Posted on 05/03/2015 7:14:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Political debates often pit fear against hope, and when it comes to international trade agreements, many Democrats prefer to scare. It's a durable strategy that they can't relinquish -- even though it usually fails.
If you're going to make a horror movie, you need a villain who can make your blood run cold. Despite endless efforts to pump this one up, the audience mostly yawns. Americans have gotten too used to the obvious benefits of trade to be terrified by German cars, Canadian oil or Chinese toys.
The Obama administration is currently negotiating with 11 other nations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is intended to remove barriers to trade and investment and establish clear rules of the road. In preparation for submitting the deal, the administration wants "trade promotion authority," a long-used option that says Congress may accept or reject any such accord but may not amend it.
Opponents of trade reject both proposals. They don't want to expand commerce with these countries, which range from Japan to Chile (and don't include China). They know that without trade promotion authority, getting a deal done would become virtually impossible. No country is going to agree to a large package of provisions if Congress can step in and veto any it doesn't like.
But it's hard to frighten voters with tirades about congressional voting procedures. So the critics are depicting the whole process as one of ominous secrecy, whose sinister effects will be known only after it is too late to escape them.
Former Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, who may run for president, lodged this complaint against the Pacific accord: "What's wrong with it is first and foremost that we're not allowed to read it before representatives vote on it."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who says she won't run, insists that the administration is desperate to hide the details. "Why? Here's the real answer people have given me: 'We can't make this deal public because if the American people saw what was in it, they would be opposed to it.'"
Isn't it odd that someone so committed to openness won't say who told her that? If I were President Barack Obama, I would offer to pay for a polygraph exam to see if Warren is speaking honestly. O'Malley may be consciously deceptive, or he may be merely confused.
In any case, they are not to be taken seriously. Much of what is in the trade deal is not known because the negotiations, like the Iran nuclear talks, take place behind closed doors. Governments don't make a practice of wrangling over such matters in public view.
The public view comes later -- after the agreement is completed. Contrary to these claims, it will be disclosed then. Members of Congress will be able to read it, and so will voters. That's why PolitiFact rated O'Malley's claim "mostly false."
It's true that Congress is being asked to grant trade promotion authority before knowing everything the trade accord will include. But so what? It would retain the ultimate authority -- to read the treaty in full and then vote it up or down.
Warren is not afraid the American people will accept the deal because they won't know what's in it. She's afraid they will accept the deal in spite of -- or because of -- knowing what's in it.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., has a different objection. He warns that the trade promotion bill "will pave the way for another NAFTA-style deal that costs jobs." But NAFTA, which took effect in 1994, is not so much Freddy Krueger as Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Public Citizen, a liberal anti-trade group, claims it cost the U.S. 1 million jobs. If so, the loss amounts to only about 50,000 jobs per year, a drop in the ocean. Even in the current unsatisfying recovery, the economy has been creating more than 250,000 jobs per month.
More pertinent is that NAFTA didn't impede, and most likely fostered, the longest economic expansion in U.S. history -- which lasted until 2001 and created 21 million jobs. If Americans were asked, "Would you like to have an economy like the one we had in the years after NAFTA?" they would be divided between those saying "yes" and those saying "hell, yes."
It would be unreasonable to dream that this or any trade agreement would restore those golden years. But it's an even bigger mistake to be afraid.
Bunk.
We don’t have “free trade”.
We have America selling out, and everyone else in the world aggressively taking what used to belong to us.
America needs to bring back American jobs.
Because NAFTA and other similar agreements have been so good for America.
/s
Yes, we have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage!
FRom Wikipedia: “The phrase “a mess of pottage” is used to denote the kind of mistakes and misjudgments that are committed by an immoral and unprincipled individual—before his soul is saved.”
The question at hand is, can the USA save its soul?
We the People are in a Battle Royale between Good and Evil, and have been for most of my adult life.
Between now and the election of 2016, we must fight a holding action, not giving ground to the LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist/Fascists or the Radical Islamacists who seek to destroy us.
Then, we MUST prevail in 2016, and reclaim the country!
God help us if we don’t!
i have said it before and i will say it again..
the only people opposed to free trade are the unions..
take your crap back to the local union hall and tell them they have failed once again..
Bullcr@p.
I am not supporting unions, have never supported unions, and never will support unions.
Ever.
But we are sending American jobs everywhere else.
Enough of that. Bring them back. America needs to rebuild America.
I just moved because my job was eliminated. Millions of American jobs have been eliminated. Millions of formerly American jobs, are now being done in China, which incidentally now exports more than America does.
A large portion of which, are sold back to America. No Americans having been involved in the process of making it.
Look at (anything) you buy in any store.
“Made in China”
That continues to get ever worse.
I say enough. Bring back jobs right here. Right now.
Unemployed people cannot buy goods, regardless of how cheap they are.
You don't seem to understand that there are many Republicans who have to work for a living as well...
Millions of 'employed' people cannot buy goods...That's why they are subsidized by the people who make enough to pay taxes...
BS.
There is no reason to fear public debate on trade deals.
No legislation should be passed without public debate.
And so called free trade is devastating our economy. We’ve got 100 million people on food stamps. Participation in the working force is at a low.
There is so much excess labor in the world, to open our economy completely to competition among countries like China is suicide. We should only use foreign labor when we are at full employment. Until then we should restore the import tariffs and put Americans back to work, making products for Americans.
Free trade = capitalism
Fair trade = socialism
We do not have “free trade” with China now.
China takes American jobs, but protects its own markets.
America needs to stop sending manufacturing to China, and start working to bring it back to America.
If its not free on China’s end, than it isn’t free trade.
That does not mean we should be fearful of free trade.
Managed trade results in artificially high prices. People who tell you the market doesn’t work either don’t understand capitalism or have hidden agendas.
I agree with you there.
America’s big problem is we are defining “free trade” only as being free from America’s standpoint.
No other countries, anywhere, are doing the same in return. Yet we continue to deindustrialize, and we have already sent so much industry to China that they are now a larger exporter than America.
This has gone on long enough in my opinion.
GOP stand up for America. America stand up for America.
All we are doing now, is selling out America’s success to a gigantic communist country, which even discriminates against non-Chinese.
That is not a road to national success.
Yet nobody is doing a single thing. Nobody.
That's how it started, as a "temporary war measure" called the bracero program in the southwestern U.S., importing Mexican agricultural workers. Lyndon Johnson and Ted Kennedy turned that into an "import-a-Socialist-Democrat-majority" program in 1965, after "Landslide Lint'n" got stepped on like a bug the first time he tried it, in 1953. President Eisenhower trumped his ace by invoking executive authority over immigration to limit immigration from Mexico and return the braceros.
' Lyndon had tried, during the recession of 1953, to allow the braceros to stay in the States and compete for jobs here (=> Democrat votes, eventually). Ike nuked him, and he never forgot it, but immediately started his "immigration reform" on his own election, to create a 200-year Democrat lock on the White House.
Cartel countries don't deserve "free trade". Neither does Cuba or Iran -- but I'm sure Fauxahontas and Bernie "Weekend" Sanders are 100 percent in favor of lifting sanctions on enemy nations.
If I buy a case of Bohemia (great Mexican lager, and I recommend it to everyone if it’s fresh), thank you NAFTA, how am I “financing the current Chinese military build-up?”
You wouldn’t be, but if you bought a case of Tsingtao you would be.
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