Deja Vu -Obama Is Selling the TPP Trade Deal Just Like Al Gore Sold NAFTA

[RiverLover]

Obama Is Selling the TPP Trade Deal Just Like Al Gore Sold NAFTA
4/29/15

One of President Barack Obama’s favorite points to make in the intra-party dispute over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement with twelve Pacific Rim nations is that his opponents rehash the same old, tired anti-globalization arguments. As Obama told the Wall Street Journal on Monday, “There has been a confluence of anti-global engagement from both elements of the right and elements of the left that I think [is] a big mistake.”

But Obama’s arguments are old and tired, too. They come from a playbook for how the last Democratic administration sold a free trade deal opposed by unions and the party base. Watch this 1993 CNN debate on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Vice President Al Gore and Ross Perot:

Gore:

"This Time Is Different".
Gore made a distinction between previous trade deals with Japan and China, and NAFTA, with its side agreements on labor and the environment. Critics of NAFTA “confuse the bad trade deals in the past with this one,” Gore said. “We've got a commitment for the first time in history to use trade sanctions to compel the enforcement of their environmental standards.”

This mirrors Obama’s claim about inferior prior deals—including NAFTA. “Not every trade deal has lived up to the hype,” Obama acknowledged to Vox’s Matt Yglesias. He’s even suggested that TPP, which includes Mexico and Canada as signatories, can fix NAFTA. Democrats sell these agreements by renouncing the past, in an attempt to insulate themselves from criticism about trade.

But just as NAFTA’s side agreements did not compel enforcement on Mexico’s labor and environmental laws, deals signed and administered by Obama aren’t policed strongly either, as the Government Accountability Office concluded last November. The AFL-CIO filed a legal brief this week over the lack of sanctions, under the Central American Free Trade Agreement, for the murder of 17 labor activists in Guatemala. In Colombia, where the administration negotiated an “ambitious and comprehensive” plan to protect worker’s rights, 105 trade unionists have been murdered over the last four years. Rather pathetically, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office boasted that the murder rate was lower than in previous years. And TPP rules reportedly represent a downgrade from the Colombia standards....

"Everyone Agrees With Me"...(snip)

"We’re the Good Guys"...(snip)

"They’re the Luddites"...(snip)

"Be Very Afraid"...(snip)

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121670/obamas-tpp-arguments-mimic-gores-nafta-defense

[Faryn Balyncd]

1. It's not about trade, nor globalization, not engagement. It's about corporatism.

It's about corporate special interests controlling the globe, and about allowing corporate interests to change the terms of under which we engage in the future.

And it's about peddling the giveaway by falsely implying that we are not already globalized and already engaged, and falsely implying that opponents of a corporate giveaway are advocating withdrawal from international involvement.


K and R

[daleanime]

15. +1

[onehandle]

3. The New Republic became largely conservative and pro-right wing Israel in the last decades.

Is this what is accepted at DU now? Using questionable sources to attack Democrats?

[DURHAM D]

5. Apparently. Yes. nt

[RiverLover]

6. Are conservatives Pro-union now? All major unions are against Obama's fast track

We lost 700000 jobs because of NAFTA, and that was just an agreement with 2 other countries...

85% of House Dems are against Fast Track for the TPP.

This is NOT a trade deal that Democrats want. He can only pass it with Republicans help. Because its a conservative crap on workers.

[sadoldgirl]

4. I heard that the POTUS is pushing

pressure on the Senate's New Democratic Coalition members.

Does anyone know who these Senators are?

[RiverLover]

7. I heard its wrapped up in the senate. He's working on house members now.

Its critical we sway the house on their recess this week. The rumor is the House vote will be next week, the week after this...

On the conference call, they said we need to all call Nancy Pelosi & our own House reps.

http://pelosi.house.gov/contact-me

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

There will be demostrations around the country this week.

[delrem]

12. The reich wing always seems to get just exactly enough turncoat votes.

I want to see an end to that.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Know why they get exactly enough votes?

1) They can count, and 2) There is no point in buying more votes than you need.

[delrem]

8. My opinion of Al Gore just dropped.

I could only get through 20 minutes of it, because Ross Perot is such a dweeb.
But without Perot, I couldn't take listening to Al Gore in this video even that much.

[RiverLover]

9. And because Perot was such a dweeb (lol, wasn't he though?), he made a lousy messenger

for what was in hindsight what we should have believed.

I was young at that time, low-information, fell for the pro-NAFTA spin hook, line, & sinker. My mom knew differently. I thought she was out of touch! Go figure.

Clinton was my first vote though. I was so proud...

[delrem]

11. We forget that with all their money, they can buy the very best actors.

But wow, I'm watching more of it and it isn't pretty.

This guy in the suspenders, looks bought.

[sendero]

10. Naw...

... I wouldn't waste a second of my time on anyone of such trivial substance.

[pa28]

13. Oh yes, I remember it well.

We were going to compete and win in the global economy and we would have all manner of labor protections to preserve American jobs blah blah blah.

From the leaked TPP chapters you can see for yourself this agreement expands the scope of protection for capital and shrinks it for the public interest. Same shit different day.

[RiverLover]

17. Yep. And "Make no mistake, the deal is GOOD for our country"

Same shit, different year.

[SoapBox]

14. Dear President Obama,

This is wrong...and if you do push it through...

We will remember...it's also gonna leave a BIG bad mark on your legacy.

[RiverLover]

19. And a BIG mark ag people & planet, but absolutely fantastic for BIG corporations.

BigOil, BigPharma, BigAg, Wall Street.

Main street?

[merrily]

27. On the other hand, he is now election proof.

And we are not the keepers of his legacy. His Presidential Library, the efforts he's been making all along, the 1% and history will handle all that, thank you very much.

If he gets rid of this now and Hillary gets elected, she won't have to do it. She can then run for re-election in 2020 without this around her neck.

[GeorgeGist]

16. Four, five years in the making ...

so what's the hurry?

[RiverLover]

21. He finally got a repub majority senate that will pass Fast Track. Largest trade deal in history.

He's going for it.

[merrily]

28. See also Reply 27.

[Thespian2]

18. TPP

has corporate controlled tribunals to hear all disputes...just like NAFTA...the three judges are corporate execs or lobbyists...their rulings take president over any country's laws, including the US of A...TPP gives control of America to global corporations...Obama is giving away federal and states rights to administer the various governments in America...when TPP goes into effect, Americans are screwed, once again...

[RiverLover]

20. Exactly.

Good post.

We've got to keep our House Dems on our side here. I hope LOTS of us call our reps. They're being hounded to cross-over & vote with the rethugs. We need to keep 'em strong!

[pampango]

25. The idea for arbitration of trade disputes originated with FDR's International Trade Organization.

Its most distinctive feature was the integration of an ambitious and successful program to reduce traditional trade barriers, with a wide-angled agreement that addressed investment, employment standards, development, business monopolies and the like. It pioneered the idea that trade disputes had to be settled by consultation and mediation rather than with legal clout. Further it established an institutional linkage between trade and labour standards that would effect a major advance in global governance. Finally it embedded the full employment obligation, along with "a commitment to free markets" as the cornerstone of multilateralism.

Despite these accomplishments, the US Congress refused to ratify the Havana Charter even though it had signed it. As a direct consequence, the ITO's collapse represented a significant closure of the full employment era internationally. In the end, it's demise made possible the rapid return of the free trade canon ...

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2063/

If a republican congress had not rejected the International Trade Organization (proposed by FDR, negotiated and signed by Truman), the expansion of trade after WWII would have been governed by an international organization emphasizing full employment and enforcing labor standards, business regulation, investment protection and regulation, etc. through mediation rather than unilateral actions from countries. The demise of the ITO meant that GATT (adopted by Truman without a congressional vote as a temporary bridge until the ITO began to function) rules governed trade for 50 years. Labor standards, business and investment regulation, etc. were not part of its agenda.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. When they claim the choice is TPP or you are an isolationist then they lose me.

[Elwood P Dowd]

24. "Why do you want us to stop trading with the rest of the world"?

I get that one all the time, and even here on DU. Its from the list of talking points they were given by the corporate propaganda front groups, and they have dusted 'em off yet again. Plus, they now say this one will be different because Obama is pushing it even though the same corporate crooks and repukes are the biggest cheerleaders.

[RiverLover]

34. Anyone who says that needs to get out of the big cities and take a drive through the smaller towns

in former manufacturing hotbed states like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan.

Its a sad sight.

[merrily]

26. Makes sense, since we're also being told TPP is the keeping of Obama's promise to fix NAFTA.

[Vinca]

29. I remember NAFTA. And I remember about 10 area factories closing.

The people who used to make a good wage as machine operators are now minimum wage burger flippers. The POTUS needs to realize that, despite his vow to train people for better paying jobs, some are more suited to the work we had available pre-NAFTA. Working in a factory is nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes I think the well educated peer down their noses at people doing manual jobs they enjoy, just because there is no alphabet soup at the ends of their names. Another issue is product quality. We lost it when Americans stopped making things.

[RiverLover]

33. "We lost it when Americans stopped making things."

We lost so much more than just product quality when Americans stopped making things.

[99Forever]

30. Any member of Congress that support this, should be primaried.

No more sellouts. Period.

[Emelina]

31. Type "Robert Reich and Trans Pacific Partnership" and then...

listen to what he has to say about it:

http://robertreich.org/post/117931135770

Very dangerous agreement.

[RiverLover]

32. Thanks Emalina - "Its so-called labor and environmental protections are unenforceable"

From your link, Reich:

...Its so-called labor and environmental protections are unenforceable.

And rather than strengthen America’s hand against China (as its proponents claim), it only strengthens the hands of giant American-based corporations – whose loyalty is to their shareholders rather than to the United States. (These corporations will do whatever China wants if it helps their bottom lines.)

It’s a bad deal for Americans. Please call your senators and your representative and tell them you don’t want the Trans Pacific Partnership, and you don’t want “fast-track” that allows it to speed through Congress without debate or amendment.

Lets hope our House Dems can stop this from advancing to a senate vote. We're toast if it does.

http://pelosi.house.gov/contact-me

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

[AzDar]

35. K & R

[rock]

36. Fool me once, shame on you

Fool me twice, I'd be as stupid as bush*.