Not So Fast: How Washington Could Kill the TPP Trade Deal
Not so fast: How Washington could kill the trade deal
After six years of grueling negotiations, an agreement on the TPP will soon be released to the world — straight into the neon glare of a presidential election campaign.
By Victoria Guida and Adam Behsudi
10/05/15 11:21 AM EDT
Updated 10/05/15 01:23 PM EDT
The biggest trade deal in history is about to become Washington’s biggest political football.
After nearly six years of grueling negotiations, details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership hammered out behind closed doors will soon be released to the world — straight into the neon glare of a presidential election campaign and a bitterly divided Congress.
President Barack Obama wants the 12-nation deal to cement his economic legacy. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders opposes it as a sellout of American workers. Hillary Clinton, who once pushed it as secretary of State, is now noncommittal. The Republican presidential field is all over the place: Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina are critics, while Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have spoken favorably of it.
Meanwhile, Speaker-in-waiting Kevin McCarthy will have to tame an unruly tea party caucus to push the agreement through the House. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a staunch supporter of free trade, is angry over a provision that would prevent tobacco companies from suing governments over anti-tobacco laws.
"It’s going to be a huge fight," said Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America, which led labor opposition to fast-track authority this spring.
So while the trade ministers of a dozen nations celebrate a historic breakthrough Monday after hundreds of hours spent hashing out detailed agreements on intellectual property rights, labor standards and Japanese rice, the dysfunction and unpredictable nature of the U.S. political system could still conceivably unravel the whole delicately negotiated pact. A vote is likely months away — perhaps even longer than that if Obama waits for the final details to be ironed out before he gives Congress the legally mandated 90-days notice that he intends to sign it.
And the political ride is only expected to get wilder. With populism animating the base of both parties, a trade pact is bound to be unpopular with many early primary voters who already feel disconnected from government, insecure about their jobs and distrustful of anything Washington does.
“Many Americans are suspicious of a deal hatched by big corporations with little or any public input,” said Robert Reich, former Labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. “And the bad jobs situation cause lots of people to worry about more outsourcing abroad.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/trade-deal-future-in-washington-214429
= new reply since forum marked as read
