Well, I saw a day or two ago that the Administration was going to cut off Bangladesh’s trade preferences. In one sense, okay, finally. But, on the other hand, it’s sort of a minor thing if you are thinking “this will protect workers”.

First, the news:

The Obama administration on Thursday announced plans to suspend trade privileges for Bangladesh over concerns about safety problems and labor rights violations in the country’s garment industry.

The administration has come under intense pressure to suspend the privileges in recent months — first after a factory fire there killed 112 workers last November and then after an eight-story factory building collapsed in April, killing 1,129 workers.

So, what are these privileges? Essentially, they allow certain countries to send products to the U.S. but without any duties on top of the price, making the products, in theory, more competitive.

Here is why this is pretty irrelevant:

While Bangladesh fought vigorously to prevent the suspension, worried about the signal it sends to its citizens and to global investors, some trade experts said the suspension would be largely symbolic because it will affect less than 1 percent of America’s $4.9 billion in annual imports from Bangladesh.

The tariff preferences being curtailed cover a variety of products, including tobacco and plastic bags, but do not apply to the country’s garment industry, which does not have American duty-free status and represents the great bulk of that country’s trade with the United States.

Bangladesh, one of 125 countries that receive American trade preferences, is allowed to export nearly 5,000 products duty-free to the United States, which buys about 25 percent of that country’s $18 billion in annual apparel exports.

More important, is this point I’ve made from the beginning after the Rana Plaza massacre of workers: until unions can organize workers in mass numbers, without being harassed, it will not matter. All these other steps are window-dressing.