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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStrange Bedfellows Are Blocking The McConnell-Obama Trade Deal (TPP)
(The title could easily be "Strange Bedfellows Are Pushing For The TPP" imo...)
12/3/14
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been dreaming about cutting major deals as Senate majority leader for most of his career. Next year, he'll finally get the chance to do it with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most ambitious free trade agreement since the Clinton era. The only thing standing in his way is his own political party.
President Barack Obama's administration has been negotiating the TPP since the beginning of his presidency. Twelve nations are now involved in the talks, which have major implications for the U.S. economy, public health and foreign policy. But Obama has faced two domestic obstacles to enacting his pact: Democrats in Congress, who worry it will exacerbate income inequality, and a bloc of House Republicans, who are up in arms about the deal's implications for executive power and national sovereignty.
The administration conducts the talks in secret, so the public only knows about terms of the deal through leaked documents. But opposition from conservative hardliners has intensified since GOP gains in the midterm elections, even as McConnell has pledged to cut a deal with Obama on TPP as one of his first orders of business next year.
"I think it's insane to give Obama some power to negotiate an important treaty in secret without any supervision, not have to account to Congress or the Senate," Phyllis Schlafly, a prominent social conservative best known for opposing the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s, told HuffPost last week. "It just blows my mind why Republicans would be willing to do that. We've been yapping for months about his executive actions and his executive amnesty and taking unconstitutional positions."
The internal GOP feud over what some conservative critics are calling "Obamatrade" is just the latest in a series of skirmishes between the party's corporate-friendly leadership and its populist base....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/03/mitch-mcconnell-tpp-tea-party_n_6182126.html
The fight of populists vs corporatists?
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)ucrdem
(15,512 posts)How exciting.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)This trade disaster is strangely blurring the hard lines between right & left into lines between populists & corporatists.
I'm with the PEOPLE over corporate rule, even if I puke a little in my mouth thinking I might agree with a teabagger on something.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)which basically gave away the store. A lot of the roadblocks seem to be coming from nations accustomed to producing and selling cheap knock-offs of US products. Is that good or bad? Depends I guess. More than that I can't really say as I haven't looked into that deeply, but there seem to be a lot of wage guarantees and environmental protections built into the agreement and that has to be a good thing. In any case the negotiations are getting blow-by-blow scrutiny at the State Dept website, for anyone interested:
http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2014/11/20141110310755.html#axzz3L7je2c83
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)January 2014
Another chapter in the tale of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a secret international trade deal being pushed by the Obama administration and described by critics as NAFTA on steroids has once again been Wikileaked. This one deals with the environment, and it shows that, by and large, the US is caving on environmental standards it had previously set for international trade agreements.
Environmental groups say the protections that are included in the document are weak and, furthermore, that the pact contains no enforcement mechanisms. This breaks with recent precedent in 2007, Bush reached an agreement with congressional Democrats that required environmental provisions in trade agreements to be legally binding.
The lack of fully-enforceable environmental safeguards means negotiators are allowing a unique opportunity to protect wildlife and support legal sustainable trade of renewable resources to slip through their fingers, said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund. These nations account for more than a quarter of global trade in fish and wood products and they have a responsibility to address trades impact on wildlife crime, illegal logging and overfishing....
http://billmoyers.com/2014/01/16/tpp-wikileaked-us-watering-down-enviro-protections-in-secret-trade-deal/
Who to believe?
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Never really trusted Moyers, for what that's worth. Also for what it's worth, I voted for both Obama and Kerry, who's running the State Department, and I trust them more.
p.s. and I strongly mistrust Wikileaks which has always seemed to me a rather obvious neocon disinfo operation. The problem here is that the agreement is actively being negotiated, and what might have been "wikileaked" could be anything, including an opposing nation's talking points. Until we see a draft the actual agreement, which we will when and if it's presented to congress for ratification, the leak business is basically a branch of the RNC.
Johnyawl
(3,205 posts)...and I also voted for both of them. (As a matter of fact my wife was a Kerry delegate to the '04 convention).
Obama turned the negotiations over to corporate goons long ago, negotiated everything in secret and is now pushing to fast track the approval before there's any real examination of what's being agreed to. We need to have this dragged into the light and examined thoroughly.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Where they get their marching orders is from their govts' and where they get their marching orders is not exactly within Obama's say-so. Proceedings from the negotiations, which apparently take place in rotating cities of the participating nations, including Hanoi, are published on the State Dept website. As I said above, the "leaks" being flogged in wikileaks could be anything.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)He read the whole document last year. Agrees its NOT a good deal for citizens.
Alan Grayson On Trans-Pacific Partnership: Obama Secrecy Hides 'Assault On Democratic Government'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/18/alan-grayson-trans-pacific-partnership_n_3456167.html
http://www.toacorn.com/news/2014-11-26/Letters/TPP_is_bad_for_the_middle_class.html
http://www.bluecheddar.net/?p=33614
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)Thanks for the links.
I was even a volunteer for Obama in 2008. Played a small role in prepping for his "town hall" event where I lived. I was so excited by what I believed he'd do for our country...joke's on me.
(And btw, I had no desire for "a pony"...such a rude & despicable sentiment here)
sendero
(28,552 posts).. the State Dept. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that if big corporations want this, and they do, that it will be bad for everyone else.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)sendero
(28,552 posts).... Obama is doing their bidding just fine.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)sendero
(28,552 posts)... you conflate social issues with economic ones. The corporatists could care less about gay marriage or abortion, they only care about money.
Obama has done some good work on social issues but I defy you to come up with an example of where he went up against international corps because he didn't. He filled his cabinet with banksters and gave the rest of them a full pass. He implemented a health "care" scheme with the main objective of locking in profits for pharma, insurance and others in the space.
He is a corporatist in a similar mold of Bill Clinton who brought you NAFTA, free trade without quid-pro-quo with China, the deregulation of financial derivatives coupled with the repeal of Glass-Stegall which has directly led to the crippled economy we have today.
Phillys Schlaffly or whatever her name is might stick her nose into something like this from time to time but her reason for being is not economic issues. So I'm sure she doesn't care much for Obama.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Buns_of_Fire
(17,124 posts)You're going to see the whole thing the same time it's presented to congress -- polished, proofread, and bound in genuine leatherette -- where, if Fast Track is approved, it'll get an up-or-down vote, nothing more.
If it's such a gee-whiz, OMG-This-Is-FANTASTIC! deal, why the secrecy? I'd be shouting it from the rooftops! No, they're not, and I think there's a good reason why.
On social policy, I pretty much trust the President's judgement. On economic policy, not quite so much anymore. I've had one-too-many "WTF is he DOING?" moments to think otherwise.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)weakening our hard fought for Environmental Laws, eg. I can see why this is all being done in secret just from the few leaks we've already seen. It would go down in smoke if Americans, across the political spectrum were to learn how much power will be in the hands of Global Corporations over American citizens' rights to protect their own interests.
Thank YOU Whistle Blowers, AGAIN.
It's unconscionable that Democrats might even be considering this.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)of course people that call themselves conservatives are almost always corporatists, so Fast Track it is.
starroute
(12,977 posts)I don't want to link to their stuff, but they're starting to yap about threats to US sovereignty -- you can find it on YouTube if you really care.
But in this case I'm willing to put up with it if it means that they rally enough Tea Partiers to vote down fast track.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Just look at the Wikileaks leaked documents regarding our Environmental laws eg. Global Corps would have the power to ignore those laws if this agreement were to go into effect.
This is not a US Bill, it is a Globalists wet dream. They do not recognize sovereignty and there is no way that any American, or European or anyone else who will be affected by it, should in any way support it.
I think we have some of those Globalists in our Government who think THEY know what is best for the World. So I'm with you, whatever it takes to stop it is fine by me.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Just that it is.
Anyone that is for it, is our enemy.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)who just LOVES the TPP.
And he is our enemy.
But
Others
Go out of their way to support him.
That's the biggest reason we're screwed.