Sanders forces push trade opposition at DNC platform meeting

[Donkees]

[font color="navy"size="3"]The fault lines exposed themselves Thursday morning during a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s 15-person platform drafting committee at a Washington hotel.

“As you know there is a tension between the so-called populists in the Democratic Party and the so-called neo-liberals over the issue of the TPP,” said Cornel West, a Sanders ally on the drafting committee.

“I’m going to advance that it’s very important that we, in our platform, make a statement about TPP," West added, in a roundtable debate on trade in the drafting committee's Thursday morning session.

Labor leader Richard Trumka agreed forcefully with West in his testimony to the drafting committee.

Trumka, who is , president of the AFL-CIO, said the Democratic Party mustn’t allow itself to be outflanked by presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump over the issue of trade.



“Unless you make a strong statement [about the TPP], the American public is going to be confused by the opposite side who is very sharp and clear on trade,” Trumka said, adding that he thinks Trump doesn’t believe what he’s saying on trade.

“If we simply muddle through the issue we’ll lose votes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan … every state that’s seen a failed trade agreement work to their disadvantage.

“I think we have to be crystal clear and sharp on the issue, otherwise we lose to a Republican Party coming from the left.”



Asked about the potential for conflict over the TPP in the party platform, a senior Democrat and Clinton ally told The Hill that there was "no daylight between Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton on TPP."

"They both opposed it," the source said, adding that Clinton was promoting policies to hold accountable American companies that are sending jobs overseas and was open to working with Sanders to find agreement on the platform.

Still, a Team Sanders request to denounce the TPP in the platform would put the White House in a tricky position.



While Clinton opposes the TPP and wants to accommodate as many of Sanders’s demands as possible in the interest of party unity, it would be a major — and probably unacceptable — deal for the party to explicitly oppose a signature initiative of the sitting president and leader of the party.

Anti-TPP language would also be a major back flip on the trade language used in the 2012 Democratic Party platform.[/font]

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/282891-clinton-sanders-differences-on-trade-surface-in-platform

[seabeckind]

1. On the occasion of an address in Elkhart IN

to talk about America's economic recovery,

CTS Corp. shifting 200-plus jobs from Elkhart to low-wage countries

CTS said the production jobs will be phased out starting next year as part of corporate-wide “simplification strategy,” and that the existing facility will continue to be used as a research and development center to support the company’s global operations.

Employees who did not want to be named told The Truth that they received the news Friday from corporate managers of the Lisle, Ill.-based company. The workers said they were told manufacturing work would be shipped to low-wage countries such as Mexico, Taiwan and China.

...

Elsewhere in Indiana, United Technology Corp., parent company to Carrier Corp., announced in February that it was closing its Indianapolis and Huntington plants, laying off close to 2,100 employees. Carrier, a heating, ventilating and air-conditioning manufacturer, at the time said it was moving its operations to Mexico because of "ongoing cost and pricing pressures driven, in part, by new regulatory requirements", according to a statement.

http://www.elkharttruth.com/news/business/2016/06/03/CTS-Corp-closing-Elkhart-facility-shifting-jobs-to-Mexico.html

Heaven forbid we should disagree with the current outsourcing policy.

[NJCher]

2. Cornel West and Trumka

What does "explicitly oppose a signature initiative of the sitting president and leader of the party " mean? What is a signature initiative?


Cher

[Donkees]

3. Terms that Obama already signed on to in the partnership deal (?)