TPA Minutia: Corporations want to preserve a loophole that allows them to use child labor [View all]

[cali]

this is just one tiny example of the pernicious crap that can slide through in a trade deal- and not just the tpp. There are something like 17 agreements in the USTR pipeline. The TPA governs many aspects of any future trade deal. It's not just some simple legislation that dictates a straight up or down vote on trade agreements. And the tpa, if passed, lasts for 6 years.

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More to the point, Republicans say, a tough currency measure attached to trade promotion authority would doom the Pacific trade accord, scaring away important countries like Japan and Malaysia in a misguided jab at China.

“Is the goal to get T.P.A. done, or is it to crush the president’s trade agenda?” asked a Republican aide on the Senate Finance Committee.

The customs bill in question is multifaceted. Besides the currency measure, it includes the creation of an interagency trade enforcement center and a system to respond faster to unfair trade practices like the dumping of exports at prices below the cost of production. Another provision would require the Customs and Border Protection agency to expeditiously investigate allegations of customs duty evasion. Still another would close a 75-year-old loophole that allows the importation of goods provided by child labor if a company cannot find those goods elsewhere.

Candy makers are opposing that last provision on the novel ground that it would kill Ghana’s cocoa trade.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/business/fight-over-china-currency-policies-threatens-vote-on-trade-bill.html?_r=0