Keep Tariff on Pickups, UAW Says
05.05.2005

Should the United States keep a 25 percent tariff on imported pickup trucks or negotiate it away as part of a proposed trade agreement with Thailand?

President Bush says doing away with the tariff is fine, but the 20,000 UAW members who work in plants that manufacture pickups and thousands more who work in parts plants think otherwise.

Thailand, the world’s second-largest producer of pickups, will saturate the U.S. market with trucks if the tariff is eliminated or reduced.

Automakers will no doubt use Thailand as a platform to ship their trucks, even though countries where these vehicles will be made maintain unfair trade barriers that keep U.S.-built products out.

Trade treaties should be a part of multilateral talks among many nations that assemble vehicles and not just a single nation. These treaties should include safeguards for workers, including the right to join a union, adequate health and safety regulations, and protection for our environment.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger wrote to the White House last year to express his reservations about a proposed unilateral trade treaty with Thailand but President Bush did not respond. A bipartisan group of lawmakers have begun circulating a letter to the U.S. trade representative protesting a free trade agreement with Thailand.

“Negotiations on access to such critical segments of the United States automobile market should not take place on a piecemeal basis,” the letter states. “These negotiations should only take place as part of negotiations that include all automobile producing nations.”

You can help by calling your senators and representatives to demand that the tariff be retained as any part of a trade treaty with Thailand and that any agreement be part of a multilateral trade treaty among many nations.

UAW-LUPA