TIME: Why Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Policy Speech Wasn’t the One She Needed to Give

[amandabeech]

12. Ian Bremmer is a Neo Con.

The people at the Wall Street Journal and the Economist love him. He's on Fareed Zakaria's CNN Sunday talk show.

He never smiles, but always has this world-weary look that everyone seems to take as the height of sophistication.

The TPP really hands it to corporate and financial interests, but it is also the gift that will keep on giving to the military industrial complex.

The TPP does not include China, but it does now include countries that send their exports through the South China Sea. In fact, it will encourage more investment in those economies by the US and its allies.

But guess who claims almost the entire South China Sea as its inland lake? China of course! And china has turned some coral reefs and mostly underwater islets into real islands, some now with military bases on them. Moreover, almost all the reefs and islets are also claimed by other countries like Vietnam, the Phillipines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Thailand and Cambodia ordinarilty export to the west and north through the South China Sea. We have a treaty obligation to defend the Phillipines from attack and the Chinese have been building up one of the reefs within the 200-mile Phillipine economic exclusion zone.

The Phillipines and maybe others want the issue of ownership of the South China Sea to be determined by a court at the Hague under the International Law of the Sea in a decision binding everyone. The Hague will rule on a Phillipine claim very soon. The Chinese have said that they will not abide by the ruling.

The TPP will bind us closer to the Phillipines and will encourage the US and its allies to buy from the other nations that will export to us through the South China Sea. Our military tends to follow our businesses. Thus, the TPP will likely pull us further into conflict with China over the South China Sea. We are already conducting "free navigation patrols" close to the Chinese-made islets. The Chinese haven't shot at us yet, but maybe they will. Then what?

I'm from Michigan, and I would prefer that manufacturing for the US market take place here for reasons including the fact that we will have to spend a lot of money defending the countries and the sea lanes from which we import everything in Wal Mart and Target. This is in addition to all the money in aid to people who used to be employed in manufacturing in cities like Flint and Detroit.

What do we do when our TPP friends insist that we defend the South China Sea against a hostile China? It's bad enough to be in thrall to China, but the TPP sets us up on both sides.

I have never heard Bremmer or anyone in print or on the tube discuss these problems! It seems that no one cares that we are in a bad place. The Chinese believe that they can defeat us and create a real East Asian Co-Prospherity Sphere like the Japanese tried to do in WWII. Unfortunately, the Chinese are not liked by many of their neighbors who are or will be in the TPP while at the same time, almost everything that we use in our homes is still made in China.

I would like to hear Hillary discuss how she plans to deal with this. I don't take for one moment that she will get rid of the TPP or any trade agreement. The Donald will either blast the bejesus out of the Chinese, or he'll tell everyone to take a hike, but who knows.

I'm waiting.