Permission from Popular Resistance
Friday, November 17, your Congress member returns to town for the Thanksgiving Recess. Invite some friends from groups you work with to join you to visit the District Office on Friday to talk about the NAFTA renegotiation. Read more...
Friday, November 17, your Congress member returns to town for the Thanksgiving
Recess. Invite some friends from groups you work with to join you to visit the District Office on Friday to talk about the NAFTA renegotiation.
We are asking you to please visit your U.S. Representative's office over the Thanksgiving Congressional Recess. If Nov. 17, the national day of mobilization is not convenient, this Recess is from Nov. 17- 27.
This mobilization coincides with the next round of NAFTA negotiations taking place in Mexico City starting November 17th
and in solidarity with the "Inter-Continental Days of Action on NAFTA."
We need to push policymakers to embrace our demands for a NAFTA replacement now - while we can make a difference. Remember, we defeated the TPP by delaying negotiations into the 2016 election year.
We have the chance to repeat that victory.
Resources
Summaries of where negotiations stand to date:
Beware: negotiators and supporters from all three countries want to include in NAFTA-2 provisions from the TPP and TTIP that will make NAFTA-2 much worse than NAFTA-1.
We need to push policymakers to embrace our demands or we'll work to defeat NAFTA-2 and for Fair Trade for People and the Planet. Remember, we defeated the TPP by delaying negotiations into the 2016 election year and Trump pulled out of the TPP. We have the chance to repeat that victory.
Marybeth and I ask you to please deliver these two items to your Representative
- Letter with the Citizen's Trade Campaign's NAFTA demands. Please edit the template letter to put in your Congress member's name and your contact information.
-
Factsheet about the current NAFTA's impacts on your state.
Click here
for "50 Reasons Why We Need to Replace NAFTA." Then, click on your state and then click on the statement or statements that pop up for a link to a detailed factsheet. These factsheets provide invaluable, well-researched information so you can talk effectively about local and state impacts you don't want repeated in this new NAFTA renegotiation.
Be friendly! Introduce yourself to the receptionist and ask if you can speak with the District Director or with your Representative (you might even call early next week for an appointment) for a minute to deliver the Letter about NAFTA. If you go with a group, divide up the duties: someone to introduce the group, and others to speak on specific topics, tell a personal story or two, and someone at the end to make "the pitch" for what needs to be in this NAFTA and to ask for you Representative's support.
Explain that NAFTA has hurt jobs and wages in your state (delivering the
state-specific factsheet
), and that the ongoing NAFTA renegotiation should put working people and the planet ahead of corporate profits. Describe what you want to see in the NAFTA renegotiation in terms of much stronger labor and environmental standards, an end to ISDS (the International corporate trade courts that are in the current Chapters 11 and 19) and more.
Ask your Representative to please speak out publicly in support of these demands. If possible, have someone take a picture of you speaking to staff and/or to you representative while you are delivering the letter and any other materials. Send the best photos to
[email protected]
.
Let the Citizens Trade Campaign know how the meeting went
Af
ter the visit,
please fill out this form to let them know:
who, if anyone, went with you and what was the name of the staff person you met with; what, if anything, did they say about the Congress member's position; and what was the overall tone of the meeting? If you met with your Congress member be sure to report his/her responses to your discussion and visit. The Citizen's Trade Campaign will use the information you report to plan next steps in the campaign.
