A concern that I MUST share

[desmiller]

We all know that the job growth under Obama is impressive. However, he's adding TPP to his legacy. Do you all think that all those jobs are created just to be taken away? If so, then the American people have been reduced to "seat warmers", if you know what I mean.

[NanceGreggs]

1. Your concern is noted. n/t

[desmiller]

2. You have my thanks

[jaysunb]

3. +1 n/t

[HERVEPA]

5. Your typical condescension is noted.

[virtualobserver]

6. yeah, maybe the jobs will be shipped to Canada...I know mine was.

Lower wages and no health care costs.

[Recursion]

12. Most jobs are being shipped to China and India

Countries that would never agree to the TPP because they would have to allow independent unions and in India's case a minimum wage.

[shenmue]

4. Sigh

[Lorien]

7. The TPP would pretty much destroy his legacy

the working people of the world have been mobilizing against it everywhere EXCEPT here. This is the danger of having a DLC President; Liberals won't push back against the most extreme right wing pieces of legislation if one of their own is championing it.

[patricia92243]

8. I believe the President will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents the USA was

fortunate enough to have. BUT, in MHO, it will all be ruined by the TPP passage.

I hope the "party of no" will not sign it in hopes that their party would look good if they are the one to pass it. They are wrong, of course.

Welcome to DU.

[jillan]

9. Funny thing is I voted for the Obama that was against NAFTA

wondered what happened to him?

[okaawhatever]

10. No. The ultimate goal of the TPP is to isolate China and raise manufacturing costs. There are 2 ways

to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US:

1. Lower our costs (lower wages, deregulation, etc.)
2. Increase the costs of manufacturing in countries like China


China and other (mostly Asian) countries were able to gain manufacturing jobs due to lower costs. That was from low wages, ignoring patents and copyrights, no employee benefits, no unions, few if any worker protection laws in their countries, no regulation, lower energy costs (due to coal), currency manipulation and in the case of China a government willing to support industries (for example: China's solar panel manufacturing industry).

The US couldn't force China to adopt business policies that were consistent with US/European industry due to the size of their economy, so instead Obama tried to get enough countries to agree to the conditions so that China would be cut out of enough markets they would eventually agree. (China has gone on record as saying they wanted to join TPP but couldn't qualify right now).

China, Russia and other countries also used American imports as negotiating tools in trying to get the US to change it's policies (usually political). I remember reading an article a year or two ago about China holding up tons of fish imported from Washington/Oregon by claiming that they didn't meet some requirement. Of course they did, it was China's way of getting some concession on something they wanted from the gov't. It was going to put a lot of smaller fishermen out of business, but there was little anyone could do. The TPP also addresses that by bypassing these governments and allowing business tribunals (or whatever you want to call them) to act as "judges" in these cases. Yes, some rights are given up, but we always see legal recourse from our perspective and fail to recognize that there is often no legal recourse in these other countries.

The TPP offers protections for union organizing, wages, environmental impact, discrimination and for copyright & patentsc etc. The hope is that workers in these other countries will now unionize and bring their own wages up (improving their lives) as well as making the US more competitive. It also has reduced tariffs in other countries. I know Japan had to give up tariffs it had on US auto imports (they're being phased out over five years, I think).

I"m not worried about Obama's legacy. I'm worried about people who try to misrepresent it.

The TPP is am imperfect solution to a significant problem facing US industry and our labor force.

[jeff47]

14. Then it's a pretty lousy way to go about doing it.

Because the TPP doesn't prevent countries from giving similar favored trade to China.

If Vietnam wants to sign a "free trade" pact with China, it can. Which means the TPP can't actually isolate China.

The TPP offers protections for union organizing, wages, environmental impact, discrimination and for copyright & patentsc etc. The hope is that workers in these other countries will now unionize and bring their own wages up (improving their lives) as well as making the US more competitive

So did CAFTA. We've never attempted to enforce those provisions, and people attempting to organize unions in CAFTA countries are routinely killed. Including during Obama's terms.

Why would the TPP be different?

Also, the intellectual property provisions actually make the situation worse for most TPP countries. They are having to make their patents and copyrights longer, greatly increasing drug prices among other things.

It also has reduced tariffs in other countries. I know Japan had to give up tariffs it had on US auto imports (they're being phased out over five years, I think).

Average Japanese tariff on US goods is 1%. Fluctuations between the Yen and the Dollar are much larger than 1%.

86% of the GDP covered by the TPP is already covered by free trade agreements. 12% of the remaining GDP is Japan, with those "crippling" 1% tariffs. That leaves an utterly insignificant size of a market to "open" to trade.

In return, the TPP makes it much easier and safer to export capital from the US. So that US money can more easily create jobs in other countries, instead of creating jobs in the US.

If you're not in the 1%, there is nothing good in the TPP.

[randome]

15. Because Vietnam is forced to abide by the agreement, which forces China to agree, as well.

At least as far as Vietnam is concerned.

And TPP is more extensive than CAFTA so the hope is that there will be more regulation of those issues you mentioned. It is not Armageddon and it may actually improve things on a global basis, albeit incrementally.

It's like ACA but for global trade, meaning it was the best that could get done with the players involved.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[jeff47]

16. Nope. There's nothing that requires Vietnam to put TPP conditions

in an agreement with China.

And TPP is more extensive than CAFTA so the hope is that there will be more regulation of those issues you mentioned

When the "less extensive" provisions are not enforced at all, why should we believe the "more extensive" provisions would be?

Especially when slave labor is being officially overlooked in order to get more countries into the TPP.

It's like ACA but for global trade, meaning it was the best that could get done with the players involved.

Except the major player that is making it worse is US. Our hand was not forced by other countries.

[pampango]

17. Agreed but a Vietnam in TPP (assuming it really has enforceable labor/environmental stanards)

would be less likely to sign an agreement with China that did not have those standards. If Vietnam were adhering to those standards in order to be in TPP and China is not, China would have every advantage in such an agreement and Vietnam would have none. Plus I get the impression that the countries in east Asia that are a part of this are doing it largely to avoid being pulled totally into China's economic orbit.

I also agree that enforcement is the key in any of these agreements. Pretty words do not mean much in reality unless backed up by enforcement. (Just like domestic laws don't mean much if they are not enforced.) I do believe that enforcement is tricky, even if it is essential, if we are going to make progress on issues like labor rights and the environment.

I am sure many Vietnamese (and many Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, Japanese, etc.) will resent foreigners deciding that some labor or environmental practice does not meet TPP standards. Many conservatives and some liberals will cry "Those foreigners can't tell us what to do. What about our national sovereignty?" in order to preserve a national policy that weakens labor and/or is bad for the environment.

This agreement may well not have high enough labor and environmental standards or inadequate enforcement mechanisms for those standards, but some similar agreement at some point in time - hopefully in the not too distant future - is the best way to achieve progress. Unilateral action - that timeless republican favorite, again being espoused by the GOP leader (though of course not out of sympathy for labor rights or the environment) - won't get it done.

[Recursion]

11. Eh. The TPP is marginally better than the bilateral agreements it's replacing

Though honestly it doesn't really do much at all; I think this is a case where USTR and the White House kind of got it in their heads that the agreement itself was "important", and wound up with an omnibus that basically leaves us exactly where we are, with a bloc of countries that make up about 10% of our trade.

That said, it does put at least some pressure on Chindia and Bangladesh, and is leading to some reforms in Vietnam and Brunei that are at least hopeful; Brunei is instituting its first ever minimum wage, Vietnam is raising and universalizing its minimum wage, and both are being required to allow independent unions. Those are good things.

[pampango]

13. You figured him out. The 'Muslim socialist' has wanted to destroy America, now with "Obamatrade".

He toyed with us with the "impressive job growth" coming out of Bush's Great Recession but it was all part of his master plan to raise our hope just to dash them. Bush made no such complicated effort with his 'trickle-down' policies.

Not to worry. The far-right has wanted us out of "Obamatrade" for years. Their leading candidate will take us out of NAFTA with unilateral tariffs on Mexico; out of the WTO with the same unilateral action on China. They want us out of the UN too (One World Government in the making) but that is a whole other story. Indeed, Donald seems to pine for the glory days of Coolidge and Hoover with high tariffs, restricted immigration and historically high income inequality (even worse than today) before that danged FDR tied our hands with his international organizations that weakened our 'sovereign right' to place tariffs on anyone we wanted.

TPP may be bad on balance but I would hope that it is only the far-right that thinks Obama is proposing it in order to give all of our jobs away and turn us into "seat warmers". You and I may disagree with him on TPP but he may think that a "seat warmer" fate is more likely for us if we leave the WTO, NAFTA and other 'free trade' agreements which are currently in charge of our trading rules with TPP countries.