It is the central reality of our time. Change this profound is both liberating and threatening. But there is no turning back. And our open, creative society stands to benefit more than any other-if we understand, and act on, the new realities of interdependence. We must be at the center of every vital global network, as a good neighbor and partner. We cannot build our future without helping others to build theirs.

First, we must forge a new consensus on trade. Those of us who believe passionately in the power of open trade must ensure that it lifts both our living standards and our values, never tolerating abusive child labor or a race to the bottom on the environment and worker protection. Still, open markets and rules-based trade are the best engines we know for raising living standards, reducing global poverty and environmental destruction, and assuring the free flow of ideas. There is only one direction for America on trade; we must go forward.

And we must make developing economies our partners in prosperity which is why I ask Congress to finalize our groundbreaking African and Caribbean Basin trade initiatives. Globalization is about more than economics. Our purpose must be to bring the world together around democracy, freedom, and peace, and to oppose those who would tear it apart.

President Bill Clinton, The State of the Union Address, Jan. 27, 2000

"The WTO model sees the globe as a single market. Human beings are either labor or consumers, and the environment is a set of resources to be efficiently extracted. Diversity–democracy and cultural differences is inefficiency."

Lori Wallach, "Whose Trade," The Nation, Dec 6, 1999

"Citizens beware. An unprecedented corporate power grab is underway in global negotiations over international trade.
Operating under the deceptive banner of 'free' trade, multinational corporations are working hard to expand their control over the international economy and to undo vital health, safety, and environmental protections won by citizen movements across the globe in recent decades.
The megacorporations are not expecting these victories to be gained in town halls, state offices, the US Capitol, or even at the United Nations. They are looking to circumvent the democratic process altogether, in a bold and brazen drive to achieve an autocratic far-reaching agenda through ... trade agreements ...
The Fortune 200's ... agenda would make the air you breathe dirtier and the water you drink more polluted. It would cost jobs, depress wage levels, and make workplaces less safe. It would destroy family farms and undermine consumer protections such as those ensuring that the food you eat is not compromised by unsanitary conditions or higher levels of pesticides and preservatives ...
Global commerce without commensurate democratic global law may be the dream of corporate chief executive officers, but it would be a disaster for the rest of the world with its ratcheting downwards of worker, consumer, and environmental standards."

Ralph Nader, et al. The Case Against Free Trade. GATT, NAFTA and the Globalization of Corporate Power.
( San Francisco: Earth island Press, 1993)

" . . . I think we have to acknowledge a responsibility, particularly those of us in the wealthier countries, to make sure that we are working harder to see that the benefits of the global economy are more widely shared among and within countries, that it truly works for ordinary people who are doing the work for the rest of us.
… I think we also have to make sure that the rules make sense and that we're continuing to make progress, notwithstanding the domestic political difficulties that every country will face. We all benefit when the rules are clear and fair.
... I think it is imperative that the WTO become more open and accessible.
... I believe the WTO must make sure that open trade does indeed lift living standards, respects core labor standards that are essential not only to worker rights, but to human rights."

President Bill Clinton
Speech to the World Trade Organization Seattle, Dec. 1,

"A peculiar alliance has recently come into life. Forces from the extreme left, the extreme right, environmentalist groups, trade unions of developed countries and some self-appointed representatives of civil society, are gathering around a common endeavor: to save the people of developing countries from development.
... [Members of this alliance are] strongly tied together by their globaphobia. Ardently and sometimes in an altruistic tone,each puts forward its own motive for being globaphobic. The alleged motives are very diverse but are expressed with a very revealing common denominator: the word protection.
Members of the globaphobia alliance speak, among other things, of protection of the rights of workers in developing countries, protection of the environment, protection of the sovereignty and identity of nations, protection of poor (and rich) countries from multinationals, protection of poor countries from market economy, and even protection of developed countries from drugs.
Every group in this alliance happens to believe that its own special interest-economic, political, social or otherwise-would be well served if trade and investment among nations were not further liberalized, and preferably reversed. . ."

President of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, at the 30th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, Jan 28, 2000

"There's another big concern of ours over WTO: the loss of US national sovereignty. We don't believe international bureaucrats or foreign governments should have any decisive influence in these matters.
We feel the unilateral use of US economic leverage is a much more effective tool for promoting US interests. WTO is a cumbersome, multilateral organization numerically dominated by protectionist countries."

Alan Tonelson, "Business Advice, Tonelson Only WTO is Bad for the US, " Investor's Business Daily , DEC 6, 1999

"The violence is Seattle should not obscure the real significance of the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks; that the multinational corporations can no longer bulldoze through Congress trade agreements that do not incorporate core rights for workers and environmental concerns.
Here is the issue. We are creating an international economic system that is weighted disproportionately in favor of corporate interests without any of the balance-worker rights and environmental protection-that we have so laboriously constructed in our domestic society. The shorthand way of describing this process is globalization."

Jerome I. Levinson, "...And No," The Washington Post, DEC 6, 1999