Someone Finally Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal And Admits The TPP “Will Damage This Nation”
There is a huge paradox surrounding what is supposed to be the
crowning achievement of Obama’s second term, the Trans Pacific
Partnership (TPP), a bill whose contents virtually nobody is familiar
with or will be before it passes into law.
That’s not the paradox: the paradox is that back in October 2009, the White House Press secretary said that “the
President has returned to a stance of transparency and ethics that
hasn’t been matched by any other White House…. the President believes
strongly in transparency… that transparency in that way in the best
policy.”
Or to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
And yet while everyone seems to have an opinion on the final
formulation of the TPP bill, especially Elizabeth Warren and her circle
of progressive democrats who have emerged as the bill’s most vocal
critics, the truth is that none have actually read it for the simple reason that anyone who is familiar with its text could be jailed for disclosing its contents.
Most transparent administration indeed.
We won’t even comment that those who don’t care to have their opinion
made public and do have access to the bill have also not read the
massive bill which layers giveaway upon giveaway to mega corporations:
in fact the only ones who are intimately familiar with the TPP’s
contents are those who drafted it: America’s multinational corporations
whose shareholders will be the biggest beneficiaries of the TPP.
And yet someone appears to have finally read Obama’s TPP: that
someone is Michael Wessel, a cleared liaison to two statutory advisory
committees and a commissioner on the U.S. Trade Deficit Review
Commission, as well as the international trade co-chair for the
Kerry-Edwards Presidential Campaign.
Earlier today, Wessel wrote an article in Politico titled “I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned”
which we agree with wholeheartedly because while one may or may not
disgree whether the US economy will benefit from a trade agreement which
anecdotally benefits large multinationals, it should be unanimous that
America’s transformation into a secretive, klepto-fascist state
controlled by corporations is catastrophic for not only the republic but
America’s people, or at least those who are not among the 0.001% who
stand to benefit from the TPP.
* * *
From Michael Wessel, first posted in Politico:
I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned.
“You need to tell me what’s wrong with
this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago,” a
frustrated President Barack Obama recently complained about criticisms
of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). He’s right. The public
criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That’s by design—anyone who has
read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its
contents. I’ve actually read the TPP text provided to the government’s own advisors, and
I’ve given the president an earful about how this trade deal will
damage this nation. But I can’t share my criticisms with you.
I can tell you that Elizabeth Warren is right about her criticism of the trade deal. We
should be very concerned about what’s hidden in this trade deal—and
particularly how the Obama administration is keeping information secret
even from those of us who are supposed to provide advice.
So-called “cleared advisors” like me are
prohibited from sharing publicly the criticisms we’ve lodged about
specific proposals and approaches. The government has created a perfect
Catch 22: The law prohibits us from talking about the specifics
of what we’ve seen, allowing the president to criticize us for not being
specific. Instead of simply admitting that he disagrees with me—and with many other cleared advisors—about the merits of the TPP, the president instead pretends that our specific, pointed criticisms don’t exist.
What I can tell you is that the
administration is being unfair to those who are raising proper questions
about the harms the TPP would do. To the administration,
everyone who questions their approach is branded as a protectionist—or
worse—dishonest. They broadly criticize organized labor, despite the
fact that unions have been the primary force in America pushing for
strong rules to promote opportunity and jobs. And they dismiss
individuals like me who believe that, first and foremost, a trade
agreement should promote the interests of domestic producers and their
employees.
I’ve been deeply involved in trade policy
for almost four decades. For 21 years, I worked for former Democratic
Leader Richard Gephardt and handled all trade policy issues including
“fast track,” the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World
Trade Organization’s Uruguay Round, which is the largest trade agreement
in history. I am also a consultant to various domestic producers and
the United Steelworkers union, for whom I serve as a cleared advisor on
two trade advisory committees. To top it off, I was a publicly acknowledged advisor to the Obama campaign in 2008.
Obama may no longer be listening to my advice, but Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren might as well be. Warren,
of course, has been perhaps the deal’s most vocal critic, but even the
more cautious Clinton has raised the right questions on what a good TPP
would look like. Her spokesman, Nick Merrill, said: “She will be
watching closely to see what is being done to crack down on currency
manipulation, improve labor rights, protect the environment and health,
promote transparency and open new opportunities for our small businesses
to export overseas. As she warned in her book Hard Choices, we
shouldn’t be giving special rights to corporations at the expense of
workers and consumers.”
On this count, the current TPP doesn’t measure up.
And nothing being considered by Congress right now would ensure that
the TPP meets the goal of promoting domestic production and job
creation.
The text of the TPP, like all trade deals, is a closely guarded secret. That fact makes a genuine public debate impossible and should make robust debate behind closed doors all the more essential.
But the ability of TPP critics like me to point out the deal’s many
failings is limited by the government’s surprising and unprecedented
refusal to make revisions to the language in the TPP fully available to
cleared advisors.
Bill Clinton didn’t operate like this.
During the debate on NAFTA, as a cleared advisor for the Democratic
leadership, I had a copy of the entire text in a safe next to my desk
and regularly was briefed on the specifics of the negotiations,
including counterproposals made by Mexico and Canada. During the TPP
negotiations, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has never
shared proposals being advanced by other TPP partners. Today’s
consultations are, in many ways, much more restrictive than those under
past administrations.
All advisors, and any liaisons, are
required to have security clearances, which entail extensive paperwork
and background investigations, before they are able to review text and
participate in briefings. But, despite clearances, and a statutory duty
to provide advice, advisors do not have access to all the materials that
a reasonable person would need to do the job. The negotiators provide
us with “proposals” but those are merely initial proposals to trading
partners. We are not allowed to see counter-proposals from our trading
partners. Often, advisors are provided with updates indicating that the
final text will balance all appropriate stakeholder interests but we
frequently receive few additional details beyond that flimsy assurance.
Those details have enormous
repercussions. For instance, rules of origin specify how much of a
product must originate within the TPP countries for the resulting
product to be eligible for duty-free treatment. These are complex rules
that decide where a company will manufacture its products and where is
will purchase raw materials. Under the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), 62.5 percent of a car needed to originate within
NAFTA countries. In the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, it was
lowered to 50 percent. It further dropped to 35 percent in the US-Korea
Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). In essence, under our agreement with
Korea, 65 percent of a car from South Korea could be made from Chinese
parts and still qualify for duty-free treatment when exported to the
U.S.
That fact is politically toxic, and for that reason, we should expect the TPP agreement to have higher standards.
But will it reach the 62.5 percent NAFTA requirement? Or will it be
only a slight improvement over KORUS? Without access to the final text
of the agreement, it’s impossible to say.
State-owned enterprises may, for the
first time, be addressed in the TPP. But, once again, the details are
not clear. Will exemptions be provided to countries like Vietnam,
Malaysia and Singapore, all of which could be heavily impacted by such a
rule? What will be the test to determine what is or is not acceptable
behavior? Will injury be required to occur over a substantial period of
time, or will individual acts of non-commercial, damaging trade
practices be actionable? Again, it’s impossible to say for sure.
Advisors are almost flying blind on these questions and others.
Only portions of the text have
been provided, to be read under the watchful eye of a USTR official.
Access, up until recently, was provided on secure web sites. But the
government-run website does not contain the most-up-to-date information
for cleared advisors. To get that information, we have to travel to certain government facilities and sign in to read the materials. Even
then, the administration determines what we can and cannot review and,
often, they provide carefully edited summaries rather than the actual
underlying text, which is critical to really understanding the
consequences of the agreement.
Cleared advisors were created by statute
to advise our nation’s trade negotiators. There is a hierarchal
structure, starting with the USTR’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy
& Negotiations at the top—a committee that includes people like
Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, Etsy CEO
Chad Dickerson and Jill Appell, co-owner of Appell’s Pork Farms. Then
there are specific Committees covering subjects like labor, the
environment and agriculture that make up the next tier. The last tier
consists of the Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACS), which focus
on individual sectors such as steel and aerospace. At last count, there
were more than 600 cleared advisors. The vast majority of them represent
business interests.
In an effort to diminish criticism, USTR
is now letting cleared advisors review summaries of what the negotiators
have done. In response to a question about when the full updated text
will be made available, we’ve been told, “We are working on making them
available as soon as possible.” That’s not the case overseas: Our
trading partners have this text, but the government’s own cleared
advisors, serving on statutorily-created advisory committees, are kept
in the dark.
How can we properly advise, without knowing the details?
Questions pervade virtually every chapter
of the proposed agreement, including labor and the environment,
investor-state, intellectual property and others. The answers to these
questions affect the sourcing and investment decisions of our companies
and resulting jobs for our people. Our elected representatives would be
abdicating their Constitutional duty if they failed to raise questions.
Senator Warren should be commended for
her courage in standing up to the President, and Secretary Clinton for
raising a note of caution, and I encourage all elected officials to
raise these important questions. Working Americans can’t afford more
failed trade agreements and trade policies.
Congress should refuse to pass
fast track trade negotiating authority until the partnership between the
branches, and the trust of the American people is restored.
That will require a lot of fence mending and disclosure of exactly what
the TPP will do. That begins by sharing the final text of the TPP with
those of us who won’t simply rubber-stamp it.
* * *
And then, moments ago: OBAMA SAYS HE’S `PLEASED’ WITH DEAL IN CONGRESS ON TRADE
It almost makes one wonder just whom does “elected” government represent…
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