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Hillary telling Youngstown she would tweak TPP "rules of origin" ? Apparently they can't be tweaked
Last edited Sun Mar 13, 2016, 07:20 PM - Edit history (1)
At a campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, Clinton on Saturday called for tougher "rules of origin," the means used to determine whether a product can be labeled "made in America" and thereby eligible for preferential treatment.
Clinton believes that automakers from Japan and other countries which source cheaper parts made in China shouldn't be able to benefit from trade deals if their cars are assembled from parts manufactured abroad, an aide said.
Clinton believes that automakers from Japan and other countries which source cheaper parts made in China shouldn't be able to benefit from trade deals if their cars are assembled from parts manufactured abroad, an aide said.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20160312/OEM/303129993/0?cciid=internal-anhome-mostright
BUT, i am told that now that the TPP has been fast tracked, it is not even possible to tweak it; plus, tweaking the rules of origin does nothing to undo the TPP's devastating impact on American workers:
WE'D LOSE MILLIONS OF MANUFACTURING JOBS.
Between 1997 and 2014, America lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs. The vast majority, according to the Economic Policy Institute, vanished as a result of growing trade deficits with America's free-trade and investment-deal partners. Some 850,000 jobs were lost to NAFTA after it took effect in 1994. China's entry into the WTO in 2001 cost the United States a staggering 3.2 million manufacturing jobs over the next dozen years.
But the numbers on the TPP look even worse. The Wall Street Journal calculates that by 2025, the deal would increase the U.S. trade deficit in manufacturing, car assembly and car parts by $55.8 billion a year. At that rate, based on the U.S. Department of Commerce formula for jobs created by exports, the TPP would cost another 323,000 American manufacturing workers their jobs. That's almost a million jobs every three years.
And that is a conservative estimate, because the TPP negotiators failed to include enforceable methods to stop foreign labor abuses, including poverty wages and perilous working conditions. This facilitates a race to the bottom. Corporations move factories overseas because they can't get away with paying Americans the $107 a month that is the wage floor in Vietnam.
Also, disastrously, the TPP would lower the minimum requirement for cars and auto parts to be considered pro- duced by a U.S. trade partner. The proportion would fall from 62.5 percent under NAFTA to 45 percent under the TPP, which means more than half of a vehicle could be manufactured in China while auto companies would still benefit from zero U.S. tariffs.
-Leo Gerard, President, United Steelworkers
Between 1997 and 2014, America lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs. The vast majority, according to the Economic Policy Institute, vanished as a result of growing trade deficits with America's free-trade and investment-deal partners. Some 850,000 jobs were lost to NAFTA after it took effect in 1994. China's entry into the WTO in 2001 cost the United States a staggering 3.2 million manufacturing jobs over the next dozen years.
But the numbers on the TPP look even worse. The Wall Street Journal calculates that by 2025, the deal would increase the U.S. trade deficit in manufacturing, car assembly and car parts by $55.8 billion a year. At that rate, based on the U.S. Department of Commerce formula for jobs created by exports, the TPP would cost another 323,000 American manufacturing workers their jobs. That's almost a million jobs every three years.
And that is a conservative estimate, because the TPP negotiators failed to include enforceable methods to stop foreign labor abuses, including poverty wages and perilous working conditions. This facilitates a race to the bottom. Corporations move factories overseas because they can't get away with paying Americans the $107 a month that is the wage floor in Vietnam.
Also, disastrously, the TPP would lower the minimum requirement for cars and auto parts to be considered pro- duced by a U.S. trade partner. The proportion would fall from 62.5 percent under NAFTA to 45 percent under the TPP, which means more than half of a vehicle could be manufactured in China while auto companies would still benefit from zero U.S. tariffs.
-Leo Gerard, President, United Steelworkers
Our current trade deficit is close to $500 billion annually, or 3 percent of our GDP. This money is creating demand and employment in other countries, not the United States, and implies the loss of close to 3 million U.S. jobs a year.
snip
Yet the TPP fails to address the main reason for our large and persistent trade deficit: currency manipulation by other countries.
Lowering ones currency by 10 percent against the dollar has the same effect as imposing a 10 percent tariff on all imports and paying a 10 percent subsidy on exports. Raising the price of exports and lowering the price of imports makes U.S. goods and services less competitive internationally and domestically.
A number of countries, including TPP parties Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam, have engaged in this practice over the last two decades, driving up the U.S. trade deficit.
from:
8 Terrible Things About the TPP
Moberg, David. In These Times 40.1 (Jan 2016): 24-25,27,29.
snip
Yet the TPP fails to address the main reason for our large and persistent trade deficit: currency manipulation by other countries.
Lowering ones currency by 10 percent against the dollar has the same effect as imposing a 10 percent tariff on all imports and paying a 10 percent subsidy on exports. Raising the price of exports and lowering the price of imports makes U.S. goods and services less competitive internationally and domestically.
A number of countries, including TPP parties Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam, have engaged in this practice over the last two decades, driving up the U.S. trade deficit.
from:
8 Terrible Things About the TPP
Moberg, David. In These Times 40.1 (Jan 2016): 24-25,27,29.
“The rule of origin on autos governs how much of a vehicle’s content must be produced by the twelve TPP countries to get the preferential treatment the TPP will provide. In this quickly concluded deal on rules of origin, Chinese-produced auto parts could account for more than a majority of a car’s parts and still get sweetheart treatment. While China is not as yet a party to the twelve-nation TPP, the TPP is designed so that other countries can join.
snip
“Even the best rules, which were not included in TPP, if unenforced, are essentially worthless. How trade rules are implemented, how we monitor imports, obtain market access for our exports and how we enforce our rules are all critical to any deal’s success.
“So far, there has been no progress or willingness of the Administration to even discuss specific steps that could be taken.
“TPP may be the final blow to manufacturing in America. Our producers and workers are under siege from other nations’ massive overproduction, foreign currency devaluation, our own lack of long-term infrastructure investment and the strong dollar.
snip
“Even the best rules, which were not included in TPP, if unenforced, are essentially worthless. How trade rules are implemented, how we monitor imports, obtain market access for our exports and how we enforce our rules are all critical to any deal’s success.
“So far, there has been no progress or willingness of the Administration to even discuss specific steps that could be taken.
“TPP may be the final blow to manufacturing in America. Our producers and workers are under siege from other nations’ massive overproduction, foreign currency devaluation, our own lack of long-term infrastructure investment and the strong dollar.
fail to address currency manipulation, offer big pharmaceutical corporations unacceptable protections that will limit access to life-saving medicine, and threaten every hard-working American family with job losses and lower wages. How could this be good for America?
“Contrary to the rosy rhetoric and false promises, a long history of trade agreements proves that the TPP will have a devastating impact upon our families, our jobs, and this nation.
“Contrary to the rosy rhetoric and false promises, a long history of trade agreements proves that the TPP will have a devastating impact upon our families, our jobs, and this nation.
the TPP will facilitate the export of American jobs to countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Mexico which lack fundamental labor rights, some of which even engage in slave labor. Reports of a secret side agreement with Vietnam are especially offensive to anyone who takes internationally recognized labor standards seriously.....
......Corporate lobbyists might frame TPP as “a chance for U.S. companies to sell more goods abroad” because they have to say that in public. What they really mean is that TPP will encourage them to lay off even more U.S. workers, close even more U.S. factories and move even more production to countries with near-slave-labor conditions and no costly protections for the environment.
This offshoring lets them pocket the wage and protection differential while enabling them to use havens to dodge U.S. taxes.
Studies by outside groups have determined that whatever TPP’s economic effect is for Wall Street and U.S. multinational corporations, it will not by favorable for U.S. workers or the economy. For example, from December, “Important Report Says TPP ‘Skews Benefits To Economic Elites’“:
The congressionally created Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy (LAC) has just released a scathing report that urges President Obama “in the strongest possible terms” to send the Trans-Pacific Partnership “back to the negotiating table” instead of to Congress, saying the treaty “will harm our economy overall.”
… “The TPP is likely to harm U.S. manufacturing interests, cost good jobs, suppress wages, and threaten our democracy and economic security interests,” the report said.
Note that laying off U.S. workers, closing the factory, moving production out of the country, then importing the same goods to sell in the same outlets to the same customers “increases trade” because now those goods cross a border......
reports indicate that, substandard labor standards remain weak and ineffective, currency manipulation has not been effectively addressed, rules of origin for autos are greatly weakened, access to affordable medicines is reduced, post Great Recession financial regulations were made less effective, and secret non-governmental tribunals will interpret and enforce the agreement.
As job and income growth continue to stagnate, Americans know that the economic system is rigged against them and the TPP is just the latest example....
This offshoring lets them pocket the wage and protection differential while enabling them to use havens to dodge U.S. taxes.
Studies by outside groups have determined that whatever TPP’s economic effect is for Wall Street and U.S. multinational corporations, it will not by favorable for U.S. workers or the economy. For example, from December, “Important Report Says TPP ‘Skews Benefits To Economic Elites’“:
The congressionally created Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy (LAC) has just released a scathing report that urges President Obama “in the strongest possible terms” to send the Trans-Pacific Partnership “back to the negotiating table” instead of to Congress, saying the treaty “will harm our economy overall.”
… “The TPP is likely to harm U.S. manufacturing interests, cost good jobs, suppress wages, and threaten our democracy and economic security interests,” the report said.
Note that laying off U.S. workers, closing the factory, moving production out of the country, then importing the same goods to sell in the same outlets to the same customers “increases trade” because now those goods cross a border......
reports indicate that, substandard labor standards remain weak and ineffective, currency manipulation has not been effectively addressed, rules of origin for autos are greatly weakened, access to affordable medicines is reduced, post Great Recession financial regulations were made less effective, and secret non-governmental tribunals will interpret and enforce the agreement.
As job and income growth continue to stagnate, Americans know that the economic system is rigged against them and the TPP is just the latest example....
http://www.usw.org/blog/2016/what-to-watch-for-next-in-the-fight-against-the-tpp
15 replies
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What does this make, like 3 this week? 
