Sanders to Clinton: We don't need to tinker with the TPP trade agreement. We need to defeat it.

[Cheese Sandwich]

MARCH 12, 2016

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday issued the following statement on comments by Hillary Clinton on a proposed job-killing trade agreement with Pacific Rim nations:

“I hear Secretary Clinton is in Ohio tonight talking about how concerned she is about the auto industry – an industry decimated by the North American Free Trade Agreement and normalized trade with China. She supported those bad deals. I opposed them.

“Now she says she wants to make it tougher for automobiles to be imported to this country under the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership. That’s the deal she called the ‘gold standard’ when she was Secretary of State.

“Well, I have a message for Secretary Clinton: We shouldn’t re-negotiate the Pacific trade proposal. We should kill this unfettered free-trade agreement which would cost us nearly half a million jobs.

“We don’t need to tinker with this agreement. We need to defeat it. We need an entirely new trade policy that creates jobs in this country, not more low-wage jobs abroad.”

https://berniesanders.com/press-release/sanders-clinton-bad-trade-deal-dont-tinker-defeat/

[monicaangela]

1. I agree with Senator Sanders

If we don't defeat this bill we can forget about trying to fix the Anti-Trust laws and all that goes along with that. We can forget about national sovereignty and we can begin to feel natural about paying corporations for doing absolutely nothing. Why, because this agreement gives corporations within and without the U.S. the ability to sue the government if they feel their ability to make a profit has been infringed upon because of some law the government has enacted. The government in this case of course is us and all of those tax dollars the IRS rakes in. Wake up America!

[ucrdem]

6. Have you read it?

There are several ways of resolving international disputes and the basic protocol was apparently established in 1958:

Article 28.23: Alternative Dispute Resolution

1. Each Party shall, to the maximum extent possible, encourage and facilitate
the use of arbitration and other means of alternative dispute resolution for the
settlement of international commercial disputes between private parties in the free
trade area.

2. To this end, each Party shall provide appropriate procedures to ensure
observance of agreements to arbitrate and for the recognition and enforcement of
arbitral awards in such disputes.

3. A Party shall be deemed to be in compliance with paragraph 2 if it is a
party to, and is in compliance with, the United Nations Convention on the
Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards done at New York on
10 June 1958.

https://www.mfat.govt.nz/assets/_securedfiles/trans-pacific-partnership/text/28.-dispute-settlement-chapter.pdf

[Helen Borg]

9. "to the maximum extent possible, encourage and facilitate the use of arbitration"

Yup, like Clinton's comment that she'll break the banks "if necessary".

[kristopher]

55. Concrete example of what the TPP makes worse

Pursuing profits isn't the yardstick by which sound and just social policy is measured. Period.

USA uses TPP-like trade-court to kill massive Indian solar project

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was on track to deliver deploy 20,000 MW of grid connected solar power by 2022 ("more than the current solar capacity of the world’s top five solar-producing countries combined&quot but because India specified that the solar panels for it were to be domestically sourced, the USA sued it in WTO trade court and killed it.

The USA has its own domestic solar initiatives that generally have "buy local" rules, but those are permissible under the WTO. The WTO court ruled that India's buy-local rules were not, and ordered the initiative's cessation despite its role in helping India to meet its obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The Trans Pacific Partnership, a secretly negotiated trade agreement, expands the sorts of powers the WTO creates to allow multinationals to sue governments to repeal policies that undermine their profitability. Expect lots more of this in the future if the TPP passes.

By putting pressure on India’s solar program, and by hiding behind the biased WTO agreements, the United States wants to boost its solar exports to India, which it argues have fallen by 90% from 2011, when India imposed the rules. Claiming that India was unfairly restricting access to American suppliers, US trade representative Michael Froman justified the perverse move in February 2014: “These domestic content requirements discriminate against US exports by requiring solar power developers to use India- manufactured equipment instead of US equipment. These unfair requirements are against WTO rules, and we are standing up today for the rights of American workers and businesses.”

https://boingboing.net/2016/03/13/usa-uses-tpp-like-trade-court.html

[monicaangela]

12. I have read it with annotations..

Have you? If not, maybe you should: https://www.readthetpp.com/ch09.html

[Ferd Berfel]

17. Defending TPP?

I've also seen Hillary supporters here defend NAFTA and Monsanto. Democrats?

mygod.


Secret TPP Text Unveiled: It's Worse than We Thought
https://www.citizen.org/tpp

[monicaangela]

42. I believe the poster has flown the coop

Too much information I guess.

[merrily]

53. I know, right? Iraq War vote, too.

[ucrdem]

2. Next up: Bernie challenges Hillary to join him in disowning Bill and Chelsea.

[monicaangela]

4. If it will get her votes

I'm sure she's in.

[AzDar]

41. ...

[leftofcool]

10. Yep.

[A Simple Game]

20. I thought Hillary supporters were all happy that Bernie

was at least pulling Hillary to the left.

Nahh, I knew most didn't want her pulled to the left, I was just kidding.

[stupidicus]

40. next up: a non-topical, snarky attempt to obscure a lack of rebuttal material

HC supporters almost always suffer from

[merrily]

50. I really need to read the entire thread before posting.

Had I seen your reply to him, I would have known mine was unnecessary.

[stupidicus]

56. lol

I'm sure they don't mind. Negative attention of this sort was no doubt the goal anyway

[merrily]

49. Most hyperbolic non sequitur deflection attempt ever. Kudos!

[bigwillq]

3. But...it's The Gold Standard.

[corkhead]

66. Yes, those with all the gold are the ones who set the standard.

[bigwillq]

67. .....

[Teamster Jeff]

5. kick rec

[djean111]

7. Hillary knows fucking right fucking well that Fast Track - given to us by the GOP and DINOs -

means the damned thing CANNOT BE TINKERED WITH.

She knows that. Up or down vote. No changes, no deletions, no amendments, no additions. Obama and the GOP have us locked into that. Hillary is lying to our faces about that "tweaking" bullshit.

[GoneFishin]

11. +1.

[brentspeak]

13. Typical disingenuous HRC

I cannot recall the last time that Hillary has actually told the full truth about anything.

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. Hillary is lying.....SHOCKER!!!NOT!!!

[SusanCalvin]

62. Thanks for the reminder - the lies continue.

Thank goodness for the internet and folks like you.

[BillZBubb]

8. Hillary will sign off on the TPP no matter what she is saying now.

People who believe anything she says on this issue during the campaign are naïve or as dishonest as she is.

[GoneFishin]

14. Yep. She sides with big money every time, and TPP represents unimaginable profits for big pharma and

every company that finds some pesky U.S. food safety law or some other consumer protection standing in the way of their rightfully ill-gotten gains.

[RufusTFirefly]

15. Yes, she will. And as a former pResident once put it...

“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”

[SusanCalvin]

63. .

https://m.

[Divernan]

16. W/ fast track authority, it's going to be a straight up/down vote; no tinkering allowed

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/06/24/congress-renews-fast-track/29226629/

WASHINGTON —The Republican-controlled Congress delivered a significant second-term victory for President Obama, sending to his desk a six-year renewal of trade promotion authority intended to advance one of the largest trade pacts in history later this year.

"This is a critical day for our country. In fact, I'd call it an historic day," said Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who co-authored the bill, which the Senate approved on Wednesday 60 to 38. "This is perhaps the most important bill we'll pass in the Senate this year."

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said the vote shows "broad support for U.S. leadership in establishing the rules for trade."

Trade promotion authority, more commonly referred to as "fast track" or TPA, reestablishes an expedited legislative process for presidents to submit trade deals to Congress that can only be approved or rejected, not amended, within a certain time frame.

[Trust Buster]

18. Totally turning our backs on the fastest growing marketplace in the world would be foolish IMO.

I don't support Sanders' "burn the whole house down" approach to many issues.

[Enthusiast]

21. The people of Ohio cannot afford lose thousands of additional jobs because of new free trade deals.

We have had enough of these god damned Clinton trade deals!

I suspect the people of Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota feel much the same.

[Trust Buster]

30. The exporters of my state Ohio cannot afford to turn their backs on the

fastest growing marketplace in the world. This is not the all or nothing situation that Sanders would like you to believe it is.

[Enthusiast]

64. Sanders would like us to believe? There are many more than just Sanders that oppose TPP.

Bernie only gives voice to our concerns.

ALL THE UNIONS OPPOSE TPP. ALL THE HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS OPPOSE TPP. ALL THE ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS OPPOSE TPP. ALL THE CONSUMER ADVOCATES OPPOSE TPP. In fact it is an all or nothing situation.

TPP supporters admit there will be huge job loss.

If there will not be huge job losses why make provisions to retrain or otherwise help displaced workers?

The only export increase in Ohio will be in agriculture. That is not a win for the workers of Ohio. That is only a win for Big Agriculture, a relatively wealth few.

You will never win an argument in favor of trade deals with anyone from Ohio. Unless they have never been a blue collar worker and are completely removed from the reality of Bill Clinton's NAFTA.

Not only will there be huge job losses but there is also the loss of national sovereignty to consider. Corporations have quite enough power already.

[Armstead]

27. It's not burn it down. It's put out thedamn fire that's already consuming the middle class and poor

[Trust Buster]

31. What trade deal does Sanders suggest the TPP should be replaced with ?

.

[Armstead]

32. He's not against trade or trade agreements

He's for fair trade deals that balance trade with the public interest, rather than these all encompassing convoluted monsters negotiated in secret for the benefit of multinational corporations and then shoved down the throat of Congress in a fast track yes or no vote.

[Trust Buster]

34. What type of trade deal has Sanders specifically forwarded ?

.

[Armstead]

37. His stance is explained with links here.

http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-trade/


One link reflects his overall goals for trade, which is a position paper by the Progressive Caucus



http://cpc-grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Principles%20for%20Trade%20-%20FINAL%202015.05.051.pdf

[ljm2002]

33. You do know that we already trade with all of those countries...

...right?

[Trust Buster]

36. Yes I do. You do know that American corporations have chased cheap labor all over Asia

Resulting in millions of lost manufacturing jobs here at home without TPP, don't you ?

[The Traveler]

35. We've had our backs turned on Asia all this time?

Seems to me we do trade with 'em all the time. Seems to me we can hammer out an agreement that doesn't subordinate environmental and other regulations to the decisions of an arbitration panel composed of corporate representatives. Seems to me we don't have to monkey with copyright law the way this thing demands
Etc.

Opposing this agreement is not equivalent to turning our backs on the Pacific rim.

Trav

[merrily]

48. Pretending they actually enforce the environmental stuff is fun, isn't it?

[The Traveler]

57. Yeah ... and ya gotta pretend

Now imagine what chance we have of enforcing regulation with the "lost profits recovery" provisions of the TPP in place.

Trav

[merrily]

58. Provisions without enforcement = sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[The Traveler]

59. Say what?

The right wing has spent decades and shit tons of money weakening environmental regulations and the enforcement thereof to satisfy the imperatives of a corporatist agenda.

In my view, it is exactly the sort of thing that is to be opposed ... which much significant sound, and even more fury. A symptom of the disease Sanders would have us treat with a political revolution. I would have thought you would have understood that.

Trav

[merrily]

60. What part of "provisions that are not enforced mean nothing" is hard to understand?

It's not even a debatable concept.

[The Traveler]

61. So you are saying we should not attempt to correct

the lack of enforcement of existing environmental regulation.

Disagree. Strongly.

Trav

[merrily]

65. That bs posting game will get you nothing, but will lose you any cred you think you have.

I recommend against it.

A post starts with "So" and proceeds to pretend that a poster posted something he or she never posted neither convinces nor impresses anyone. Waste of bandwidth.

[stupidicus]

43. sorry, your exaggerations don't count

and defeating the TPP is not synonymous with "totally turning our backs...."

it's just a product of your exaggerating, as your "burning the whole house down" BS likely is on unspecified issues

[jwirr]

44. "burn the whole house down" - the trade deals outsource

the functions of the courts and destroy the sovereignty of the countries that sign on in favor of corporate control. Talk about burning the whole house down.

[Arizona Roadrunner]

19. Clinton and TPP

Bernie has pointed out Clinton's statements of support for the companies in India bringing contract H-1b employees to the USA and Michigan. He also should say this is why we need to see what she told Goldman-Sachs for the $675,000. How much support did she give them? After all, Goldman-Sachs probably tax deducted the "expense" and therefore we have standing to ask what did we get for either paying more taxes or getting less services as a result of the deduction.

Also, she is "currently" against TPP. However the US Chamber of Commerce has put out a message to it's membership that after the election, they are sure she will find reasons to be "currently" in favor of TPP

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/02/chamber-of-commerce-chief-tom-donohue.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/chamber-of-commerce-

Also, say goodbye to minimum wage increases by State and Local governments. All a corporation will do is declare that a raise in minimum wages will adversely effect their profits. How many State and Local governments can afford such a fight by corporations using the TPP ISDS dispute resolution process designed by and for multi-national corporations? You will now have corporations able to use this dispute resolution process to sue all levels and forms of governments. Does this sound like giving up governmental sovereignty for corporate profits? Follow the money.....

[EndElectoral]

24. What HRC has actually said about TPP

"This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field."

"As currently constructed..." she is now against TPP. Then again it may be constructed slightly differently AFTER the election.

Hey, it's what they offered...just like her speaking fees.

[djean111]

28. Here is the big egregious lie - because Obama got his Fast Track, nothing can be changed, nothing

can be deleted, nothing can be added. "As currently constructed" - what bullshit. It gets either an up or down vote "as currently constructed. Can't be changed unless it is voted down.

[jwirr]

46. Fair trade = the idea that the USA still has any claim to

equality among it citizens. Wealth inequality + the TPP means equality is gone in favor of the 1%. World wide inequality will be legalized.

[EndElectoral]

22. Thank God someone is speaking up to end these "Free" trade giveaways.

[Dont call me Shirley]

23. TPP needs to become DOA.

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. T'would be to re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. No marks

given for artistic interpretation either.

[Skwmom]

26. They continually treat Americans as if they are stupid.

[merrily]

47. They try to make us stupid. Charter schools, msm that focuses on celebrity news, etc.

[90-percent]

29. The TPP is one of the most important issues of or time

But, hey, wait a minute? If it's that important, how come there is almost no coverage of it at all in American Main Stream Media? Almost like a conspiracy of silence or outright censorship or something? But we're the US of A, and we're too good to resort to such mean totalitarian tactics. We're the good guys.

-90% Jimmy

[sulphurdunn]

38. Foreign trade deals are all the same.

They are negotiated through national governments by corporate interest to raise corporate profits and minimize regulatory oversight. Those behind them are utterly indifferent to how they affect employment in any of the countries involved. If these agreements benefit working people that's fine with them. If not, that's fine too. Unions and other associations of working people, or any other groups that might argue for concessions, are conspicuously absent or underrepresented in the negotiations.

[merrily]

45. Funnily enough, the quote for today is:

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

Khalil Gibran http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?6207-%28Daily%29-Quote-of-the-Day-March-13th

I read it just before seeing this thread.

[99Forever]

51. Another Hillary Clinton LIE.

We couldn't change ANY of the terms of this rape of working Americans, job killing, sovereignty destroying, piece of shit, corporate snowjob, "trade deal" if we wanted.

Apparently, even a regular old dumb prol like me knows more about how the TPA works than Her Royal Inevitableness does.

Perhaps someone should explain reality to her or perhaps she's just flat out lying her ass off again and hoping no one will notice.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

52. Centrist politicians have difficulty with the word "NO" when dealing with capitalists.

[Overseas]

54. K&R. Yes please!

[Jitter65]

68. He is wrong about this. i wonder if he has really read it?

Lot's of stuff in it that benefits the US. A few things need to be changed and are problematic but that is what happens during a negotiation. It is unrealistic to believe that we could ever have a trade agreement with any country that gives us everything we want and give nothing to the other parties.