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trans-pacific partnership
Groups Demand Clinton Publicly Oppose Lame-Duck TPP Vote--Now
A vote in Congress after the election 'would send an unmistakable signal that the game is rigged in favor of elites and against everyday Americans'
Aug 25, 2016
Heavy-hitting progressive groups have sent a letter to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, urging her to make "a clear, public, and unequivocal statement opposing any vote on the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the post-election, 'lame-duck' session of Congress."
"Allowing a lame-duck vote would be a tacit admission that corporate interests matter more than the will of the people, relying on members of Congress who will be less accountable to voters."
The letter, published at Medium, says Clinton's "continued leadership is sadly necessary as President [Barack] Obama refuses to abandon this unpopular deal."
Even as the White House gears up for an all-out, post-election push on the maligned 12-nation trade deal, "the American public and their elected representatives in both parties are increasingly concluding that the TPP puts corporations ahead of human needs on jobs and wages, human rights, access to medicine, climate change and more," wrote the signatories, including environmental group 350 Action, the Communications Workers of America union, and grassroots political organization Democracy for America.
"In the face of such opposition," they continued, "allowing a lame-duck vote would be a tacit admission that corporate interests matter more than the people's will, relying on members of Congress who will be less accountable to voters. Regardless of the outcome, a vote itself would send an unmistakable signal that the game is rigged in favor of elites and against everyday Americans."
To that end, the groups demanded that Clinton "immediately make a clear and strong public statement" against the vote.
The missive follows a concerted campaign calling on Clinton--who supported the TPP as secretary of state before coming out against it--to take the lead in killing the deal. In the past two weeks, more than 100,000 people have signed CREDO and Democracy for America petitions that ask Clinton the same question. Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, who is advising Clinton on her campaign, also said Tuesday that to "rush [the TPP] through in a lame-duck session" would be "outrageous" and "wrong."
As for the candidate herself, she offered her "strongest words yet" against the TPP earlier this month--saying she would oppose the deal "after the election" and "as president"--but stopped short of pushing Obama on the issue.
Is that because, as Cenk Uygur of "The Young Turks" hypothesized this week, she knows that if she's elected, she'll have to support the deal?
Meanwhile, NBC News notes that Clinton's former primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), "used the launch of his new group Wednesday night to say he too was spoiling for a fight" on the corporate-friendly agreement, opposition to which was a cornerstone of his campaign.
"Let me be very clear. I will do everything I can to defeat the TPP if it comes to the floor of the Senate, as I expect it will," Sanders said during his Our Revolution live address. "The American people have got to stand together and say no to the TPP."
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Rightwing vs. Leftwing Populists on Global Trade
Jul 01, 2016
It must have given the earnest wonks at the Economic Policy Institute a bit of a start when Donald Trump touted their research in a speech courting white, working-class voters by criticizing NAFTA and U.S. trade policy with China.
EPI president Lawrence Mishel was moved to respond in a blog post titled "Trump's Trade Scam."
"If he is so keen to help working people, why does he steer the discussion back toward the traditional corporate agenda of tax cuts for corporations and the rich?" Mishel wrote, hastening to distance himself from Trump.
Progressives who have long criticized trade deals that favor multinational corporations, suppress wages, accelerate outsourcing, and replace local democracy with unelected tribunals shrink from keeping company with the racist, isolationist right.
This is equally true in Trump's America and Britain, which is newly divorced from the rest of Europe. Guardian columnist Gary Younge concurs with Michel on the fraudulence of rightwing anti-globalism, and particularly the immigrant-bashing Brexit campaign:
"The very people who are slashing resources--the Tory right-- and diverting what's left to the wealthy are the ones rallying the poor by blaming migrants for the lack of resources," Younge wrote.
"Not content with urinating on our leg and telling us it's raining, they have found someone to blame for the weather."
Rightwing populists are making a lot of noise about the weather lately--that is, the lousy economic climate brought on by trade deals that favor corporations at the expense of labor. As a result, they are making inroads with an anxious working class.
"Progressives can't afford to cede economic populism to the man who could prove to be the most effective white nationalist campaigner of our generation," Tarso Luis Ramos, executive director of the rightwing watchdog group Political Research Associates, put it to me recently, when I interviewed him about Donald Trump.
I spoke with Melinda St. Louis, International Campaigns Director for Public Citizens' Global Trade Watch to get a progressive view on globalization. St. Louis has spent her career working on fair trade.
She is optimistic about a global movement for economic justice.
"I don't think we're ceding talking points on this," she says, pointing to the campaign to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which she calls "kind of exciting."
Both major parties pushed multinational corporations' agenda in big trade deals for years. But not this year. Growing public ire over NAFTA, especially in the Rust Belt, which has seen more than 57,000 factories offshored, has changed the political debate. St. Louis points out:
"Now the candidates are fighting over who hates the TPP more. That is a prudent response since all of the trade unions, environmental groups, LGBT organizations, women, retirees--the entire progressive base is opposing TPP.
It's not about trade or not trade, it's about who writes the rules and who benefits."
Human rights advocates see no reason for the TPP to make it easier for Malaysia, which has a problem with human trafficking, to access U.S. markets. LGBT activists don't want to roll out the red carpet for Brunei, which is bad on LGBT rights.
Overall, the trouble with the TPP is that it "doesn't learn the lessons of NAFTA," St. Louis says. "It expands incentives for offshoring and creates more opportunities to challenge environmental and health and safety laws through secret tribunals."
The public is increasingly unhappy with such deals.
St. Louis notes the TransCanada corporation's recent Keystone claim against the United States under NAFTA's rules. "Obama listened to activists, who pointed to the environmental and economic damage, and now we, the taxpayers, could be on the hook for $15 billion because of an unaccountable trade deal. Why on earth would we want to expand that through the TPP?"
Perhaps the biggest difference between left and right-wing views of global trade is that while right-wing populists blame immigrants and foreign workers, progressives see workers across borders making common causes.
"I worked in Central America during the Central America Free Trade Agreement negotiations, and the people in Central America said at the time, 'This is going to decimate us,'" says St. Louis. "Sure enough, we've seen an increase in inequality and instability in the region since CAFTA passed."
St. Louis speaks with feeling about "the brightest, most entrepreneurial people" leaving Southern Mexico and Central America to make the dangerous trek North, not because they think the streets in the United States are paved with gold, but because there are no other opportunities for them:
"To see these families in a place where family is so important being broken up for years--parents sending money to their children, but not seeing them for fifteen years--it's devastating."
Scapegoating these immigrants is particularly outrageous, she says, since economic and trade policies have been a major contributor to their plight.
Take the two million Mexican farmers who lost their livelihoods under NAFTA when U.S.-subsidized corn flooded the market at lower prices than the production cost.
Despite the bad economic news and the ominous rightwing backlash, St. Louis is optimistic about the global movement for economic justice:
"When there is this level of overreach of corporate greed people do mobilize and beat it back. A couple of years ago it was unthinkable that the TPP would be a major issue in the presidential campaign."
There have been other victories. Massive opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas--a proposed NAFTA expansion--killed that plan. Likewise, citizen organizing helped kill the Multilateral Agreement on Investments.
Liberal economists, including Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and Robert Reich, have moved away from their pro-NAFTA positions and begun to support the call for fair trade. St. Louis sums it up:
"There is a populist response from the left and the right. Elites should pay attention."
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Backers of Sanders Mobilize to Overthrow DNC Platform's Pro-TPP Stance
'Opposition to the job-killing TPP should not be controversial within the Democratic Party,' declares progressive advocacy group. So why is it?
Jun 30, 2016
Before the Democratic Party's platform is finalized at a meeting late next week, Bernie Sanders and his progressive allies are mobilizing to ensure that opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—described by its critics as a global corporate power grab—becomes the party's official stance.
Though President Obama continues to lobby hard on behalf of the controversial deal, and despite a proposal to include such language being voted down during a drafting session last weekend in St. Louis, Sanders and his supporters are making their case into a rallying cry about the future of the Democratic Party.
On Wednesday, the Sanders campaign and Democracy for America, a progressive advocacy group, launched petitions calling on the platform committee to include the anti-TPP language in the final version.
"The Democratic Platform includes a number of very important initiatives that we have been fighting to achieve during this campaign," reads the petition from the Sanders campaign. "But one big item is missing: preventing the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal from ever coming up for a vote in Congress."
In addition to citing Sanders' and Clinton's publicly stated opposition to the TPP, the Sanders petition points out that key Democratic voting blocs—including "virtually every labor union, environmental group, and even major religious groups"—also oppose it. The petition argues that the party should now "go on record in opposition to holding a vote on the TPP during the lame duck session of Congress and beyond."
According to DFA's petition, "opposition to the job-killing TPP should not be controversial within the Democratic Party: Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton campaigned against the TPP during this year's presidential primary."
Though many have questioned Clinton's resolute opposition to the TPP, others are willing to take her at her word and argue that Obama and other pro-TPP forces within the Democratic Party undermined her campaign by not following through. Either way, outside progressive forces have remained vigilant against the corporate-friendly agreement even as Obama argues for it.
Meanwhile, in an op-ed in the New York Times this week, Sanders warned the Democratic leadership they needed to "wake up" when it comes to recognizing just how frustrated working people and the poor are when it comes to an economic system that is so clearly rigged against them.
While the 15-member committee voted down the measure in St. Louis by a 10-5 vote--with the five Sanders-appointed members voting in favor and all the Clinton- and DNC-appointed members voting against--the split offers a window into how Sanders and the millions of voters inspired by his campaign hope to influence the party in the weeks and months ahead. In turn, the battle over TPP and similar fights related to the minimum wage, climate action, and universal healthcare will reveal much about how the party establishment, currently transitioning its leadership from Obama to Clinton, will respond to the groundswells from below.
As the Washington Post reports Thursday, members of the platform panel who voted to reject the anti-TPP proposal said the White House's influence, not their own feelings on TPP, most impacted their decision.
Citing "people with knowledge of the platform negotiations," the newspaper reports how
Sanders used his post-primary meeting with the president to say he would push for the party to officially oppose the TPP. The president said he would now allow it. And since then, the White House has leaned on key Democrats to make sure that the platform did not include a rebuke.
This is how Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), co-chair of the platform committee, explained his vote: "We have one president, and I have listened to him argue his case many times, and I know that he truly believes this. He really does. I disagree with him, but I don't want to do anything, as he ends his term, to undercut the president. I'm just not going to do it. In his last six months? I'm not gonna do that."
Sanders, however, appears very willing to challenge the president on the issue that he believes will so negatively impact the planet, people, and communities for generations to come.
"Well, I don't want to embarrass the president either. He's a friend," Sanders told USA Today in an interview this week. "But in a Democratic society, people can have disagreements."
In a series of tweets that began Wednesday night and continued into Thursday morning, he made it clear that the fight over TPP is among the foremost issues on his mind:
The question, however, remains: If a majority of the Democrats on the panel oppose the TPP, the presumptive nominee opposes it, and the challenging candidate who won 22 primary contests by stirring the hopes of millions of voters opposes it, why can't the DNC leadership take this opportunity to recalibrate the party's trajectory on this seminal issue?
The full Democratic Platform Committee will meet in Orlando on July 8th and 9th to approve the final draft of the platform.
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Donald Trump Vows Torture (Again): 'I Like Waterboarding A Lot'
"I don't think it's tough enough," Trump says of waterboarding.
Jun 29, 2016
Donald Trump has reaffirmed his backing of torture.
Speaking at a campaign rally Tuesday in St. Clairsville, Ohio, he said of the terrorist group ISIS, "We have to fight so viciously and violently because we're dealing with violent people."
"What do you think about waterboarding?" he asked the crowd. "I like it a lot," he said to cheers. "I don't think it's tough enough."
The comments, which came in the wake of the bomb and gun attack on Istanbul's Ataturk airport that killed scores, were "about as Trumpian as you could get," according to one commentator.
Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton, for her part, responded to the Turkish attack by calling for the U.S. to "deepen our cooperation with our allies and partners in the Middle East" to confront terrorism. "Such cooperation is essential to protecting the homeland and keeping our country safe," she said.
The presumptive Republican nominee has previously embraced the torture technique, saying in the last Republican presidential debate before the New Hampshire primary, "I would bring back waterboarding, and I'd bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding."
He also said following the deadly Brussels terror attacks in March that if he were commander-in-chief, "waterboarding would be fine," adding, "If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding."
During the Ohio speech Tuesday, Trump also denounced the Trans-Pacific Partnership and compared it to rape.
The trade deal was "done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country. That's what it is, too," he said.
Jezebel writer Joanna Rothkopf called it "an obviously despicable turn of phrase for anyone who has been the victim of sexual assault, faces the constant threat of assault, or has any sympathy for people who do."
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Trump Just Drove a Truck Through Hole DNC Platform Panel Left in Clinton's TPP Promise
Platform committee's waffling on trade leaves Clinton vulnerable to Trump's predictable attacks
Jun 28, 2016
Laying bare how dangerous it could be for Democrats to ignore populist opposition to corporate-friendly "free trade" deals, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday attacked Hillary Clinton for her stance on trade in general and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in particular.
In Monessen, Pennsylvania, Trump said the "TPP would be the death blow for American manufacturing" and vowed to "withdraw" the U.S. from the agreement.
According to prepared remarks, he said Clinton took "a leading part" in drafting the 12-nation deal, noting that the former secretary of state "praised or pushed the TPP on 45 separate occasions and even called it the 'gold standard'.
"Hillary Clinton was totally for the TPP just a short while ago, but when she saw my stance, which is totally against it, she was shamed into saying she would be against it too," he said. "But have no doubt, she will immediately approve it if it is put before her, guaranteed. She will do this just as she has betrayed American workers for Wall Street throughout her career."
With this claim, MSNBC reporter Alex Seitz-Wald wrote on Twitter, Trump appeared to be "speaking directly to [Bernie] Sanders supporters." Sanders has made opposition to the TPP and other rights-trampling deals a cornerstone of his campaign.
Trump also said he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)--and placed partial blame for that deal at Clinton's feet. "It was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA in 1993 and Hillary Clinton who supported it," he said.
The real estate mogul's speech follows the Democratic National Committee's platform drafting panel's vote not to oppose the TPP, despite the fact that both Clinton and Sanders have opposed the deal. As Common Dreams reported, the Clinton-allied majority on the committee outvoted the Sanders delegates 10-5 to defeat the anti-TPP measure, citing President Barack Obama's support.
In doing so, argues Dave Johnson of the Campaign for America's Future in an op-ed Tuesday, they handed Trump "powerful ammunition" for his claims that Clinton is only "pretending" to oppose the agreement.
Johnson writes:
TPP and past "trade" deals are incredibly unpopular with working-class voters, and Republicans are preparing a full-scale attack on Clinton's credibility over the unpopular TPP. They are making the case that Clinton actually supports TPP but is pretending she does not in order to get votes. They say the president's efforts to pass TPP in the post-election "lame duck" session back up their claims. This pro-TPP vote by Clinton supporters on the platform committee will likely bolster the Republican argument.
[...] It appears that the party elite just don't understand the public's overwhelming opposition to TPP. The pro-TPP members of the platform committee say they must support a Democratic president. But what about the interests of the public, labor and working people, the environment, the economy and their own nominee?
In an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, Sanders agreed that the committee's established voices were working against the party and undermining Clinton's stated position.
"I was quite surprised to see that Secretary Clinton's delegates rejected our proposal to kill the TPP even though she has indicated she does not want to see it get onto the floor [of the U.S. Congress]," Sanders told Mitchell.
Meanwhile, as in the primary campaign, Clinton's refusal to come out swinging against corporate-friendly trade deals is costing her support of working-class voters in the general election--a dynamic Public Citizen's Lori Wallach predicted back in March when she declared: "Americans' opposition to job-killing trade policies fueled the stunning Bernie Sanders upset victory in Michigan. However, it could also be a deciding factor in the general election, especially with Donald Trump being the likely GOP nominee. The outcome of the Michigan primary shows the potency of trade issues and foreshadows the trouble Hillary Clinton could face winning key Midwestern states in a race against Trump."
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Democratic Party Platform Committee Undermines Clinton On TPP
Jun 28, 2016
The Democratic party's elites must not think that trade and jobs will be big issues in the coming election. Apparently, they've never listened to a Donald Trump speech and didn't notice that working-class people in the United Kingdom just voted for "Brexit" from the European Union (EU) over these issues.
The Democratic platform writing committee has voted not to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Most of the committee is pro-TPP, saying that opposing the agreement would undermine President Obama's efforts to pass it.
The problem is, this hands Trump, as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, powerful ammunition as he says Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton is only "pretending" to oppose the agreement.
Platform Committee Won't Oppose TPP
The Hill explains, in "Sanders: 'We lost some very important fights' in Democratic platform":
[T]he panel did block several proposals favored by Sanders and his supporters. It refused to adopt a proposed amendment by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) that would have opposed President Obama on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- both Sanders and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have spoken against the trade deal. Instead, the panel backed a measure that acknowledged "a diversity of views in the party" on the TPP.
More from AP: "Democrats reject platform proposal opposing trade deal":
Democrats on Friday voted down an amendment to the party's platform that would have opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, avoiding an awkward scenario that would have put its statement of values at odds with President Barack Obama.
Members of a Democratic National Convention drafting committee defeated a proposal led by Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., that would have added language rejecting the Pacific Rim trade pact, which has been opposed by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
The panel, which is developing the party's platform ahead of next month's Philadelphia convention, instead backed a measure that said "there are a diversity of views in the party" on the TPP and reaffirmed that Democrats contend any trade deal "must protect workers and the environment."
Trump, Republicans Attacking Clinton Over TPP
TPP and past "trade" deals are incredibly unpopular with working-class voters, and Republicans are preparing a full-scale attack on Clinton's credibility over the unpopular TPP. They are making the case that Clinton actually supports TPP but is pretending she does not in order to get votes. They say the president's efforts to pass TPP in the post-election "lame duck" session back up their claims. This pro-TPP vote by Clinton supporters on the platform committee will likely bolster the Republican argument.
Trump gave a major speech on June 22, attacking Clinton for "corruption." A major portion of the speech was dedicated to his opposition to TPP, and claims that Clinton actually supports the agreement, only claiming to oppose it to get votes. He said:
Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas - and give up Congressional power to an international foreign commission.
Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she is pretending that she is against it.
Backing up Trump's arguments, Republicans and Republican outlets have started to go after Clinton again and again over TPP. The danger is that when conservative outlets begin a drumbeat, "mainstream" outlets often pick it up and amplify it.
This is what right-leaning voters are hearing. This is from Fox News, headlined "Paperback version of Clinton's 'Hard Choices' omits her former TPP trade pact support":
The paperback version of Hillary Clinton's memoir "Hard Choices" fails to include her support of the international trade pact TPP that rivals Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have opposed, raising criticism about Clinton "reinventing herself" for the general election race.
On Breitbart, one post is headlined, "Donald Trump: Clinton's TPP Would Sacrifice American Jobs and Economic Independence":
A Hillary Clinton Presidency would enact the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and lead to a massive jobs depression in the same pattern of Clinton's career according to Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump who laid out a litany of Clinton misconduct in a highly anticipated Wednesday morning address.
"If [Hillary Clinton] is elected President she will adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership and we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good," said Trump.
Just as she has betrayed the American worker and trade at every single stage of her career and it will be even worse than the Clinton's NAFTA deal. And I never thought it could get worse than that. We will lose jobs. We will lose employment. We will lose taxes. We will lost everything. We will lose our country.
"Mainstream" outlets are already amplifying Trump's theme:
* World Trade Online: "Trump Says Clinton Only 'Pretending' To Oppose TPP"
* Morning Consult: "Trump Says Clinton Would Implement Controversial Trade Deal"
* Time: "Donald Trump Accuses Hillary Clinton of Corruption as Secretary of State":
One of Trump's main lines of attack was on Clinton's position on the Trans Pacific Partnership, the massive trade deal that would link the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations. "If she becomes president she will adopt the Trans Pacific Partnership," Trump argued.
Dem Platform Handing This Issue To Trump
The Brexit vote shows that people are sick and tired of elite schemes to drive down wages. TPP is one such scheme and voters get it.
Trump, Sanders, and Clinton have all expressed opposition to the TPP. President Obama apparently doesn't understand what is happening in the world in reaction to the damage workers have suffered from trade agreements.
John Nichols writes at The Nation, in "What the Democrats Must Learn About Free-Trade Deals From Brexit":
Plenty of Americans are unsettled about Britain's vote to exit the European Union. And a lot of what unsettles them is Donald Trump's claim that the Brexit vote sets the stage for a similar reaction against elite political and economic arrangements in the United States.
[. . .] The Leave campaigners in the UK succeeded because there are millions of working-class voters--many of them in the left-leaning "Labour heartlands" of northern England--who know that globalization has not worked for them. Well, there are millions of Americans in battleground states such as Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina who know that globalization has not worked for them.
... "It is hard for me to understand why Secretary Clinton's delegates won't stand behind Secretary Clinton's positions in the party's platform," says Sanders, who has said he will vote for Clinton in her race with Trump but argues that the platform must be strengthened in order to better position Clinton to beat the presumptive Republican nominee.
It is difficult to understand why Clinton supporters are blocking efforts to oppose the TPP agreement. Handing the issue to Trump reinforces his position that Clinton is only "pretending" to oppose it.
The party elite doesn't understand the public's overwhelming opposition to the TPP. The platform committee's pro-TPP members say they must support a Democratic president. But what about the interests of the public, labor, and working people, the environment, the economy, and their own nominee?
Send Democratic party elites a message with this petition: "Don't undermine our presidential nominee. No lame-duck vote on the TPP!" The louder the noise is before the full platform committee, the more likely they are to relent and avoid a full convention floor fight.
Also, see this must-watch video, Burning Issues: Explaining The 'Revolt' Against the TPP:
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Clinton's 'First Major Betrayal'? DNC Surrogates Defeat Anti-TPP Measure
'The Clinton campaign's reversal on TPP is not just bad policy—it's terrible politics,' says Bernie Sanders advisor
Jun 27, 2016
Well, that didn't take long.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, through her surrogates on the Democratic National Committee's platform drafting panel, appears to be already hedging on her most recent stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Clinton flipped her position on the corporate-friendly TPP last October, saying she opposed it after backing it as secretary of state. At the time, Slate ran a piece with the headline, "Hillary Clinton Comes Out Against TPP, at Least Until the Democratic Convention."
Rival Bernie Sanders made opposition to the TPP and similar trade deals a cornerstone of his campaign. He and his allies on the committee supported a proposal led by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) that would have added language rejecting the 12-nation Pacific Rim pact to the 2016 Democratic Party platform.
However, on Friday night in St. Louis, the Clinton-allied majority on the committee outvoted the Sanders delegates 10-5 to defeat that proposal, citing President Barack Obama's support for the deal.
The Associated Press reports:
The panel, which is developing the party's platform ahead of next month's Philadelphia convention, instead backed a measure that said "there are a diversity of views in the party" on the TPP and reaffirmed that Democrats contend any trade deal "must protect workers and the environment."
But Kevin Gosztola argued that other motivations were involved, writing on Sunday, "The only reason why Clinton appointees would not want to put this in the platform was if Clinton was planning to backtrack on her opposition to the TPP if she is elected president."
Indeed, Gosztola continued, the "diversity of views" amendment that did pass merely gives "corporate Democrats cover to support a trade deal that everyone on the platform committee claims is antithetical to the values of Democrats."
As Bill McKibben--a Sanders appointee to the committee--noted at the time, "Every interest group that we've heard from, human rights groups, labor groups, and environmental groups, have been firm in their denunciation of TPP."
What's more, Sanders advisor Larry Cohen wrote in an op-ed on Monday that "the Clinton campaign's reversal on TPP is not just bad policy--it's terrible politics," especially given the electoral realities of the U.S. and the UK's vote to leave the European Union.
He explained:
Donald Trump has argued that Hillary Clinton would sign the TPP, which would cost millions of American jobs. Working-class Americans have had enough of Democratic presidents like Clinton and Obama saying one thing to get elected, and then adopting trade policies that accelerate the race to the bottom. The Brexit vote in the UK was, in part, about working-class disgust with the rigged global economic system that places investment interests far above their own jobs and living standards.
Also at The Nation, John Nichols added:
The Brexit vote is just the latest signal that voters have not just soured on the rough mix of globalization, deindustrialization and austerity that can be traced back to Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States; they are now casting votes based on that opposition. Wealth has been redistributed upward, wages have stagnated, inequality has accelerated. And voters are saying "stop." They are not just doing so in Britain. In the United States, opposition to failed trade policies in general, and to the TPP in particular, played a critical role in helping Sanders secure big victories in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and other states where he was able to focus the debate of economic fundamentals. Clinton has recognized this and spoken with increasingly specificity about her opposition to the TPP--going so far as to declare her disapproval of proposals to organize a post-election vote on the measure by a lame-duck Congress. "I oppose the TPP agreement--and that means before and after the election," [she] declared in May.
To challenge presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, Nichols said, "Democrats must offer a clear, coherent alternative that recognizes the failures of the past (NAFTA), commits to avoiding new failures (TPP), and frames out a vision for the future that repudiates both crude nationalism and crude corporatism."
Meanwhile, on social media, observers suggested this platform battle merely signifies things to come.
As Common Dreams reported this weekend, trade policy wasn't the only area where progressive demands went unmet. Former Ohio Congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich accused the platform committee of taking "a wrecking ball to the U.S. Constitution, the global climate, and world peace," citing not just the TPP stance but also failed measures denouncing fracking and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
The party's position on TPP is not yet set in stone, as the document approved Friday was a draft. The committee will meet again in Orlando before the Democratic National Convention in July. In a statement, Ellison said he hopes his anti-TPP amendment will be adopted there.
As Donna Smith wrote in an op-ed Monday, the meeting in Orlando "may be the last chance for the Party to demonstrate in a very concrete way that they want the 12 million votes cast for Bernie to lean strongly 'D' in November."
Or as Sanders himself told a crowd in New York: "If we do not win that fight in St. Louis, we're taking it to Orlando, where the larger committee will meet next month. If we don't make it in Orlando, we're takin' that fight right to the floor of the Democratic convention. Whether they like it or not, we're going to open the doors of the Democratic Party."
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Trump Speech Shows Clinton Must Be Vociferous In Opposing TPP
Jun 23, 2016
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has said she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But she has also said she will not lobby members of Congress to vote against it. Meanwhile, President Obama continues to push for a vote on TPP in the unaccountable "lame duck" session of Congress.
So who could have predicted that Donald Trump would accuse Clinton of not really opposing TPP?
Clinton Needs To Help Kill TPP
President Obama, Wall Street, and giant multinational corporations are engaged in an effort to push TPP through Congress in the "lame duck" session that will follow the election. In this insult to democracy, incumbent representatives and senators who have been ousted (partly because of their pro-TPP positions) can still vote. Others newly elected (partly because of their opposition to TPP) cannot vote. Politicians re-elected with corporate/Wall Street money can vote to repay their benefactors.
Meanwhile Clinton has been tepid in her opposition to TPP. She has said she will not lobby members of Congress to vote against the trade agreement. She has not asked President Obama to withdraw TPP so she can renegotiate it. And Clinton allies are fighting against a Democratic platform plank opposing TPP because that would embarrass President Obama.
Earlier this month AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka testified before the Democratic Party's platform committee on the need for a strong statement against TPP.
"Unless you make a strong statement [about the TPP], the American public is going to be confused by the opposite side who is very sharp and clear on trade," Trumka said, adding that he thinks Trump doesn't believe what he's saying on trade.
"If we simply muddle through the issue we'll lose votes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan ... every state that's seen a failed trade agreement work to their disadvantage.
"I think we have to be crystal clear and sharp on the issue, otherwise we lose to a Republican Party coming from the left."
Trump Attacks Clinton On TPP
Trumka said, "We need to be crystal clear and sharp on the issue, otherwise we lose to a Republican Party coming from the left." Donald Trump on Wednesday did exactly that.
Here are excerpts from Trump's speech attacking Clinton on TPP:
"[I]t's not just the political system that's rigged. It's the whole economy.
... It's rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers, and sell their products back into the U.S. with absolutely no consequences for them.
... We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism - focusing on what's good for America's middle class - to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy.
We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed.
This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats.
This is a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs.
[...] I have visited the cities and towns across America and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton's disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization.
We've lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed.
Our trade deficit with China soared 40 percent during Hillary Clinton's time as Secretary of State -- a disgraceful performance for which she should not be congratulated, but rather scorned.
Then she let China steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property - a crime which is continuing to this day.
Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself.
In return, Hillary Clinton got rich!
... Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas - and give up Congressional power to an international foreign commission.
Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she is pretending that she is against it. ...
[I]f she is elected president, she will adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good. She will do this, just as she has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career - and it will be even worse than the Clintons' NAFTA deal. ...
I want trade deals, but they have to be great for the United States and our workers.
We don't make great deals anymore, but we will once I become president. I promise you that.
Clinton Responds With Pro-Free-Trade Talking Points?
Clinton's "Correct The Record" super PAC responded to Trump's speech with a "fact check" that actually repeated pro-TPP and pro-free-trade arguments.
Moody's report: Donald Trump's economic proposals "will result in a more isolated U.S. economy," with reduced cross-border trade, immigration, and foreign direct investment. "Broadly, Mr. Trump's economic proposals will result in a more isolated U.S. economy. Cross-border trade and immigration will be significantly diminished, and with less trade and immigration, foreign direct investment will also be reduced. While globalization has created winners and losers in the U.S. economy in recent decades, it contributes substantially to the ongoing growth of the U.S. economy. Pulling back from globalization, as Mr. Trump is proposing, will thus diminish the nation's growth prospects." [Moody's Analytics report, 6/20/16]
...
Moody's report: Donald Trump's trade policies could raise overall consumer prices by 3%, reduce American exports, and hurt growth. "On trade, Mr. Trump has said he would use the threat of a 45% tariff on goods from China and 35% on non-oil imports from Mexico as a negotiating tool in seeking better trade and currency terms. Moody's calculates that tariffs on imports from Mexico and China could increase goods import prices by 15%, raising overall consumer prices by 3%--all before factoring in the costs of retaliation against U.S. exporters. The Moody's economists warn that those tariffs would raise uncertainty for businesses, reducing American exports while corroding growth. While higher tariffs would quickly lead importers to move production to other countries, this would take time and also raise costs for businesses." [Wall Street Journal, 6/20/16]
This is how Clinton's super PAC defends Clinton's positions? Let's look at this.
- Clinton's super PAC says Trump's policies would reduce cross-border trade. What does this mean? When you close a factory, lay off American workers and move production out of the U.S., then bring the same goods back across the border to sell in the same stores here, this increases "cross-border trade" because now those goods cross a border. Clinton's super PAC defends her positions by saying this is a good thing?
- Trump decries "a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs." Clinton's super PAC responds, "Globalization ... contributes substantially to the ongoing growth of the U.S. economy." Globalization is the word for trade deals that close factories in the US and move them to places where people are paid squat so that executives and Wall Street shareholders can pocket the wage differential. This is how Clinton's super PAC defends Clinton's positions?
- Clinton's super PAC says Donald Trump's trade policies could raise overall consumer prices and raise costs for businesses. When you move factories out of the US to places where people are paid squat and there are no costs for polluting the planet, the "business costs" are lower and the goods brought back to sell in the same stores might cost a bit less. But American wages are wiped out. (Nike shoes do not cost less; they sell for what Nike can get, not based on whether they are made by people in near-slavery conditions.) This is how Clinton's super PAC defends Clinton's positions?
Clinton Must Demand Obama Withdraw TPP
Clinton needs to fix her stance on trade. Her super PAC's response demonstrates the problem. She says she opposes the TPP; her own super PAC releases a response to Trump's attack that defends her by talking about how great free trade has been for the country. No wonder no one trusts her when she says she opposes the TPP.
"Clinton must demand that Democrats in Congress vote against TPP, and describe a new trade process that includes labor, environment, consumer, human rights and other stakeholder groups."
This is Clinton's problem. Voters have caught on to the free trade game and how it has been used to enrich a few at the expense of working people worldwide. They despise the free trade deals that have wiped out the middle class, wiped out our manufacturing ecosystem, wiped out wages, wiped out good jobs, and wiped out entire regions of the country. They despise the TPP. They will vote against politicians who do not promise to kill the TPP and mean it. But Clinton is surrounded (and funded) by the very people who have gained from this. So Clinton doesn't look at it as if she means it when she opposes the TPP and similar trade deals. Her own super PAC certainly didn't help with this problem.
Clinton must get loud and get serious on trade. She must tell Obama to withdraw TPP, and certainly not to try to push it through in the lame duck session of Congress following the election. The press has not yet noticed this contradiction between Clinton's stated opposition to TPP and Obama's push to pass it. Trump bringing it up might force this.
Clinton must demand that Democrats in Congress vote against TPP, and describe a new trade process that includes labor, environment, consumer, human rights and other stakeholder groups. This will blunt Trump's attacks.
Clinton must request a strong anti-TPP and anti-free-trade platform from the coming convention. This will give grassroots activists ammunition to use in supporting "down-ballot" Democrats against Trump attacks.
Trump's attack was strong, and Clinton has set herself vulnerable to it. It's time to change that.
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IMF Warns that US Needs to 'Urgently' Tackle Poverty
Nation's increasing inequality threaten its economic well-being, IMF says
Jun 22, 2016
Invest in the nation's infrastructure, raise the minimum wage, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, improve paid family leave, and raise the ceiling for social security contributions.
These suggestions, long-advocated for by progressive organizations, are now being encouraged by none other than the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warned Wednesday of an "urgent need to tackle poverty" in the United States.
While praising the nation's economy's "overall good shape," the IMF said in its assessment that "the U.S. faces potentially significant longer-term challenges to strong and sustained growth. Concerted policy actions are warranted, sooner rather than later."
The nation's economic well-being, it said, is threatened by factors including the shrinking middle class--now at "its smallest size in the last 30 years"--as well as "income and wealth distribution [that] are increasingly polarized" and rising poverty. "One in seven Americans is living in poverty," including 40 percent of whom are working, the body added.
The IMF's suggestions, which also include non-progressive measures like ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership, are based on the benefit of continued economic growth—an idea challenged by some on the left, including authors and climate activists Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein.
The IMF's new findings come less than a month after a paper released by three of its economists concluded that austerity policies were fueling inequality, which in turn hurts growth--"the very thing that the neoliberal agenda is intent on boosting," while the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned at the start of the month of the challenges of rising inequality and called on global governments to take measures to "safeguard living standards for all."
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The TPP 'Lame Duck' Push Insults Democracy
Jun 22, 2016
In the United States, "We the People" are supposed to have a say in how we are governed, right? So shouldn't we have a say in how we are governed?
President Obama, Wall Street and the giant, multinational corporations are pushing - and pushing hard - for a vote in Congress in the "lame duck" congressional session after the election to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The most recent pitch by Obama was on Monday at a summit of business leaders in Washington, where he said the TPP "will do even more to lower the cost of exporting, eliminating taxes and customs duties, and raising intellectual property standards that protect data and ideas and jobs."
Here is why the push is on. The so-called "lame duck" session of Congress is particularly unaccountable. Those who might have been tossed in the November elections can still vote. Newly elected and reelected legislators are not yet sworn in, so they can't vote. And reelected legislators have the opportunity to pay back the big donors who funded their campaigns, knowing voters have two long years to forget what they did.
For example, Rep. Randy Forbes, a Republican representing Virginia's 4th congressional district and a proponent of TPP, lost his primary to Scott Taylor, a TPP opponent who called the deal "Obamatrade" in the Republican primary. The TPP, and Forbes' earlier vote for "fast track" trade authority to grease the skids for TPP, was a major issue in the primary.
But even though Forbes was tossed out by his constituents because of his support for fast track and TPP, he will still be able to vote if TPP comes up in the lame-duck session of Congress. Forbes will be looking for a job - probably from the very corporations that support TPP.
See if you can guess which way he will vote on TPP, after being tossed out for supporting "free trade."
Send Obama a message with this petition: Don't undermine our presidential nominee. No lame-duck vote on the TPP!.
Meanwhile, Obama Makes His Pitch
Reuters reported Monday that when President Obama was out pitching the TPP, it was not simply as a "trade" deal.
"So let me just remind you that this is not just about jobs and trade, it's not just about hard, cold cash. It's also about building relationships across borders. When your companies come together, you help bring countries and cultures together."
That is all well and good, but shouldn't the President be selling a "trade" deal on the merits of the "trade" and jobs it will bring? The problem is this is not about "trade" at all; it's about elevating corporations above governments so corporations can seek the cheapest labor and fewest regulations - and governments can't stop them. The president is talking about non-trade aspects of the agreement because he can't promote the economic benefits to Americans. There aren't any.
The president is not focusing here on the issues the public cares about: the economy and jobs. And, by the way, the president's TPP push undermines the Democratic Party's candidate for president against Republican Donald Trump.
Insult To Democracy
The president, Wall Street and the big corporations are pushing for this vote to occur at this time because they know this is the last time to push it through before the will of the public can take hold. This vote will occur with a lame-duck Congress, a lame-duck president, and a lame-duck "free-trade" policy that is finally being shown the door by the voters.
The corporate/Wall Street elites know the public has figured out how "free trade" has cost us so much. The middle class is being wiped out. Entire regions of the country are being wiped out. Our manufacturing ecosystem is being wiped out. Inequality is soaring and democracy is being replaced by plutocracy.
Opinion polls show that the public is fed up with corporate-dominated trade agreement that enrich a few Wall Street investors and corporate executives at the expense of the rest of the people in the world. Elites know the public wants a new trade paradigm that takes into account the interests - from labor to consumers, from environmental to human rights - of all "stakeholders" in the world's economy.
Elites know the new Congress won't pass it. Elites know that in this election candidates supporting "free trade" are facing obstacles and opponents, even losing their primaries. They know that candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump oppose it. This means that the next president will stop TPP from coming to a vote.
The economic elites want this vote to occur after the election because the new president will oppose it, and the public and the next Congress will stop it.
Leaders should care deeply about the will of the public, not scheme to subvert it. This push for a vote on TPP after the election is an insult to democracy. It is an insult to our economy. It is an insult to the candidates. It is an insult to voters. Don't do it.
What Can You Do?
First, vote. Second, prepare to come to Washington after the election if they try to hold a TPP vote. A million people in the streets might be able to block it.
Sign this petition to "Ask Leader Pelosi to Help Stop a Lame Duck TPP Vote."
Thanks to massive public opposition, there's little chance that the job-killing, planet-destroying Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be voted on before the November election. As a result of millions of people like you speaking out, being pro-TPP has become a huge political liability for any elected official.
So what are the corporations behind the TPP trying to do? They want to schedule a TPP vote immediately after the election.
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