Follow the Money, Cont'd

When the Chamber of Commerce was called out recently for using contributions from foreign affiliates for U.S. political campaigns, its denials were fierce.

But, of course the Chamber is using money from foreign affiliates to fund its political mission, and you can be sure that mission isn’t to help workers. The Chamber’s foreign affiliates, called AmChams, aren’t American companies doing business in foreign companies, like the Chamber wants us to believe. AmCham in China is comprised of Chinese firms like Northern Light Venture Capital, AmCham in Russia includes state run banks and AmCham in Abu Dhabi is mainly state-run oil companies.

What do these AmChams do? A big part of their work with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is to convince U.S. businesses to send even more jobs overseas. A recent seminar in Jacksonsville, Florida had local businesses meeting with Chinese government officials and U.S. Chamber leaders, to learn all about how to offshore even more jobs.

And the U.S. Chamber is getting a lot of foreign donations to the political account it’s using to attack candidates that support issues like financial reform and an end to tax breaks for corporations that move jobs overseas. According to Think Progress, more than 80 foreign firms have contributed at least $885,000 so far to the Chamber’s political program. And a Campaign Money Watch report found that more than 1.4 million jobs were offshored since 1994 in the nine states in which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce currently is spending significant money.

Check out the foreign-owned companies that give money in U.S. political races. T-Mobile USA comes in at more than $310,000.

So one last note about money: when you hear that right-wing talker Glenn Beck tells his radio audience to donate hard-earned dollars to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, think about where that money’s going. It’s not going to support jobs in the U.S. or protections for workers and consumers. It’s going right into the pockets of executives who want to send your job overseas.