Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) devoted a chunk of her speech about a new report on American inequality to ding President Barack Obama on the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
Warren has previously argued that a major problem with the deal is that Obama and the White House have been trying to keep the text of the deal secret as it makes its way through Congress. Warren on Tuesday grumbled that even Joe Stiglitz, an influential liberal economist who wrote the inequality report, hasn’t been given access to the text of the deal.
“Now, it’s too bad that a Nobel Prize-winning economist isn’t even allowed to read the current trade deal until after Congress votes to grease the skids to make sure that it passes,” Warren said. “Dr. Stiglitz’s report says that, over and over, American workers have taken the brunt of bad trade deals, and he argues that we need to make changes to restore the balance in trade agreements so the playing field isn’t tilted even further. So that it isn’t tilted even more in favor of big multinational corporations and against workers.”
Warren’s comments came the same day Congress is set to vote on whether to “fast track” the deal which would give Obama a wide range of authority on trade promotion.
Warren went on to say that the deal is designed to benefit multinational companies and not workers.
“We can’t continue pushing through trade deals that benefit multinational companies at the expense of workers,” Warren said. “Government cannot continue to be the captive of the rich and powerful. Working people cannot be forced to give up and more and more as they get squeezed harder and harder.”
If Obama is right that either we write the rules for workers, product safety, et al. or China will (not to mention the GOP were it to win the presidency) then I for one am for this deal.
I recall Romney admiring so strongly the treatment of Chinese laborers–locked into their factories at night surrounded by barbed wire, and forced to sleep in dormitories there. In fact it was THAT part of the infamous 47% tape that the waiter originally wanted to see make headlines.
Do you trust the Chinese or the GOP to treat labor right, to not poison our food and atmosphere? Tell me now true.
Personally, I’d like to know what Joseph Stiglitz has to say about the deal. I think I might trust him more than, say, PHARMA, or any groups who may have been involved in TPP’s drafting.
What speech are we talking about? When was it made, and to whom was it given? Any possible links to the speech itself?
If the choice is whether American and International mega-corporations will write the trade rules or China will write the trade rules, I am not at all certain which choice is better. If the mega-corporations (the major outsources of the world) write the rules, why would anyone think that would be good for workers in America?
For what it’s worth, Paul Krugman leans against the deal, but not really for “trade” reasons. He argues (correctly, I’m sure) that classic issues of trade - tariffs, quotas, and whatnot - aren’t really that contentious any more. Trade is pretty liberal amongst the countries involved. The real issues are with IP and international dispute settlement.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com//2015/04/26/this-is-not-a-trade-agreement/
I have argued in these threads and others against people who knee-jerk against trade deals because OMG American Job-Killing NAFTA China owns us already wharrrgarbl. Warren has, to my dismay, used these types of liberal red-meat arguments to whip up popular opinion against the deal.
And also “secrecy”, which sounds really bad until you consider that just a couple of months ago the US Congress told Iran that they could just ignore whatever the Obama Administration was telling them because as soon as he’s gone any deal would go up in smoke. Our trading partners give no fucks about our internal political dynamics (so, “hey, but that’s just the crazy people we elected!” will not carry weight) and so they’d understandably be wary of negotiating a deal that was simultaneously being blasted in the US press and undermined by the US Congress.
I trust Obama, and Krugman, and Warren, so it seems to me there are no easy answers. I’m skeptical of the deal, but not automatically against it because of wharrrgarbl. I don’t generally like government secrecy, unless it is necessary to achieve a tactical or strategic goal - and given the utter clusterfuck that is our Congress and our media I can see why some secrecy may be required even to get our partners to the table.
I sure wish the parents wouldn’t fight, though…
I understand that labor unions were also at the table. So who really knows?
The Congress is privy to the details, which are still in negotiation. Why has no one leaked the odious proposals some claim are in the deal? I know they’re not supposed to take notes, but a Harvard professor surely has the mental acuity to recall them.