Ten Years After Seattle, It's Time For a WTO Turnaround!

Ten years ago next month, 50,000 global activists shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial in Seattle. Public Citizen played a key role, going so far as to open up a temporary Seattle office to help organize the protests. History was made when a devastating plan to expand the WTO's reign of corporate globalization was derailed.

On November 30, 2009 - ten years to the day of the Seattle protests - trade ministers and their corporate allies will meet in Geneva to try once again to expand the WTO, in spite of the global economic disaster caused by their failed policies. We can't let that happen. Instead, we must join activists worldwide in demanding that the existing damaging WTO regime be fundamentally transformed!

That's why we're launching a new WTO Turnaround campaign today. We must remind President Obama that true change requires him to deliver on his campaign commitments to create a new American trade model and to fix the old agreements now causing so much harm. Visit the campaign website WTOturnaround.org and sign the petition to President Obama.

Public Citizen started working on "trade" when we realized that agreements like the WTO weren't about tariffs and quotas anymore, but instead were a backdoor attack on key public interest policies. From imported food and product safety to environmental protection and financial services regulation, the WTO places limits on what we can do to solve these problems.

Following the historic events in Seattle in 1999, our work to expose the current globalization model gained widespread prominence and acceptance. We can once again harness the spirit of Seattle to remind our friends and neighbors, as well as President Obama, that the existing WTO terms still are having a devastating impact on our jobs, economic security, food safety and the environment. Rather than expand the WTO's corporate agenda, we must change the existing rules.

To deliver on just about every important issue of our day, from solving the climate crisis to reregulating the financial industry, President Obama will need to repair existing WTO rules to make sure the WTO doesn't get in the way of fixing these urgent problems.

Tell President Obama we're ready to fight for a WTO turnaround plan and to work with him to create rules for a global economy that, as he put it, works for all of us not just large corporate interests. Then, ask your friends to join us.
Support Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch

Thanks for all that you do,
Lori Wallach
Director, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division

P.S. Over the next few weeks, you'll hear more about our WTOturnaround.org efforts. We'll be organizing house parties to view the film Battle in Seattle, grassroots rallies and more. But first, you can sign our petition to Obama and urge your friends to do so as well.