The Alliance for Responsible Trade [ART] is a national network of labor, family-farm, religious, women`s, environmental, development and research organizations that promotes equitable and sustainable trade and development.



The Alliance for Responsible Trade [ART] was formed in 1991, at the beginning of the NAFTA debate. Since its inception, ART has been a U.S. multisectoral coalition with a consciously internationalist position on trade. During the NAFTA debate, ART worked closely with counterpart coalitions in Mexico and Canada to develop a series of trinational citizens` statements and documents that critiqued the official proposals and outlined alternative policies and processes for economic integration that would serve to raise environmental and labor standards and promote equitable and sustainable development. Members of ART also represented U.S. citizens` groups before the media at official negotiating sessions in Mexico, Canada and the United States.



Since NAFTA`s approval in late 1993, we have worked, in coordination with our colleagues in Mexico and Canada, to document NAFTA`s impacts on our respective economies and environments. Following the December 1994 Summit of the Americas in Miami, ART extended its focus to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas [FTAA] and has organized briefings and other public events designed to foster an expanded public debate on U.S. trade policy.



At the 1998 Peoples` Summit, co-organized by ART parallel to the second Summit of the Americas in Santiago, Chile, a forum on alternative proposals was convened that led to the drafting of “Alternatives for the Americas: Building a Peoples` Hemispheric Agreement,” a document that outlines citizens’ proposals related to issues covered in the official negotiations and to those, such as labor, environment and human rights, that have been left out of the official talks. Working with colleagues throughout the Americas, we recently produced a fourth version of that document.