Trade Policy Analyst to Speak April 23 at UMaine on Global Free Trade and the U.S.
Contact: Valerie Carter, 581-4124; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — Alan Tonelson, noted trade analyst and published author in the field of global labor policy, is scheduled to speak at the University of Maine April 23 on international trade policies and the economies of the United States and international communities.
The talk, titled “Trade Policy – A Race to the Bottom for U.S. Industry?” is free and open to the public. The talk is at 7:30 p.m. in Room 105 D.P. Corbett Business Building. A reception will follow in the D.P. Corbett Atrium.
Tonelson is a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council’s Educational Foundation, which focuses on issues of protecting the domestic economy. He also is the author of The Race to the Bottom: Why a Global Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards. Tonelson is coming to Maine to address the Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission and will speak to other groups during his stay.
Sponsors of his visit to the Orono campus include the UMaine Bureau of Labor Education, Maine Business School, UMaine Division of Lifelong Learning, Sociology Department, Eastern Maine Central Labor Council, Southern Maine Central Labor Council and individual citizens interested in trade issues and the MBA Association.
In a recent National Public Broadcasting System interview, he explained how recent international trade agreements — particularly with China — have sent many American manufacturing jobs offshore, and created a massive trade imbalance that threatens the future of the American economy.
The U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation is a research organization concerned with the welfare of America’s domestic family-owned and closely held firms — the nation’s “Main Street businesses,” which create new products, jobs and growth here in the United States, according to its website.
The council’s mission is to expand the U.S. domestic economy, with particular emphasis on manufacturing, processing and fabricating industries, and, through the resulting growth, to extend a high standard of living to all Americans, according to its website.
The Educational Foundation’s mission is to provide research and support for the council and to extend the message of the small business community to the nation’s supporters, elected leaders, journalists and college campuses.