The crowd of 3,000, wearing Teamsters hats and jackets, was drawn overwhelmingly from international and local union officials and staffers. Participants carried union-printed signs with photos of repression in China. There were no handmade signs.

The demonstration was to demand the U.S. government not allow China membership into the World Trade Organization or permanent "favored nation" trade status. There was no mention of any struggles by Teamsters or other unionists in the United States or around the world today.

The speakers included five members of Congress; Stephen Yokich, the president of the United Auto Workers union; Harry Wu, who had been in prison in China; and one worker, a woman from a Mr. Coffee factory in Cleveland who said jobs in her Teamsters-organized plant are threatened by a company-owned plant in Mexico.

The rally was part of a week of actions that continued the reactionary themes put forward in the anti–World Trade Organization protests in Seattle last December. Members of the "Buchanan Brigades," a reactionary nucleus of street gangs that is at the core of Buchanan's incipient fascist movement, were involved in the protests here.

Congressman Sanders from Vermont was introduced as an independent member of Congress. "This rally is about who controls the United States of America," he said. With anti–big-business rhetoric, Sanders said that for too long the "millionaires and the big corporate interests have been telling Capitol Hill what to do. Today we're going to begin the process to change that. The CEOs of the large corporations, who today make 400 times what their workers make, are in favor of free trade with China. They are flooding Capitol Hill with money telling them to sell out American workers."

Patrick Buchanan, who is seeking to build a fascist movement and is currently running for the Reform Party nomination for president, spoke following Sanders. Wearing a Teamsters union jacket, Buchanan easily picked up on Sanders's themes to advance his ultrarightist political views. "We've got Republicans and Democrats and Reform Party members [here], and you just heard from an American socialist, Bernie Sanders," Buchanan said.

Anticapitalist speeches and national socialism have marked many fascist movements, such as that of Adolf Hitler in Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s. Many liberals and union officials, as well as "socialists" who operate in an "American" framework, can get drawn into Buchanan's reactionary trap.  
 
'Put America first'
Buchanan said what "unites us all" is "the belief that citizens of the United States are citizens first before they are consumers. That there are values higher than money. And that the economic security of American families and the economic independence of the American nation comes ahead of the stock options of the Fortune 500." He added, "We put America first. We are deindustrializing our country because of this trade policy that both parties are responsible for."

Numerous times in his speech Buchanan praised Teamsters president Hoffa for opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement. "Mexico has become the source of the narcotics and drugs that are poisoning the hearts and minds of American children. We've got illegal immigration," he said, pushing his anti-immigrant, America First perspective.

After claiming the Chinese government is "stealing our technology to build missiles to threaten the United States," Buchanan pledged if elected to make Hoffa his trade negotiator in place of Charlene Barshevsky.

Hoffa told the rally, "Like Pat Buchanan, let me sit down. I'll negotiate a contract and we can be proud of that. We're going to put words in there like human rights, like labor rights. The big-business boys put money before principle. China has never lived up to any agreement they have signed."

Stu Singer is a member of the United Transportation Union.  
 
 
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