In Vietnam-Obama ‘confident’ TPP will be ratified in US despite intense opposition

[nationalize the fed]

23 May 2016: Even though ratification of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has stalled in the US, President Barack Obama said he’s still “confident” the trade deal will earn the support of Congress.

"I remain confident we are going to get it done, and the reason I’m confident is because it is the right thing to do. It’s good for the country, it’s good for America, it’s good for the region, it’s good for the world," Obama said during a joint press conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang in Hanoi.

Leaders signed the 12-nation TPP, which includes the US and Vietnam as members, back in February, but it still requires ratification from each country’s lawmakers before it can go into effect. That process has stumbled, though, as public outcry against international trade deals increases. In the US in particular, all three major-party presidential candidates have come out against the deal.

In Vietnam, Obama reiterated why he believes the TPP is so important, noting that the Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growing part of the world and represents a huge market for the US. He said the TPP would eliminate some 18,000 tariffs that have been placed on American goods sold in Asia.

"I have not yet seen a credible argument that once we get TPP in place we are going to be worse off,” he said. “We are demonstrably better off. American workers and American businesses are better off if we get this deal passed.”

Obama on TPP @ 11:15

However, opponents have railed against the TPP from the outset, criticizing the secret, years-long negotiations and arguing that it will primarily benefit large corporations, not workers. Protesters have argued that many of the regulations that would be stripped away would negatively affect laborers and the environment.

“It would make it easier to offshore American jobs, and it would push down their wages by putting them in direct competition with workers in Vietnam who don’t make but 65 cents an hour,” Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a non-profit consumer advocacy organization, told RT.

MORE: https://www.rt.com/usa/344120-obama-vietnam-tpp-trade-deal/

Ed Shultz on TPP

Feb 23, 2016: President Obama is asking governors to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But is this a last chance at passing the TPP? A closer examination of some of the pro-TPP studies reveals some fishy data. RT’s Ed Schultz is joined by Lori Wallach, Director and Founder of Global Trade Watch, to discuss what could be Obama’s legacy.

[djean111]

1. That's because the fix is in, via Fast Track, and Obama is not really interested in what

the people think. He got his two terms. Looks like he just wants to inflict the TPP - and TTIP - on us so Hillary does not actually have to deal with it.

[yourpaljoey]

2. The feather in his cap to round off his shameful legacy

History (written by an unbiased author) shall remember him poorly

[nationalize the fed]

3. +1

The Bourdain/Obama post got lots of attention, this not so much. Who wants to be reminded of what the Vietnam trip was really all about anyway.

[tritsofme]

4. On his way out the door, Obama is likely to score both TPP and Garland in the lame duck.

Going out with a bang!

[hay rick]

5. Plan A is pass TPP in the lame duck session.

Plan B is Bill Clinton inserts a comma someplace in the text and Hillary proclaims TPP is once again the "gold standard."

[MisterP]

6. inserting a comma someplace? is that what the kids are calling it these days?

[PATRICK]

7. I am getting an uneasy presentiment

of this speedy full court TPP push that it is more than ideology or legacy or faith in the business model it represents. It may be desperation to cement a fractured economical system so that in a future fall the United States will be entwined around everyone else so that THEY will pay for the recovery. It might be desperation more than global growth, blackmail more than shared growth, a shoring up to offset disaster. I can only think, that more than the end of Obama's term it has to do with another oncoming financial storm that will happen regardless of the TPP.

Which of course will be blamed on others for not surrendering the earth to global banks and corporations.

[Ghost Dog]

8. What US goods are or could be sold to S.E. Asia

that could not be produced in S.E. Asia or sourced from elsewhere in international markets with fewer strings attached?

What's in it for those countries, apart from possibly avoiding some of the worst consequences for them of neolib/con 'disaster capitalism/militarism'?

[Albertoo]

9. Once more, Obama is right

Trade barriers are just system inefficiencies, bringing nothing to the plate.