Toxic Trader

The Toxic Trader, a 15 foot tall oversized puppet has been reeking havoc on cities and towns throughout the United States this year in an effort to raise awareness of the effects of free-trade agreements. The Toxic Trader was built by artist Tavia La Folette, whose gargantuan three-dimensional caricatures have toured Europe, Eastern Europe, South America, Japan and the United States.

The Toxic Trader boasts a giant upside-down globe in a shopping cart for a head, a green suit with a tie made of cash and has cash and pink slips stuffed in his pockets and sleeves. The United Steelworkers designed the Toxic Trader for use in its street theater production that features Toxic Avengers fending off the Toxic Trader in its script that illustrates the downsides of free trade agreements and the Bush administration's failure to adequately inspect or regulate imports.

Toxic Avengers appear from the crowd to slay the Toxic Trader and reclaim the world for the citizens of the world. Toxic Job Loss Avengers, Toxic Environmental Avengers and Toxic Import Avengers shout down the Toxic Trader and demand that he:

STOP DESTROYING OUR LAKES AND RIVERS!
STOP OUTSOURCING OUR JOBS!
STOP ALLOWING UNSAFE PRODUCTS IN OUR COUNTRY!

The Toxic Trader is booed by protesters, carrying signs calling for “fair trade, not free trade” and chants against exporting jobs to China in return for goods laced with hazardous elements.

Street theater performances have been staged in cities all over the country in an effort to expose unfair trade and dangerous products imposed on our communities. The devastation includes 149 deaths from contaminated heparin, a blood thinner imported from China; imported toys containing toxic levels of lead, and the millions of manufacturing jobs exported over the past two decades.