This is from the White House Blog:
America's LGBT Ambassadors: Global Trade Will Lift Up LGBT Lives
Eight of the nation's most powerful LGBT leaders explain how proposed trade agreements will export our values of equality and tolerance. This letter was first posted on the Advocate.com. You can read the original post here.
As Ambassadors, we are on the front lines representing the United States. We know firsthand that U.S. interests are best served when we pursue policies that also advance our values.
That’s why trade policy is among our most promising tools.
Through the President’s trade agenda, we will not only support more American jobs, but we can also promote greater justice beyond our borders.
Done right, trade policy is a strong complement to our broader bilateral efforts to urge partner countries to defend and protect the human rights of all individuals. In many ways, the two issues go together: open markets promote development, raise wages, and increase living standards, which in turn goes hand-in-hand with more open and engaged societies that demand a higher standard of protection for civil rights.
Many of us are currently working in our host countries to promote new trade initiatives, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). In speaking about these agreements, we often use the word "values." We promote transparency, public participation, accountability and the rule of law, and we advocate for our host countries to join us in setting the global standard.
As the seven openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex U.S. Ambassadors and the Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons, this approach is particularly important to us.
After all, an export is more than just an item we are shipping overseas. It is also a product of the values of the people who created it, which it represents.
And while the United States has made important progress in promoting and protecting the human rights of all of its residents, we are constantly reminded of the challenges LGBTI persons continue to face in countries around the world.
A while back, I expressed skepticism about exporting U.S. "values" through trade agreements, and I stand by what I said there.
Beyond that, I think there's a danger that if you push a particular argument too far, you run the risk of reducing the credibility of your other arguments. I feel like an argument that trade agreements are a way to promote LGBT rights gets pretty close.
