Senate Hands a Victory to Obama on Trade Pact

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/us/politics/senate-vote-on-trade-bill.html

by carbocation • 11 years ago

36 54 11 years ago

nytimes.com

ironsides• 11 years ago

Surprise, surprise.

higherpurpose• 11 years ago

When the Republicans agree with Obama on something, you know the bill is terrible for regular citizens.

astaroth360• 11 years ago

Everyone except the very rich are about to get slapped in the face by a whole slew of bad policy decisions :\

bdcravens2• 11 years ago

Obama himself has said he has no more campaigns to run:

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-i-know-cause-i-won-both...

So at this point, he's beholden not to the common voters, but to the wealthy who also helped him get into office (and who, unlike the common voters, he can still benefit from in the years to come)

This isn't specific to Obama, but is the game of a career in politics.

tptacek18• 11 years ago

Political flamewar comments are no more welcome on HN than religious ones.

shmerl14• 11 years ago

Why can't such agreements be made mandatory public? All these backroom discussions of far reaching proposals like Internet censorship are simply disgusting.

bdcravens2• 11 years ago

So much for this:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandO...

dak13• 11 years ago

To be fair, any FTA (including the TPP) will be made public for a minimum of 4 months before Congress can vote on it (although with TPA they won't be allowed to offer amendments to it).

In reality, almost all legislation is written behind closed doors today (a public Git-for-Law would be a wonderful project), and is then sponsored by a member of Congress and goes (usually) to Committee.

Non-trade agreements with foreign powers are also negotiated "behind closed doors", because the negotiations themselves tend to be quite sensitive, and the negotiating positions of each country are also considered highly sensitive.

The real issue is probably that the Trade Advisory Committees are not required by law to be balanced between corporate interests and public advocacy groups (there are multiple representatives from such groups, although it's not currently well balanced).

shkkmo• 11 years ago

Do you have a source for that? My quick look at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_track_(trade)

The procedure section shows Congress to have the ability to pass it to committees for at most 45 days and then they have at most 15 days after that to vote on it.

That seems to imply that it would be public for a maximum of 2 months, but I don't know much about this area.

shmerl14• 11 years ago

To be fair, any FTA (including the TPP) will be made public for a minimum of 4 months before Congress can vote on it (although with TPA they won't be allowed to offer amendments to it).

So not only it completely defeats the point (if you can't make amendments) it gives a joke of a time in comparison with years of development of such agreements when all kind of nasty stuff can be sneaked it which can change local laws. In short - it's not a democratic process at all, it's a farce of institutionalized corruption.

cnp• 11 years ago

And now a new era of Man begins

sremani• 11 years ago

TPP, Trans-Atlantic and TiSA are the trifecta and the BRICS are excluded out of these for a good reason. Even though there are firm Geo-Strategic grounds for these agreements, they are most likely not in the side of the Worker and likely cement the power of Elite in US and partner countries.

tptacek18• 11 years ago

That's generally a true statement about anything that could foreseeably be good for the US economy. What's good for the economy is good for investors, and, apart from (vast numbers of) state employees with defined benefit pension plans managed by huge investment firms, investors aren't workers.

acconrad• 11 years ago

So this is pretty much guaranteeing that the TPP agreement will pass now? Good grief...

nateabele• 11 years ago

Mr. Obama’s top legislative priority in his final years in office.

Is it too late to make a 'hope & change' joke without sounding cliché?

g0v• 11 years ago

All this just makes me sick and angry. I wonder if congress will ever represent the people.

darby2000• 11 years ago

You know you can't get rid of the Pres. But you can get rid of these senators. Please find out who voted for this, and do not vote for them again.

mason552• 11 years ago

Can anyone summarize why this is so bad for everyone except the super rich? I understand how manufacturing will be hurt and it sounds like agriculture comes out to be mostly a wash. But it sounds like the US services industries will be helped by the agreement.

tptacek18• 11 years ago

There are two specific issues that come up regularly, and two background issues with the whole concept of free trade agreements.

Specific issue #1: the TPP, like a bunch of other trade agreements, includes semi-binding arbitration. Enact a system of regulated free trade and you generate disputes. But there's no meaningful international legal system (a "world trade court" that can resolve those disputes. Trade dispute resolution is therefore extrajudicial. (TPP's arbitration is "semi-binding" in that TPP arbitrators have authority only to impose fines; they can't change our laws).

Specific issue #2: a key goal of TPP is to harmonize worldwide IP laws with those of the US. But much of the world has lax IP laws compared to the US, specifically for drugs. Dean Baker at CEPR --- a credible and fiercely liberal economist --- believes drug regulation will increase prices in the US (by how much, I haven't really seen estimates). Pretty much everyone believes that if TPP is actually enforced for pharma, it will increase drug prices in the rest of the world, and also squeeze out companies that have carved niches for themselves by arbitraging the different patent regimes to manufacture drugs that are still on-patent in the US.

Background issue #1: modern free trade agreements always involve IP regulations, and IP is a valence issue on Internet forums: most vocal Internet commenters ambiently oppose all IP regulation. TPP doesn't significantly alter IP law in the US, but it does further ratify that law, taking us steps away from reforming them. If you think IP reform was in the cards, you don't like TPP.

Background issue #2: the US economy is, by design, owned by large companies; those companies are in turn mostly owned by large investment firms. A plurality of the stakeholders in those firms are "wealthy elites" (not scare quoting). Free trade agreements that the US supports are designed to juice the economy, and thus improve outcomes for big companies. "Wealthy elites" have far more direct exposure to investment upside than "workers". So there's a natural concern about conflict-of-interest: TPP will benefit the wealthy more than it will the working class.

There are reasonable rebuttals to all these points, but you asked for the liberal brief against TPP, and I think that's a solid summary of it.

mason552• 11 years ago

Thank you. So it doesn't sound like there is much that specifically hurts middle class to lower upper class Americans, it's just that it contributes to continued power & wealth accumulation in the upper upper class, the prevention of which could be seen as a reasonable goal in its own right.

shit_parade24• 11 years ago

The simple solution is to ignore illegitimate laws.

The legal process no longer concerns itself with the average citizen, why then does the average citizen show concern over the law?

tptacek18• 11 years ago

How does one "ignore" illegitimate trade agreements? By not trading with Asia?

shit_parade24• 11 years ago

Smuggling, ignoring IP laws, refusing to comply with fines or other rulings. You seem like a smart guy, try using your brain.

Senate Hands a Victory to Obama on Trade Pact

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