policymakers’ trade policy priorities
- Building a new national working group around the Unites States’ trade policy with Africa
- Linkages between international trade and debt policies
Arnie Alpert (Concord, NH) focuses on trade and labor rights, democracy and protection of public goods, including:
- The impact of globalization and trade policy on workers in the U.S., Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala
- The impact of trade policy on access to water and other essential services
- The impact of trade policy on the authority of state and local governments to protect human rights and public health, and to support economic development
Recent activities:
Gabriel Camacho (Cambridge, MA) focuses on trade and immigrant rights, labor rights and the root causes for migration, including:
- The connection between trade and migration focused on immigrant laborers in the U.S. and remittances sent to their home countries
- Promoting solidarity between U.S. trade unions, Colombian trade unions and the connections between the Plan Colombia and the FTAA and AFTA
- Participating in local, regional, national, and continental mobilizations against neoliberal economic policies, including the Hemispheric Social Alliance’s conferences against the FTAA
Recent activities:
Josefina Castillo (Austin, TX) focuses on migration, leadership training and reality tours to the Mexico-U.S. border, including:
- Immigrant community education on linkages between globalization and migration
- A long term train the trainer process for immigrant leaders
- Reality tour delegations to Mexico-U.S. border cities that provide face-to-face encounters with maquiladora workers in their homes
Recent activities
Ricardo Hernández (Mexico-U.S. Border Project) focuses on empowering women maquiladora workers to organize and speak out for themselves, including:
- Providing expertise on institutional development and capacity building to workers in Mexican maquiladoras in collaboration with the Comité Fronterizo de Obreras (CFO)
- Monitoring the impacts of NAFTA and the global economy on workers
- Advocating for the implementation of corporate social responsible policies in key corporations to benefit CFO’s constituents
Recent activities
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