Tom Hayden: Pelosi for New Deal or "Freshened" NAFTA?

Tom Hayden makes the call for a New Deal on trade in his SF Chronicle op-ed:

On May 10 Pelosi, White House officials and pro-corporate Democrats announced a surprise "bipartisan" agreement on trade, without revealing any details.

As the package is rushed to a vote, it appears to be a "freshened" version of NAFTA (the phrase is that of Mickey Kantor, trade czar under President Bill Clinton). This would fall far short of what the voters expected and most Democratic elected officials promised last fall. Pelosi faces strong opposition from most members of her caucus, labor leaders and environmental activists...

Then comes the ultimate question of whether the Democrats will continue their support of NAFTA-style trade agreements, or else begin to construct a kind of global New Deal as an alternative. Under NAFTA, the twinned issues of jobs and immigration intensified, with immigration from Mexico increasing 60 percent as 1.3 million campesinos  lost their jobs in a flood of cheap American corn.

A revived New Deal would have elected governments, rather than unelected corporations and banks, set the rules for fairness in the global market. The goals would be controls on financial speculation, an enforceable living wage, consumer access to affordable medicines, and the expansion of the Kyoto agreement into a full assault on global warming's devastating impact on poorer countries.