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Pres Obama, Wall Street, Corp CEOs, & Members Of Congress Strategize on Selling the TPP
President Obama, Wall Street Financiers, Corporate CEOs And Members Of Congress Meet Together To Plan Strategy To Sell And Pass Free-Trade Agreements
12/17/14
The country's top executives from Wall Street and corporate America are working directly with President Obama and members of his cabinet and appointees on passing a free-trade agenda that is unpopular among the president's natural constituents of democrats, labor unions, environmental and consumer groups and the American public as a whole.
Obama, his staff and members of Congress met directly with CEOs of major multinational corporations in Washington, D.C., on December 11 to discuss the "ground game" -- as his aides described it -- needed to persuade Americans on the benefits of free trade and to lobby Congress on passage of Trade Promotion Authority [TPA] and the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] next year.
Under the auspices of the December meeting of the President's Export Council, Obama lambasted opponents of the free-trade agenda he adopted from Presidents Bush and Clinton, arguing that opponents are ignorant of the benefits of trade and admonished them to back off in their effort to oppose passage of TPA and TPP by stating: "Don't fight the last war. You already have."
At the President's Export Council meeting, CEOs of some of America's largest multinational companies responsible for outsourcing hundreds of thousands of American jobs told Obama and his team that they will work together on gearing up a major lobbying effort to pass his trade agenda. Obama and his senior trade and economic appointees welcomed the overture and encouraged them to engage members of Congress and the public.
In joining the meeting of his Export Council, Obama sat between council co-chairs James McNerney, CEO of Boeing, and Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Corp., and encouraged them -- along with two dozen other executives from companies like IBM, Archer Daniels Midland, Dow, Pfizer and Deloitte -- to help him "make the sale. . . It's going to be very important for business to be out there and champion this and show that this is ultimately good for you, for your suppliers, for your workers," Obama said.
Obama told Boeing CEO McNerney to galvanize his company's suppliers "and their workers . . . presumably in every congressional district [to make] the case so [that] it's not just a bunch of CEOs calling [members of Congress] but it's people who understand they've got a stake in it."
Obama said these workers need to overwhelm the "pushback" to free trade that is occurring "from not just labor, not just organized labor, but a public perception generally that trade has resulted in an erosion of our manufacturing base as companies moved overseas in search of lower-wage labor." This may in fact have occurred, though it's debatable, Obama added: "But that horse is out of the barn [since] much of that shift in search of low-wage labor has already occurred."
Prior to Obama's joining the meeting, McNerney told the assembled executives and administration appointees that the "timing of this meeting is critical" to having the CEOs work in "partnership" with the government "as we try to take our message out to the general public" on the importance of passing TPP and TPA. That will "turn into action in the next year. . . on the most ambitious trade agenda I have ever seen," he said. ...
....When looking at the overall trade numbers, Scott notes that imports of goods to the United States were $2.3 trillion in 2013, and exports were $1.6 trillion. This massive and persistent imbalance has led to the direct loss of millions of American jobs, "but the beneficiaries of those imports make a lot of money and they speak loud with large wallets and they have a lot of influence in Washington," said Scott. "Obama has sold out to the highest bidder to keep his party in power and that means cow-towing to Wall Street because that is where all of the power is in this country."
http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/2014/President-And-CEOs-Meet%20To-Pass-TPA-And-TPP-1217141.html
12/17/14
The country's top executives from Wall Street and corporate America are working directly with President Obama and members of his cabinet and appointees on passing a free-trade agenda that is unpopular among the president's natural constituents of democrats, labor unions, environmental and consumer groups and the American public as a whole.
Obama, his staff and members of Congress met directly with CEOs of major multinational corporations in Washington, D.C., on December 11 to discuss the "ground game" -- as his aides described it -- needed to persuade Americans on the benefits of free trade and to lobby Congress on passage of Trade Promotion Authority [TPA] and the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] next year.
Under the auspices of the December meeting of the President's Export Council, Obama lambasted opponents of the free-trade agenda he adopted from Presidents Bush and Clinton, arguing that opponents are ignorant of the benefits of trade and admonished them to back off in their effort to oppose passage of TPA and TPP by stating: "Don't fight the last war. You already have."
At the President's Export Council meeting, CEOs of some of America's largest multinational companies responsible for outsourcing hundreds of thousands of American jobs told Obama and his team that they will work together on gearing up a major lobbying effort to pass his trade agenda. Obama and his senior trade and economic appointees welcomed the overture and encouraged them to engage members of Congress and the public.
In joining the meeting of his Export Council, Obama sat between council co-chairs James McNerney, CEO of Boeing, and Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Corp., and encouraged them -- along with two dozen other executives from companies like IBM, Archer Daniels Midland, Dow, Pfizer and Deloitte -- to help him "make the sale. . . It's going to be very important for business to be out there and champion this and show that this is ultimately good for you, for your suppliers, for your workers," Obama said.
Obama told Boeing CEO McNerney to galvanize his company's suppliers "and their workers . . . presumably in every congressional district [to make] the case so [that] it's not just a bunch of CEOs calling [members of Congress] but it's people who understand they've got a stake in it."
Obama said these workers need to overwhelm the "pushback" to free trade that is occurring "from not just labor, not just organized labor, but a public perception generally that trade has resulted in an erosion of our manufacturing base as companies moved overseas in search of lower-wage labor." This may in fact have occurred, though it's debatable, Obama added: "But that horse is out of the barn [since] much of that shift in search of low-wage labor has already occurred."
Prior to Obama's joining the meeting, McNerney told the assembled executives and administration appointees that the "timing of this meeting is critical" to having the CEOs work in "partnership" with the government "as we try to take our message out to the general public" on the importance of passing TPP and TPA. That will "turn into action in the next year. . . on the most ambitious trade agenda I have ever seen," he said. ...
....When looking at the overall trade numbers, Scott notes that imports of goods to the United States were $2.3 trillion in 2013, and exports were $1.6 trillion. This massive and persistent imbalance has led to the direct loss of millions of American jobs, "but the beneficiaries of those imports make a lot of money and they speak loud with large wallets and they have a lot of influence in Washington," said Scott. "Obama has sold out to the highest bidder to keep his party in power and that means cow-towing to Wall Street because that is where all of the power is in this country."
http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/2014/President-And-CEOs-Meet%20To-Pass-TPA-And-TPP-1217141.html
We are seeing their spin right here at DU.
18 replies
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of the planet.
"Let the markets decide!" cried the megalomaniacal, monopolistic plutocrats who control the markets for their own benefit.
