• Read AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka's letter protesting anti-union actions by Iraq's government.
• Read the trade union leaders' letter on transparency for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
• Read the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center report, Justice for All: The Struggle for Worker Rights in Guatemala.

   China

The U.S. trade deficit with China alone is the largest in U.S. history with one country—$201 billion. At the same time, China’s workers are denied basic workers’ rights. The AFL-CIO has petitioned the Bush administration on workers’ rights in China. 

   Trade Agreements

The Bush administration negotiates bilateral trade agreements with countries that either lack or fail to enforce workers’ rights laws. Find out more about such agreements in the Middle East and Central America.

   Trade Deficit

The rising U.S. trade deficit has cost more than 3 million actual and potential U.S. jobs since 1994. Learn more about the trade deficit and what you can do to help.

• From 1993 to 2004, the United States lost more than 1 million jobs due to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Find this info and more in the AFL-CIO Facts & Stats database.

• AFL-CIO report: Workers' Rights, Violence and Impunity in Colombia (PDF).
• U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
• AFL-CIO fact sheet on violence in Guatemala (PDF).
• AFL-CIO complaint against workers' rights violations in Guatemala (PDF).
• Learn more about and get a list of International Labor Organizations.
• AFL-CIO Solidarity Center.

• Read the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s statements on Working Women's Rights in a Global Economy and China Trade: Beggars and Neighbors, and find other related resolutions and council statements in the AFL-CIO Convention archive.

• Solidarity Center report: The Degradation of Work: The True Cost of Shrimp (PDF).
• Testimony of Robert C. Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and chair of AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (PDF).
• Find more information on the global economy in the AFL-CIO archives.