Democrats and the TPP: Who Speaks for the Future?
Published on
Thursday, July 07, 2016
by
Campaign for America's Future Blog
Democrats and the TPP: Who Speaks for the Future?
by
Robert Borosage
(Photo: Stop FastTrack/flickr/cc)
Texas populist Jim Hightower will present the Democratic Party platform
committee with a Bernie Sanders-sponsored amendment to the draft platform
when it meets in Orlando this Friday and Saturday. It will read:
It is the policy of the Democratic Party that the Trans-Pacific Partnership
should not get a vote in the lame duck session of Congress and beyond.
This should be a no-brainer. All of the Democratic candidates for the
presidential nomination were opposed to the TPP trade deal, as of course is
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
The Clinton campaign has emphasized that there is "no daylight between
Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton on TPP." Were that true, the
187-member platform committee would pass the amendment unanimously. But in
the drafting committee, the Clinton delegates and most of the Democratic
National Committee delegates voted against similar language and instead
forced through language that states only that "there are a diversity of
views in the party" on the TPP and reaffirms that any trade deal "must
protect workers and the environment."
Say what? Democrats are a big tent. There is a "diversity of views" on many
issues. That does not keep the party majority from taking a clear stand in
the platform. The primary reason offered to mute opposition to the TPP was
that the platform should not "embarrass" President Obama, who appears intent
on forcing a vote on the TPP in the lame-duck session. But President Obama
isn't on the Democratic ticket, and many of the other policies of the
platform diverge from his agenda. His apparent insistence that the platform
remain neutral on the TPP will surely be used by Trump to prove that
Clinton's stated opposition is a lie. That will add to doubts already
widespread given the support she and her husband gave to NAFTA and other
trade accords, including initially the TPP itself.
The vote in Orlando will be a big, defining vote. Who speaks for the party?
A lame-duck president pushing a trade deal that is opposed by both the
presumptive nominee and her leading opponent, or the future nominee and the
vast majority of Democratic primary voters and activists?
Classic Example Of Rigged Rules
The TPP is constructed on the same noxious frame as the North American Free
Trade Agreement and other corporate trade and investment deals. It is
written by, for and with the multinational banks and corporations. Like
NAFTA, it is a classic example of how the rules are rigged against America's
working people. Not surprisingly, it is championed by a huge corporate lobby
and opposed by virtually the entirety of the Democratic Party's activist
base - labor, environmentalists, consumer groups, farmers, progressives,
public health groups and more.
The TPP simply extends what have been ruinous corporate trade policies.
Under these policies, we've run unprecedented trade deficits, shipping good
jobs abroad and putting pressure on wages at home. Current trade deficits
run at about 3 percent of GDP a year - some $500 billion a year -
undermining any recovery and contributing directly to stagnant wages,
particularly at a time when interest rates are already near zero and can't
be lowered to counter the drag created by the deficits.
Like NAFTA, the TPP also creates special rights and private tribunals - for
multinational corporations while undermining the ability of Americans to
determine their own destiny. It's preposterous Investor State Dispute
Settlement system gives corporations the right to sue the U.S. for damages
that any regulation might arguably have on future expected profits. Under
this provision in NAFTA, a Canadian company is now suing for $15 million in
damages from U.S. taxpayers because the Obama administration sensibly
decided not to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
It is now generally accepted that our trade policies have contributed to
declining wages among America's workers. Paul Krugman, the Nobel
Prize-winning, and pro-free trade economist has admitted that "the elite
case for ever-freer trade is largely a scam." He concludes that "much of the
elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of
inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!), vastly
exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of
protection, hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what
standard models actually predict."
Honest trade advocates admit that there are losers and winners in trade, but
argue that the winners can be taxed to compensate the losers. But of course
that never happens. Instead the winners use their increased wealth and power
to drive through more top-end tax cuts and corporate tax loopholes that
benefit the few while the losers have been left to sink on their own.
The TPP - and the ideological devotion to corporate-defined "free trade" -
is central to the failed bipartisan economic policies that have devastated
the middle class, and contributed to ever-increasing inequality. If
Democrats are to address rising inequality and rebuild the middle class,
they must define a new, far more balanced trade policy. That policy would
end the private corporate courts created by investor-state dispute
settlement clauses, challenge currency manipulation and other non-tariff
means used by countries to capture markets, enforce labor rights and
consumer and environmental protections and move to more, but balanced trade.
No trade accords would go forward until the much-advertised measures to
reimburse the "losers" were in fact in place - in income support, in
training, in industrial policy and more.
This isn't about deference to a lame-duck president; it is about the future
direction of the country and the commitment of the party and its nominee. If
Democrats can't state clearly where they stand in their platform, few voters
will believe that they are prepared to take on the corporate lobby to forge
a new course.
Trump has made trade a centerpiece of his campaign, a key to his strategy of
winning the votes of working people, particularly in the swing industrial
states. There is no question that the failure to state clear opposition to
the TPP in the platform will further undermine Hillary Clinton's already
suspect credibility on this central issue.
Will Labor Stand Up?
Clinton, of course, doesn't want to offend the president, since she is
counting on his help in rousing Democratic voters, particularly African
Americans. But if the president's insistence contributes to Trump's ability
to tar Democrats as corporate traders, it will may cost votes and turnout up
and down the ticket.
To extricate Clinton from this dilemma, labor needs to stand up. Labor union
delegates will constitute the defining vote in Orlando and in Philadelphia.
If they join Sanders in supporting the Hightower amendment, it will pass.
That may irritate the president but it will greatly assist Hillary Clinton
and other Democrats on the ballot. And it will speak clearly about an issue
that labor union leaders argue is central to the rebuilding of a strong
middle class, and the revival of organized labor.
Labor leaders can't claim that stopping TPP is an urgent priority while
simultaneously bowing to the president's insistence that the platform duck
the issue. Nor can they argue to their members that Clinton is better than
Trump on trade, if the Democratic platform is silent on the TPP and defers
to the president's plans to push it in a lame-duck session of Congress.
Will labor stand up? That will be a key question this weekend in Orlando. If
the Hightower amendment is voted down in Orlando, the Sanders delegates will
demand that the full Democratic convention debate and vote on the issue. The
question isn't about deference; it is about direction. And that can't be
ducked.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License.
Robert Borosage
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Democrats and the TPP: Who Speaks for the Future?
Published on
Thursday, July 07, 2016
by
Campaign for America's Future Blog
Democrats and the TPP: Who Speaks for the Future?
by
Robert Borosage
. 9 Comments
.
. (Photo: Stop FastTrack/flickr/cc)
. Texas populist Jim Hightower will present the Democratic Party
platform committee with a Bernie Sanders-sponsored amendment to the draft
platform when it meets in Orlando this Friday and Saturday. It will read:
. It is the policy of the Democratic Party that the Trans-Pacific
Partnership should not get a vote in the lame duck session of Congress and
beyond.
. This should be a no-brainer. All of the Democratic candidates for
the presidential nomination were opposed to the TPP trade deal, as of course
is Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
. The Clinton campaign has emphasized that there is "no daylight
between Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton on TPP." Were that true, the
187-member platform committee would pass the amendment unanimously. But in
the drafting committee, the Clinton delegates and most of the Democratic
National Committee delegates voted against similar language and instead
forced through language that states only that "there are a diversity of
views in the party" on the TPP and reaffirms that any trade deal "must
protect workers and the environment."
Say what? Democrats are a big tent. There is a "diversity of views" on many
issues. That does not keep the party majority from taking a clear stand in
the platform. The primary reason offered to mute opposition to the TPP was
that the platform should not "embarrass" President Obama, who appears intent
on forcing a vote on the TPP in the lame-duck session. But President Obama
isn't on the Democratic ticket, and many of the other policies of the
platform diverge from his agenda. His apparent insistence that the platform
remain neutral on the TPP will surely be used by Trump to prove that
Clinton's stated opposition is a lie. That will add to doubts already
widespread given the support she and her husband gave to NAFTA and other
trade accords, including initially the TPP itself.
The vote in Orlando will be a big, defining vote. Who speaks for the party?
A lame-duck president pushing a trade deal that is opposed by both the
presumptive nominee and her leading opponent, or the future nominee and the
vast majority of Democratic primary voters and activists?
Classic Example Of Rigged Rules
The TPP is constructed on the same noxious frame as the North American Free
Trade Agreement and other corporate trade and investment deals. It is
written by, for and with the multinational banks and corporations. Like
NAFTA, it is a classic example of how the rules are rigged against America's
working people. Not surprisingly, it is championed by a huge corporate lobby
and opposed by virtually the entirety of the Democratic Party's activist
base - labor, environmentalists, consumer groups, farmers, progressives,
public health groups and more.
The TPP simply extends what have been ruinous corporate trade policies.
Under these policies, we've run unprecedented trade deficits, shipping good
jobs abroad and putting pressure on wages at home. Current trade deficits
run at about 3 percent of GDP a year - some $500 billion a year -
undermining any recovery and contributing directly to stagnant wages,
particularly at a time when interest rates are already near zero and can't
be lowered to counter the drag created by the deficits.
Like NAFTA, the TPP also creates special rights and private tribunals - for
multinational corporations while undermining the ability of Americans to
determine their own destiny. It's preposterous Investor State Dispute
Settlement system gives corporations the right to sue the U.S. for damages
that any regulation might arguably have on future expected profits. Under
this provision in NAFTA, a Canadian company is now suing for $15 million in
damages from U.S. taxpayers because the Obama administration sensibly
decided not to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
It is now generally accepted that our trade policies have contributed to
declining wages among America's workers. Paul Krugman, the Nobel
Prize-winning, and pro-free trade economist has admitted that "the elite
case for ever-freer trade is largely a scam." He concludes that "much of the
elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of
inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!), vastly
exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of
protection, hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what
standard models actually predict."
Honest trade advocates admit that there are losers and winners in trade, but
argue that the winners can be taxed to compensate the losers. But of course
that never happens. Instead the winners use their increased wealth and power
to drive through more top-end tax cuts and corporate tax loopholes that
benefit the few while the losers have been left to sink on their own.
The TPP - and the ideological devotion to corporate-defined "free trade" -
is central to the failed bipartisan economic policies that have devastated
the middle class, and contributed to ever-increasing inequality. If
Democrats are to address rising inequality and rebuild the middle class,
they must define a new, far more balanced trade policy. That policy would
end the private corporate courts created by investor-state dispute
settlement clauses, challenge currency manipulation and other non-tariff
means used by countries to capture markets, enforce labor rights and
consumer and environmental protections and move to more, but balanced trade.
No trade accords would go forward until the much-advertised measures to
reimburse the "losers" were in fact in place - in income support, in
training, in industrial policy and more.
This isn't about deference to a lame-duck president; it is about the future
direction of the country and the commitment of the party and its nominee. If
Democrats can't state clearly where they stand in their platform, few voters
will believe that they are prepared to take on the corporate lobby to forge
a new course.
Trump has made trade a centerpiece of his campaign, a key to his strategy of
winning the votes of working people, particularly in the swing industrial
states. There is no question that the failure to state clear opposition to
the TPP in the platform will further undermine Hillary Clinton's already
suspect credibility on this central issue.
Will Labor Stand Up?
Clinton, of course, doesn't want to offend the president, since she is
counting on his help in rousing Democratic voters, particularly African
Americans. But if the president's insistence contributes to Trump's ability
to tar Democrats as corporate traders, it will may cost votes and turnout up
and down the ticket.
To extricate Clinton from this dilemma, labor needs to stand up. Labor union
delegates will constitute the defining vote in Orlando and in Philadelphia.
If they join Sanders in supporting the Hightower amendment, it will pass.
That may irritate the president but it will greatly assist Hillary Clinton
and other Democrats on the ballot. And it will speak clearly about an issue
that labor union leaders argue is central to the rebuilding of a strong
middle class, and the revival of organized labor.
Labor leaders can't claim that stopping TPP is an urgent priority while
simultaneously bowing to the president's insistence that the platform duck
the issue. Nor can they argue to their members that Clinton is better than
Trump on trade, if the Democratic platform is silent on the TPP and defers
to the president's plans to push it in a lame-duck session of Congress.
Will labor stand up? That will be a key question this weekend in Orlando. If
the Hightower amendment is voted down in Orlando, the Sanders delegates will
demand that the full Democratic convention debate and vote on the issue. The
question isn't about deference; it is about direction. And that can't be
ducked.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License.
