As a liberal Obama voter I won't support an anti-trade, anti-TPP "progressive"

Politics & Elections
1

The TPP has suddenly become a hot topic in the progressive/left circles and there is a groundswell of anti-Obama activism from his own party on it. The TPP is the Trans-Pacific Partnership - a free trade agreement for the US and Pacific Rim countries.

Hillary Clinton is being attacked by the left before she even decides to run.

Here is a good article in support of the TPP: http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/12/why-obamas-key-trade-deal-with-asia-would-actually-be-good-for-american-workers/

For the record I will not support a protectionist/anti-trader even if it means I have to vote for the dreaded Republican Party.

Is this an important issue to others? Is it an on-line argument for the most part? Would this issue matter to you?

2

Unless Liz Warren runs, there isn’t going to be an anti-free trade Democrat getting the nomination. What should concern you more is that the Democratic candidate is likely to simply lie about the TPP and then support it anyway once elected.

But I’m open to being pleasantly surprised.

3

Free trade, is one of those weird things where some of the far right and far left seem to be in agreement. The more moderates on both sides seem to support free trade while diehard leftists and diehard rightists oppose it.

4

It’s a huge issue to me. In picking a President I heavily weight the international. The President can cajole, inspire, and encourage the legislative branch and veto things they don’t like but they don’t legislate. Foreign policy (both using force and diplomacy) and negotiating trade agreements are areas where they have the lead.

Free trade is one of the least contentious issues among economists. I don’t usually do all or nothing litmus tests for a vote but sounding like they’d killi TPP at the executive level would be a serious mark against a candidate in a heavily weighted area for me. Of course I’m a Republican. :smiley: Taking “shots” at her for trade just strengthens her case for my vote.

5

A lot of people are against the “free” trade agreement for reasons other than being isolationist right-wingers.

For instance it appears to reduce or remove the right of countries to regulate their own markets; Australia’s tough laws on cigarette packaging is thought to be a target once this TPP comes in. IOW ‘free’ trade is being used as a cover for a move to destroy quite sensible regulation. Oh, and also to drive up the price that Australians will pay for patented medicines, which is quite low now by world standards. And to extend the lifetime of medical patents, allowing companies to make trivial modifications to their formulations that have no therapeutic benefit but allow them to re-start the patent expiry clock .

It allows companies to sue countries for passing laws that negatively affect them, regardless of how justified those laws are.

I’m all for freer trade, but not virtually unregulated trade, no.

6

Any treaty limits a country’s ability to make its own laws. I’m not sure that’s a very good argument against trade treaties.

Secondly, trade treaties don’t create unregulated trade. In fact, libertarians often oppose trade treaties because they tend to be so long and complicated and don’t actually create free trade conditions. What they do often do is create labor standards in third world countries. Most of the complaints about trade with other countries involve countries we DON’T have FTAs with, like China, India, and once upon a time, Japan(ah, I remember fondly the days when people used to complain about competition from other first world countries).

But your point is valid. There are reasons to oppose treaties with objectionable clauses, or treaties where we give away a lot for little in return. So I’d expect two things from a candidate opposing TPP:

  1. Articulate the objections, and how we could get to “yes”.
  2. Not just be taking a campaign stance.

Also, if a candidate is speaking out against NAFTA, they are simply lying unless they have a long history as a protectionist. Anyone who believes a candidate with a free trade history who says they oppose NAFTA is a gullible fool.

7

I have no idea what the objections to the TPP are from an American point of view … well, that’s not actually completely true, I can think of one good reason. Do you know what’s in it? No, as far as I know no-one does. “Release the text” has been a political rallying cry ever since the TPP was first heard of. So that’s a pretty slam-dunk reason to be against it. Governments have NO BUSINESS legislating ‘on our behalf’ if they’re not prepared to tell us what the content of the legislation is.

From an Australian point of view it’s a fucking awful piece of legislation - well, insofar as we’re actually allowed to know what it is. How much ‘freedom’ are we getting when we restrict our sovereignty in favour of corporate interests? At least when our government does something we hate we can kick them out at the next election. We have no power whatsoever over large corporations operating out of other countries - we don’t even seem to be able to make them pay the proper amount of tax they owe us.

So please, do the RestOfTheWorld™ a favour and be against the TPP

8

That’s the main issue I’ve got with what I’ve heard about this thing. The only sort of legislation that I would say has a reasonable cause to be kept secret, assuming governments are claiming to represent the people, is legislation with a considerable national security interest that would expose a country to danger if it wasn’t secret. Intelligence agreements, certain contents of military alliances, things like that. I don’t see how a trade agreement should contain any overriding national security interest that justifies keeping its details secret.

9

This is reminding me of the furor over the Kyoto Protcol. Environmentalists fumed over the fact that the US didn’t ratify it. But why should we ratify a treaty that places onerous requirements on us, while other countries like China & India get a free pass to pollute all they wanted? It smacked of being blatantly anti-American, with absolutely no upside, because any greenhouse gas emmissions we did acheive were guaranteed to be negated by China. Basically, nobody ever offered a compelling reason why we should shoot ourselves in the foot.

10

Worrying about free trade to me (gay atheist) while the Republicans are as they currently are is like worrying about the water bill while your house is burning down around you.

I’m not voting for Hillary if she’s the candidate. I’m voting AGAINST the Republican, whoever it is. I don’t care if the lifebuoy was made in Japan or the US if I’m drowning.

11

This is another example of the Dope being not so lib. People here are calling anti-TPP people anti-free trade and protectionists. Funny, didn’t know I was on Red State.

Don’t worry OP, the owners of society tend to get what they want. I’m not sure why you’d identify with them if you’re not one of them, but you’re definitely backing the winning horse. Liberals can’t do anything here but natter on the internet while getting steamrolled IRL.

Agreed, when the election cycle starts for real this has potential for high comedy. Or maybe there won’t be a need to pretend?

12

I don’t know how much of this deal is actually about ‘free trade’ and how much of it is allowing international businesses to overrule other national, state, and local laws.

If the U.S. wants to negotiate a tariff-free zone with other countries, I’m fine with that as long as the other countries are for it as well. Similarly with other standards for allowing goods into and out of the country.

That’s the ‘trade’ part, and I’m for it.

But from what we’ve seen of the leaked materials, a lot of this agreement is about giving corporations increased rights vis-a-vis local governments, and I’m broadly against that sort of thing: if anything, state and local governments should have more power to rein in corporations that are doing business within their borders.

I realize that negotiations in progress between countries are sensitive things, and I hardly expect to see every fresh draft while negotiations are in progress. But at a minimum, whatever draft the U.S. initially put forward as a basis for negotiations should be public, and I don’t think it would be unreasonable for updated drafts to be made available as well during major intermissions from the talks.

If the Administration is expecting the people’s representatives to approve this thing, then it ought to give we, the people, a pretty good idea of what our Administration hopes the final draft will look like, whether or not they can actually get everything they want.

13

Yeah, I am a little perturbed at some Democrats for attempting to sabotage the President on the TPP by denying fast track authority. They would still get to read it and provide advice and consent as required. It is not the GOP doing this.

Their objections fall into two categories. Some don’t like trade and some object to the investor-state provisions. The latter seem to think that foreigners will set up shop here and then sue the US for something. But the US has never lost one of these suits in the long history of Investor-State disputes.

14

Fine. Don’t vote for a progressive then.

The TPP negotiations are generally seen as sketchy. I understand the attraction of fast-tracking treaties to get them past the sort of Congress we have now, but there’s already a lot of trade between the various negotiating nations, and it’s unclear that this will add much economic value. Its IP clauses may cause problems for the signatories, though.

15

There is a campaign in Europe on exactly this point. The idea that companies could sue in more or less secret tribunals to overturn a public policy that applies equally to all participants in an economy is thoroughly undemocratic, and the secrecy over negotiations sounds like a cover-up. In Britain’s case, the anxiety is that the scheme could be used to force the government to commercialise public services like the NHS.

16

While I’m certainly not a fan of knee-jerk anti-free trade sentiment (especially those weepers and thugs who engage in mass public disturbances like the 1999 Seattle WTO riots), I don’t see why trade in and of itself is such a big issue when others such as health care, the integrity of New Deal/Great Society programs like Social Security and Medicare, infrastructure, and so forth are at stake.

17

In and of itself, it isn’t. The terms of trade, and governing regulations, dispute resolution procedures and so on, very much are, and should be. The risk under TTIP is that it’s skewed too much towards favouring corporate interests over democratic ones, a perception that is enhanced by all the secrecy about the negotiation process

18

I’ll comment on free trade in general, not TPP specifically. While it’s a truism that free trade increases world productivity, it’s a bad knee-jerk reaction to automatically support all free trade measures. It’s a fact that some Americans lose thir jobs due to free trade, so it can be against self-interest.

Two anecdotes may illustrate why “free trade” becomes a sad joke.

(1) I like foreign movies. Even if we stipulate that Hollywood movies are objectively better, they’re all of a sameness, and it’s interesting and refreshing to watch a foreign-made movie. Because of Hollywood superiority, many countries cannot successfully market their own movies, even in their own countries, without government subsidies. Such subsidies promote cultural diversity.

Such subsidies are ILLEGAL under WTO rules. Countries like Poland, where some huge portion of movies watched were Hollywood movies before WTO, have seen that portion become much huger. The sick irony is that that WTO rule was supposedly motivated by “promoting diversity.” :eek:

(2) One of the duties of the U.S. Administration is to protect its industries from unfair competition. Guess what U.S. industry President Clinton “went to bat” for in a big way, to counter reciprocal European accusations?

Bananas! That’s right; to help Americans get compensation from European anti-American trade rules, Europeans were forced to buy more “U.S.” bananas. But these bananas were not grown on U.S. soil, nor were they cultivated, picked or packed by U.S. hands. What made these bananas into “U.S.” bananas? The companies that profit from them trade their stock on the New York Stock Exchange (and pay money to Washington lobbyists).

I’m not anti-trade, and am not looking for a lecture on Junior High School economics. But those who cling to the simple theme “Free trade is always good – it’s a no-brainer” are missing very very much.

And yes, call me a Trotskyite or tree-hugger if you wish, but there are important values distinct from maximizing world production.

19

The issue of “free trade” and (what has been leaked from the secret contents of) the TPP have virtually nothing to do with each other. Demanding that politicians support the latter because you support the former is as logically disjoint as the statement “Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana”.

20

As with any major international trade pact, there will be good and bad in it.

By the way, this TPP thing is going to be ratified. When the corporate interests are invested, it’s a done deal.

“It’s kinda like having sex with Kobe Bryant: kick and scream all you want, but it’s going to happen”

The major problem with this, is that these negotiations have been conducted amidst intense secrecy, and now Obama wants to “fast-track” this so it gets passed before the public even knows what’s in it.

I lean toward reducing trade barriers as much as reasonably possible. The key word being “reasonably.” I don’t think corporations residing in foreign nations should have overriding power when they conduct business. That may seem like common sense, but it’s the kind of thing that is so controversial it requires intense secrecy to sneak by us.