When should good Democrats take a position on the TPP?

[MannyGoldstein]

As some on DU know, I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier and I'm looking for advice on how to be sensible and/or reasonable. I'm reading conflicting things about when I'm supposed to have an opinion about the TPP. Can y'all help me figure out it out?

11 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Once we know what's in it (too late, it's up on WikiLeaks)
	1 (9%)
	Once someone smart explains international law to us Proles
	0 (0%)
	Once it's final, because the good stuff is added at the last minute
	0 (0%)
	Once it's passed
	0 (0%)
	Relax, Obama will veto it
	0 (0%)
	After a few years - let's see how well it works
	0 (0%)
	My hair is on fire RIGHT NOW
	9 (82%)
	Other
	1 (9%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Hoyt]

1. How about after researching trade agreements and accepting Obama is not out to sell us down river?nt

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Good point.

Obama's probably learned some things things since ramming the Korean free trade agreement through Congress.

[Hoyt]

10. How exactly do you measure the impact of these agreements -- economic, environmental, security,

improving/solidifying relations, worker rights, security, impact on North Korea, etc.

And are you one of those that thinks two years is enough to evaluate the impact on those aspects?


https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34330.pdf

[MannyGoldstein]

12. "KORUS Has Cost the United States 40,000 Jobs"

From the The Economic Policy Institute:

KORUS Has Cost the United States 40,000 Jobs
U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement has hurt the American economy, Trans-Pacific Partnership could be even worse

The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) has not lived up to its hype, according to a new analysis from EPI Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Research Robert E. Scott. In No Jobs from Trade Pacts, Scott shows that free trade agreements (FTAs) often fail to create the jobs that are promised because estimates are based on flawed models, which fail to take increases in imports into account. While KORUS has already hurt the U.S. economy, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and an upcoming trade agreement with the European Union could further increase the threat of rapidly growing trade deficits and job losses.

According to U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) estimates, KORUS would increase U.S. exports to South Korea by between $10–11 billion dollars and increase imports from South Korea by between $6–7 billion, improving the U.S. trade balance with South Korea by $4–5 billion. In actuality, in the year after KORUS took effect, domestic exports have fallen by $3.5 billion and our trade deficit with South Korea has increased by $5.8 billion.

“Policymakers to stop negotiating trade deals that hurt the U.S. economy,” said Scott. “Unless free trade agreements reduce our too-high trade deficits, they won’t have a net positive effect on U.S. employment. This isn’t a radical stance on trade—it’s textbook economics.”

[L0oniX]

13. Pins dropping ...now.

[Hoyt]

16. Jobs are definitely important, but these agreements are so much more. Two years is not

much time. And we probably would have lost those jobs without the agreement. Imports have been increasing since we started buying transistors radios.

[MannyGoldstein]

17. What would you consider to be a good model for free trade agrements

that's been around for enough years to analyze?

Hopefully EPI factored in job losses that would have happened anyway.

[Jim Lane]

18. The Kennedy Round under GATT (1967)

The strength of the free-traders' case for trade agreements is that, if every country enacts stiff protective tariffs for some of its own industries, then its own workers in other industries will suffer because of other countries' retaliatory tariffs. Trade is not a zero-sum game. The theory of comparative advantage, explained by David Ricardo almost 200 years ago, is fundamentally sound, and its implication is that there are frequently circumstances in which increased international trade leaves every country better off. Mutual reductions in tariffs can help to achieve that goal.

The relevance of all this to your question is that the Kennedy Round has been described by the Congressional Research Service as "the last round in which tariff reduction was the primary focus of trade negotiations." With the TPP, by contrast, critics on DU and elsewhere have pointed out that provisions concerning tariffs are a comparatively small part of its text. In the leaked drafts, the provisions that have drawn the most flak are non-tariff rules.

[99Forever]

20. Holy shit.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I have been opposed to this POS since I first heard about it.

And everything I've heard since then has only reinforced my initial reaction.

[OnyxCollie]

3. After it's been enacted for four years.

And then, only for a week; it's time to work for 2020!

[JoePhilly]

5. When you give it to them?

[FiveGoodMen]

6. A long fucking time ago.

Without any details, it's been known for quite a while that this agreement would abandon US sovereignty in favor of global corporate rule.

Just like NAFTA did, but bigger and worse.

[NaturalHigh]

7. A long time ago.

[countryjake]

8. How's about right fucking NOW!

I hate useless or misleading polling, but that's exactly what I think.

I also think that just taking a position isn't quite enough, judging by the way our "trusted" leaders managed to force thru past questionable deals that have since severely impacted working people, despite so much spirited objection by so many good Democrats.

We need to learn from our mistakes.

[L0oniX]

15. Damn it all that does it! I'm investing in soap on a rope futures.

[msongs]

11. as soon as the full document is internet posted for all to see, with a 3 month review period nt

[L0oniX]

14. Does anyone remember the Canadian Corp that tried to get eminent domain on land for the pipe line?

Yep ...that's what we're going to get and much more of it.

[mmonk]

19. All trade agreements since Reagan have been

end arounds for multi national corporations concerning environmental laws, taxation, living wages, national laws, etc.. That is all you need to know unless you can show where national sovereignty in these matters trumps these agreements.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. As soon as you are fully capable of accepting the "This time it will be different" clause after

it's been declassified sometime when the statute of limitations has run out and you've been fired from your job in Uganda.