I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.
— Maya Angelou
I started laughing before Elizabeth Warren was even quoted this morning. The story characterized the Democratic battle over the Trans-Pacific Parntership as a fight between President Obama and our senator. She had yet to speak, but I knew she would win the battle. Obama has never had much for political chops. I know he’s a dyed-in-the-wool neo-liberal, but God knows why the President wants to go to the mat on the TPP. It makes me wince, but I can’t help thinking of the question some of my psychologist friends are fond of asking, “Is this the mountain you want to die on?” I don’t think Warren wants to hurt Obama. She and the rest of the Democratic Democrats in the U.S. Senate know may eventually lose the war, but in a political battle with our President, it’s no contest.
In the battle over TPP, the best Obama seems to be able to do is call her names: “She and I taught law school, and one of the things you do as a law professor is spin out hypotheticals and this is all hypothetical. Speculative. She and I taught law school, and one of the things you do as a law professor is spin out hypotheticals and this is all hypothetical. Speculative.” The President must have skipped his litigation classes at Harvard Law. Speculative? And hypothetical? Say it isn’t so! Worse than his inability to fight, Obama provides Warren with an open invitation to case turn. How can the court of public opinion decide on a victor when they are deprived of Exhibit A? Warren describes the process necessary for her to even see the deal. It’s a strip search short of a prisoner screening for a Supermax prison. The joke’s on the President. If this morning’s NPR story was game, the Senate’s rejection of cloture on fast-tracking TPP was set. I don’t know if it’s the “stinging” defeat some have made it out to be–the match still has a way to go–but we have Elizabeth Warren to thank for it.
Warren has a case, and she presents it:
Look, I have three objections. The first is that the president is asking us to vote to grease the skids on a trade deal that has largely been negotiated, but that is still held in secret.
The second is that we know that corporations under this deal are going to get to sue countries for regulations they don’t like and that the decisions are not going to be made by courts, they’re going to be made by private lawyers.
And the third problem is that he wants us to vote on a six-year, grease-the-skids deal.
On the investor-state dispute mechanism that would help resolve disputes between countries
Keep in mind, if there’s a labor violation, if somebody doesn’t stick with the human rights promises they made, the consequence of that is not that they get to go to a private group, and get special enforcement. Nope, they gotta go to their own government and try to get it enforced.
So, what’s happening with ISDS is that the world has changed. Those things were in place, gosh, for a long time dating back to the 1950s. But back in the beginning they were used very rarely, fewer than 100 times in more than 50 years, but the corporate lawyers figured out how to make these things very valuable for big corporations. … What really happens here is that big, multi-national corporations can look around and say “I don’t like those regulations. I could make more money if I could beat down new regulations.”
NOTE: Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) is an instrument of public international law, that grants an investor the right to use dispute settlement proceedings against a foreign government.
…I feel like a kid witnessing a fight between his parents – very discomforting to say the least. I’m with the President on this one, as much as I am generally a fan of our Senator, partly because I’m more a free-trader by default anyway, and partly because I believe him (email quoted in separate comment) when he says this is a better and more progressive deal.
I also think too many people conflated “fast-track” procedure with the merits. IMO treaties and agreements should always be closed to amendments because negotiating parties need to know what they are getting into. You can’t negotiate a treaty, then come back to the other country and say well, what we ratified isn’t exactly what you signed off on – sorry. If you are a member of Congress you are still free to vote against it on the merits if you don’t like it.
So it comes down to whether you believe the President. In my case given the choice between someone involved with the negotiations (Obama) and someone who isn’t (Warren), I’m inclined to think the person who is in the better position to know what he is talking about.
This “he’s closer to it, so let’s believe him” argument is a large part of what got us invading Iraq and passing the Patriot Act, among other bad developments. Part of the reason he appears more knowledgeable about the thing is that he’s keeping a lot of it hidden. Sen. Warren is much more privileged than we are in her ability to find out the details, and she’s a hell of a lot more financially astute than Obama is.
Your affection for free-trade deals seems to ignore the disastrous effects they’ve had on our country. That’s about all I can say on that and remain polite.
Just because both Presidents are Democrats, and just because they both say its fair, doesn’t mean we should take them at their word.
President Clinton’s promise:
NAFTA’s reality (From Public Citizen’s Analysis of NAFTA):
And let’s not forget what Sen. Obama promised as a candidate:
TPP falls far short of any of the binding commitments Sen. Obama promised, I also don’t recall him renegotiating NAFTA at all during his presidency. We have no reason to believe either leader on trade. Promises made to be broken in the service of Wall Street donors.
…though I’ve never been convinced as some that NAFTA was a job killer. I’ve long said that conservatives say increasing the minimum wage loses jobs; liberals say free trade loses jobs; we tried both under Clinton and he left office with 20 million new jobs to show for it. He’s also right about we can either participate in managing the global economy, or be left behind by it.
We are letting China, Japan, and even a small power like Malaysia call the shots. And giving foreign companies equal rights to sue our government in court if we don’t like their terms. NAFTA decimated the middle class, look at Flint, MI and tell me it would’ve been better to keep those factories open there rather than dismantling them piece by piece to Mexico. The Tech sector jobs created under Clinton would’ve happened with or without NAFTA, and many of the low paying service jobs it created are far worse than the middle class manufacturing ones they replaced.
Is Germany, with its higher levels of protectionism and unionization, a pariah state in the global economy, or one of it’s leaders? Pretty sure the latter, pretty sure they still have a much stronger middle class too.
…why wouldn’t we also be calling a large share of the shots, especially given the size of our economy? Seems to me if anything WE are the ones in the position to dictate terms.
As for Germany, last I checked it was the anchor of the EU, a bloc that exists primarily for open borders and trade reasons. I would hardly call it a pariah.
Pariah was sarcastic. They managed to keep their export oriented industrial manufacturing base, with unionized work forces and even union votes in the boards-while also being globally integrated. It’s not either or, you and President Clinton make it out to be an either or. It on could be a both/and. We have strong union, strong export balance , a strong middle class and get others to play by our rules. That’s what Germany does, it’s not what we are doing with NAFTA, CAFTA or with TPP. The banks are writing the rules, not the diplomats.
…and there was consistantly much clearer evidence that Bush (or maybe more accurately his advisors) were full of it and had ulterior motives.
I’m all for “benefit of the doubt” and similar bromides, so long as such memes are tempered by at least a little bit of reality.
The reality is that candidates of both parties often act differently than they promise to act during the campaign. Sometimes facts change and policy must be adjusted accordingly. Sometimes candidates simply say whatever is expedient to be elected. Most times, the reality is somewhere in the middle.
Seven years into the Obama administration, there is a very long history of President Obama acting VERY differently from candidate Obama. This was particularly egregious, in my view, in handling GITMO and war crime investigation and prosecutions. Less egregious, but still telling, is the way that President Obama launched the Obamacare initiative by giving away the store — and thereby moving the entire program into policy areas that were distinctly Republican as recently as the Romney administration in MA.
The handling of big money and big banks during the Obama administration clearly signals President Obama’s alignment with the interests of Wall Street. It is disingenuous to examine the TPP dispute between President Obama and Senator Warren in the absence of that context. Senator Warren has been very effective in tempering the clear desire of the Obama administration to do whatever Wall Street wants.
Given all that context, the suggestion that we should trust President Obama’s professed commitment to progressive values is woefully naive. The very fact that the GOP Senate majority is so uniform in their support for this initiative is clear evidence of the actual intent of the initiative.
Senator Warren is absolutely correct in her demand for more specifics. She needs the support of every progressive in pressing her case.
NAFTA screwed the middle class. I generally agree with free market concepts but Ross Perot was right when he said we would lose good jobs to Mexico. I personally saw 500-600 jobs disappear, good factory jobs ($25.00-30.00 per hour). A friend, as part of his severance package, had to go to Laredo to train the Mexican foreman on how to run the machines being sent over the border. Making a deal can be OK, but we seem to be too trusting. Negotiate to make us stronger and don’t worry about Wall street, they will still find a way to make money.
I recall the Talking Heads telling guys like me that we’d be free of our jobs working in dull & boring factories because we’d be working in high tech companies building things for the emerging Mexican Middle Class that would be taking our dull & boring factory jobs. That did not happen, did it?
In towns like Batavia NY where Fisher Price had several factories building toys, the plants are closed and the only jobs left are at the local Walmart where they sell cheap junk made in Mexico and China.
While the T-Heads were with one mouth telling all us manufacturing workers we should retrain for the high-tech jobs that there were not enough of, the other side of their face was saying we were transitioning to a wonderful Service Economy. What that turned out to mean was that lots of formerly high-paid manufacturing workers wound up at McDonalds or Walmart, or both. When I was a kid, a single blue-collar union job was often enough to buy a house in the suburbs and support a family. Ronnie Reagan and his Union Busters torpedoed that, and Clinton’s NAFTA made sure it sank. We have been singularly ill-served by our elected government for the last 30 years.
…for keeping a Mexican economy stable. If there are jobs there fewer will resort to illicit activities like the drug cartels or trying to cross our border illegally. A booming Mexican economy is ultimately good for us on many levels. There is no reason that free trade has to mean sacrificing other values since agreements work both ways. If less developed countries don’t uphold their end on standards we are free to rethink our policy toward imports.
For a few reasons:
A) Lower wages and net job destruction
The Public Citizen Report I linked to above proves that NAFTA not only led to the net loss of middle class American manufacturing jobs, it also led to the net creation of few middle class Mexican jobs at the expense of many local lower middle class unskilled jobs such as corn farming (since our corn flooded their market) and the nascent domestic Mexican manufacturing sector, which is now dominated by multinationals. This actually had the effect of increasing immigration from Mexico to the US.
B) Lower safety standards and workers rights
Look at Bangladesh or the Philippines and it’s basically as if the Triangle Fire never happened. The very same shoddy fire safety problems that we solved over a century ago thanks to labor unions and progressive activism, are now the price of doing business overseas. And it’s not like American companies are ignorant of this.
Lower costs for consumer goods are not worth the worldwide race to the bottom in wages and basic workers rights. And while good liberals from Gladstone to Roosevelt opposed tariffs and backed trade agreements in the past, it was during an era when the imports and exports (mercantilist colonies excluded) largely came from countries with similar standards of living and labor costs. Today, as China and India advance to the middle class they are losing factory jobs to places like Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Philippines, the latter a democracy largely in name only.
My point is that the US use what I assume is considerable leverage to make sure the scenarios you describe don’t occur.
Thank goodness NAFTA prevented those things so effectively!
When that “single blue-collar union job was often enough to buy a house in the suburbs and support a family”, the manufacturing plant where that job was located was hundreds or thousands of times less productive than today. It took dozens of those union workers to keep a single line running — today, the entire building can be operated by a half-dozen people. The culprit in taking away those jobs is the explosion in industrial productivity driven by decades of technology innovation. You should be pointing your finger at the robotics departments of MIT, not store managers at Walmart.
I’m no defender of Ronald Reagan or union busting. It is, however, almost completely irrelevant to the argument you present. Even if our borders were sealed tight and we did ALL our manufacturing in the USA, those halcyon days you recall would not return.
A family, town, state, and nation can only buy so many shirts. When one worker can produce hundreds of shirts an hour, instead of factories filled with skilled textile workers, there isn’t enough demand for shirts to keep all those skilled textile workers busy.
If we have been ill-served by our elected government for the last 30 years — and I agree that we have — then it is our collective decision to dismantle rather than expand safety nets for displaced workers. We made it harder, rather than easier, for working-class people to get the education that lets them be the designer of those shirts rather than the worker who pushes the buttons on the robot.
The past 30 years was among the worst possible times in history for us, as a people and a government, to choose unbridled “free enterprise” and “competition” as our central governing paradigm. The most skilled autoworker in the world is no match for a robot that works faster, more accurately, and longer — and doesn’t require annual raises, a pension plan, vacations, or health benefits.
Our fundamental assumption that labor (as in time spent working on something) is the most appropriate way to distribute the wealth generated by our economy is demolished by the technology of today — never mind tomorrow.
It took centuries for civilized societies to figure out how to make the industrial-age economy work. In particular, it took a very long time for industrializing nations like the UK to figure out how to transition from an agrarian to an industrial society (and our civil can be viewed as a conflict closely related to that transition).
We are in the infancy of the transition to a post-industrial world. Our birth pains are NOT the result of Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. They are the way technology revolutions happen.
That is why we should be sealing our borders so we can deal with the people we already have here and not allowing a flood of illegals from countries where they are even less equipped to deal with the loss of low skill labor jobs.
…why couldn’t THAT have been the issue on which the Democratic left abandoned him in a quest for single-payer? Part of my frustration about this issue is that given all the grief he has put up with from the GOP his own party can’t find a way to have his back. Then again I can understand if some are frustrated by what appears to be his greater willingness to bash his left flank than he is the very unreasonable right.
They were in the majority at the time and the President was surging on high levels of approval, hadn’t been weakened by the midterms, and needed a signature accomplishment for re-election. As a lame duck with a Republican majority in Congress, it’s significantly easier for his party to abandon him. Many of them are also sending a message to the next President that she shouldn’t pursue the same failed centrist economic policies of her husband and immediate predecessor.
Orrin Hatch had the President’s back on TPP.
It could be argued that Obama abandoned the Democrats, labor, our environment, health care, consumers and the 99% on this one.
I come to my acceptance of free trade from what I see as a liberal angle, the idea that we are one big market on this planet without regard for borders. Protectionism has always struck me as keeping what’s ours with in some cases a strain of xenophobia, positions that in any other context would be symptomatic of the “tea party”. Generally it is the President who sets the agenda for the party so members of Congress are judged on whether they back or abandon him rather than the other way around.
that people used to be able to move about freely and walls went out to keep out corporations. Now it the reverse.
If your factory job moves down to Mexico, you can’t move down there for the job. Not less xenaphobia.
My heuristic is that if I see a contemplated deal that Wall Street, Orin Hatch, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul and the rest of the GOP support, and that Barack Obama doesn’t want to talk about, then I conclude that (a) they are getting information I’m not and (b) the deal is good for the 1% and bad for the rest of us.
Big, grand, sweeping generalizations like “we are one big market on this planet without regard for borders” are helpful in measuring specific proposals. They do not replace such proposals, nor should they be the only measure.
I love automobiles. I’ve had very good luck with used cars. I wouldn’t buy one from Richard Nixon, and I wouldn’t buy one from the dealer offering the TPP — particularly when they won’t let me see the odometer, the service record, or talk to the prior owner.
Sometimes how much you trust someone is an issue, and in the case of Obama I do, but I won’t automatically say something has to be bad based on who supports it. We were taught in logic class that such is a logical fallacy.
As for not seeing the deal, isn’t it still under discussion? I’m starting to get flashbacks to the ACA debate when tea party signs read “read the billz!”, but it turns out there wasn’t really a bill yet, just ideas and proposals.
We’ve had this discussion before.
A patient who insists that his or her heart surgeon hold an MD from an accredited college of medicine is not falling prey to the ad hominem fallacy. They are instead taking a shortcut to an answer (“Is this surgeon competent?”) when they lack both the information and skill needed to come to that answer themselves.
We collectively lack the information needed to evaluate this proposal because the proponents intentionally hide that information. We lack the skill needed to cut through the fabric of lies, distortions, and self-serving half-truths that these named individuals and groups have used to advance their agenda for as long as they’ve been in the public sector.
The ad hominem fallacy is irrelevant to this discussion. It might be more interesting to consider the Epimenides Paradox (“All Cretans are liars”, spoken by a Cretan). We know that this crowd often lies. It is not ad hominem to reflect that knowledge in our responses to them.
I did not make a personal attack or accuse anyone else of doing so. This is a different fallacy, one that suggests that one should agree or disagree with a premise based on the supposed expertise, lack thereof, or other qualities of someone else.
I thought you were referencing the ad hominem fallacy.
I’m not sure what “fallacy” you reference. It is certainly not a fallacy to place greater credibility in a scientific hypothesis offered by credentialed scientists than by, for example, paid industry shills who do not have scientific credentials. Marc Morano is not a credible source of anything, including premises.
Professionals in a given field rightly have more expertise in that field. A premise about law offered by a lay person is less likely to be valid than a premise about law offered by a group of lawyers.
Perhaps you might clarify the fallacy you mean.
Absolutely, if people are credentialed experts in their fields that is a valid consideration (though as I recall my class strict interpretation of this fallacy requires that you require even experts to prove the truth of what they are saying). Ad hominem is an attack on someone’s character that has little to nothing to do with what is being argued. What I’m cautioning against here maybe somewhere in the middle where we say so-and-so is a conservative Republican; therefore he can’t possibly have a valid argument on this matter.
An “ad hominem” argument is not, per se, an attack (although it often includes one). It is instead the fallacy of saying that a premise is true or false because of irrelevant aspects of the person who asserts the premise.
I think the key point you may be missing is that the ad hominem fallacy applies only to irrelevant aspects. If a scientist is shown to have accepted funding from a sponsor with a vested interest in the outcome of the sponsored research, then that evidence of corruption is very relevant to whatever claims the scientist subsequently makes. Citing that corruption is not, therefore, an ad hominem attack on the research.
I’m not saying that the persons I list can’t be trusted because they are conservative Republicans, I’m saying that they can’t be trusted because they have already shown themselves to be in the pocket of the very wealthy. Please note that I, sadly, include Barack Obama in my list — he is most certainly not a conservative Republican.
That’s not a liberal angle you’re describing; it’s the Big Business sales pitch for weakening restrictions on their power to exploit workers and consumers.
If you’re going to continue to call yourself a Progressive, could you please stop adopting whatever fantasy the 1% are presenting to sell their agenda?
I have always identified as center-left, more progressive than not, but more open to DLC, especially in the 1990s. I stand by my comments to the effect that the more open our borders, the more liberal that is.
This is about stopping our government’s ability to regulate business. It has almost nothing to do with open borders.
Sounds like opening borders to me.
What’s the purpose of a tariff? To let the market decide prices? To lower prices for consumers? Fairness? If so, to whom? Here’s Dean Baker again:
And one unaddressed reason for our trade deficit is the the strong dollar, which makes our goods more expensive overseas.
…were to make foreign products cost to consumers something closer to what the same product manufactured domestically would, given that foreign products often cost less to make due to lower wages and other costs of doing business elsewhere. I thought free trade meant that goods moved across borders without being assessed such duties, which by itself could mean trouble, but you ameliorate that by requiring that standards be more uniform.
I guess I also start way back at the natural resources stage. IMO they belong to everyone without regard for what side of a political boundary they happen to fall. Goods made from one country’s resources should not be made to cost more by tariff in a country that can’t produce such good for lack of resources, though shipping might make the prices a bit higher. Again I start with the premise in the 21st century of free movement across borders.
You can’t consider tariffs without considering monetary policy. The value of currency, which can be controlled in some degree by the country that holds it, can be, and in the case of China, is a de facto tariff. China values the yuan in a way that makes it a tariff in effect. American goods cost more to sell in China because the dollar has more value in relation to the yuan. China pursues this as a policy. It has an enormous stockpile of foreign currency. It keeps its currency value low to keep its exports cheap. Eliminating tariffs does nothing to change this.
Tariffs can be for good or ill. They are a tool like anything else. To say TPP is good because it eliminates tariffs is like saying Voter ID is good because it eliminates voter fraud. As Dean Baker has suggested,
Christopher, there is no such thing as “free trade,” only trade and trade deals. Opposition to TPP isn’t about protectionism. We still have trade with these many of these countries. Do you even have an idea of what’s in the actual bill? Obama has, of course, kept the details secret, but they’ve been leaked.
TPP doesn’t address the trade deficits–due in large part to China’s manipulation to keep its currency cheap to make its imports cheaper. That’s a real objection that bothers people on both sides of the spectrum about TPP, but it’s not addressed.
Seems like there are a few parallels.
– Put together by top 1%-ers with most of the details kept from the public.
– Track record of similar deals not working out well for the general public but quite well for the 1%.
– When confronted by critics, the defense never rises much above “you’re just wrong” or “trust them”.
just wanted to know who the knob was who down rated applicable information.
Not surprised who the other one was. He has a pretty itchy trigger finger when it comes to downrating:(
n/t
From Public Citizen
As Dean Baker periodically points out, there is no need for the phrase “free trade.” We have trade agreements, but we don’t have “free trade.” Free trade is supposed to increase competition by deregulating markets. Trade agreements like NAFTA and TPP merely re-regulate trade for the good of business, not consumers, workers or the environment. That’s why
that’s what I’m trying to figure out. The Sierra Club notwithstanding. Jeesh, that’s like quoting the Heritage Foundation in favor of Cruz. Anything less “Fair and Balanced” out there?
The gentleman from Texas comes across as a smarmy opportunist exploiting an ignorant base. I’m sure our Senator’s concerns are genuine and well-considered.
Not sure what else to say on that one.
Elizabeth Warren tends to tell the truth, tends to cite actual facts, and tends to make rational arguments. Mr. Cruz does none of that. I saw citations from Doctors Without Borders, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Alliance for Justice. It would perhaps be easier to conduct a discussion about the merits of TPP if the deal weren’t buried behind so many layers of impenetrable “security”.
It seems to me that concerns raised by Senator Warren are very legitimate and are essentially impossible to answer without actual knowledge of the contemplated deal. Even with knowledge of the deal, her concern about ISDS is hardly extremist Cruz-style ranting.
If ISDS is working fine, then let’s see a reasonable rebuttal that offers facts to support that contention. “Trust me” is not enough.
being sarcastic?
The so called Fast Track bill is not a vote on the terms of the TPP. It renews an authority for the President that has been used from time to time since 1974. In essence, it allows the President to negotiate a treaty and requires the Congress to bring the treaty to a straight up or down vote, without amendments for filibuster, promptly.
So, President Obama did not create the idea of Fast Track just to screw the American people, and a vote on Fast Track is not a vote on the Trans Pacific Partnership. Even if Fast Track is approved, Congress can disapprove TPP.
I’m disappointed that Senator Warren, whom I support, is confusing the two in her public comments.
I don’t see any confusion from Ms. Warren about fast track vs the TPP.
I see, instead, a smart and savvy Senator who knows precisely how big money works and how big money manipulates government to achieve its ends. And who also knows how to throw sand in the gears of that big money machine.
She’s trying to explain complex stuff to people. She uses the phrase “Grease the skids” to refer to Fast Tracking. As I said in my post, TPP is still likely to pass. But voting down fast-tracking is definitely a victory in a battle, though not the war.
Trade should not only enlarge the dollar status of business owners, but should meaningfully improve the lot of all who are involved in making goods to ship from one country to another. Missing at the table is a major component, namely, the workers who make the products shipped to these open markets. Their absence should be a non starter for any trade deal.
Also the agreement as it stands now, according to Sen Warren, is country leadership dependent. So if leadership changes to those who think regulations to protect the environment or pay fair wages takes second place to greater profits there will be weakening of any plusses for workers, and their quality of life. Companies can sue governments if they think any “restrictions” has hurt their business. Large companies can move their headquarters overseas, and sue their own country, meaning taxpayers will add to their bottom line, AGAIN!
Lastly the GOP propagandist are having a field day. They unashamedly contend that NAFTA created a net gain in jobs even though some were lost. This is the kind of accounting that got Bernie Madoff in trouble. It is a story of setting a time bomb. Trade is mostly in a limited number of industries (not smaller players) so that an economic slowdown forces workers into lower paying jobs when layoffs occur. There are no standards set for a country as a whole. Further the real test of how the employed are doing under these agreements shows no economic gains. Even if a zillion jobs were created, but they barely provide a decent living, that is not progress. It is a modern version of slavery.
So the balance sits on a teeter totter with the winds of economic missteps that leads to downturns or recessions or worse. Mexico has benefited immensely, but that success depends on American’s ability to buy (which can change). Also you wonder if going from really bad to only bad is something to celebrate. It has stopped border crossings though from that country. Now Central America is a different story.
These deals have been made without with the human factors in mind, but rather depend on failed trickle down economics that keeps individual prosperity a lopsided proposition. As Tevyeh noted with his conversation with his higher authority: “With your help, I’m poor.”
I’m all for trying to co-operate, part of why I’m open to such deals, but if a country with as much leverage as the US is sued over a law, and some international body judges against us we can still decide our laws are more important. What are other countries going to do, invade us?, arrest our leaders? Besides, we should also be taking all possible actions to make sure the regulations on things like environment and labor are enforced to the hilt. Two can play that game.
Which is precisely how Phillip Morris can sue foreign governments for trying to regulate tobacco , an industry that likely would’ve lost profitability decades ago if it had to content with American style public health regulation overseas. That’s the entire crux of Warren’s most valid argument, what’s to stop a foreign owned multinational from arguing that TPP overrides Dodd-Frank?
If the provisions are in the TPP that actually prevent this, than let Congress read the damn agreement. If Obama, the GOP Congress, and Nike had nothing to hide, why can’t we read the damn bill and be able to amend it before we vote on it? How can we make the agreement better, something you and other trade backers claim you are on board with, if we can’t read and amend the agreement?
The desire to “fast track” this proposal is aimed at more than just this treaty.
The GOP is open about their intent to use this TPP issue to increase the leverage of the next GOP president — that’s a key aspect of why they are so uniform in their support of it. This use of the “fast track” process, like the GOP decision to use the filibuster, is part of a larger strategy by the 1% to entrench their control of US government even more strongly.
Just amending it so that we end up ratifying something different than what other parties ratify thus making it not truly a treaty.
Whatever provisions are or are not in there, the government cannot be sued without it’s consent and if it is sued we can still say too bad. Why is everyone approaching this as if nothing can possibly go our way? We are the United States for crying out loud! When we want our way we can generally get it.
the right to sue. It’s a treaty. If we don’t follow it, then our counterparties don’t follow it. More importantly, the United States is subsidiary of big business these days. They want to be able to sue governments. Your President is telling them it’s okay to sue us. Who exactly would oppose such a lawsuit if the law were in effect? Not your President. He wants them to have the power. Congress would have no ability to act on the courts. Balance of power and all that. This law gives corporations the right to sue. It’s your government that is giving them the consent.