any trade deal negotiated by President Obama will have a monthslong review by Congress and the public,

[still_one]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/business/obama-fast-track-pacific-trade-deal.html?_r=0


“What I hope it will do is have people say, ‘They’re changing the playbook on trade,’ ” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, who demanded the open comment period after facing intense pressure from liberal and labor groups. “I’m very much aware there isn’t going to be any kumbaya moment here. I’m probably more aware of that than practically anybody in the United States at this point.”

Mr. Obama made an energetic case for free trade in an interview broadcast Tuesday night and predicted that Congress would soon give him the fast-track authority to complete the Asia-Pacific trade deal, the largest trade accord since Nafta went into effect in 1994.

“I would not be doing this trade deal if I did not think it was good for the middle class,” Mr. Obama said in the interview. “And when you hear folks make a lot of suggestions about how bad this trade deal is, when you dig into the facts they are wrong.”

[JDPriestly]

1. I wonder whether President Obama has actually read the entire

agreement or whether he has just read summaries of it.

He praises it to the high heavens but says very little about it that is specific or concrete.

It's a corporate coup. That's all it is. That is why it is so hidden.

Apparently the negotiations have reached a point that Congress can vote up or down on the agreement. I think I can fairly assume from that that the agreement is an agreement and not a work in progress.

So why hasn't it been released to the public?

If the agreement is done and Obama has great things to say about it, why can't we all read it?

This makes no sense. Obama is hiding the agreement from the public. Why?

If he really thought it was good agreement, you'd think he would want to show it off.

I think I can safely assume that the agreement is horrible. I just can't draw any other conclusion.

It's like when you tell a child to take bitter medicine and you assure the child that the medicine will taste good. The pharmaceutical companies make medicines for children taste good to children, but when I was a child, they used the "it's going to taste good" lie to get us to take what we needed.

That is what President Obama appears to be doing.

[joshcryer]

4. Likely memos and summaries.

There's no way he's sitting around reading every draft coming out, he may not even care about the legalese at all. He puts the faith in his policy wonks, for good or for bad. If it does work, expect all trade agreements forward to be fashioned after it.

If it doesn't work (which is likely the case), expect the policy wonks to still want to give it another go. It's the price consumer society pays, I guess. But I don't see them letting go of trade agreements. China is starting to get too much sway and can't allow it.

TPP is classified under 1.4(b) of Executive Order 13526: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information

Where TPP has to do with national security, I am not sure, it makes little sense to say that there's a national security element to it to me. I think it's a sneaky way to put in exclusions so that some countries get better deals than other. Already AU has an ISDS exemption (probably because they got burned by Phillip Morris over cigarette packaging). Don't want other countries wanting exemptions, so you keep it hush hush until it's too late for the people in those countries to do anything about it.

[gcomeau]

6. Have *you* read the entire agreement? -eom

[JDPriestly]

7. Of course not. Do you know where I could get a copy?

I'd like to read it. And I will be able to understand it, so if you know where I can get a copy, please let me know.

[Hoyt]

8. All of us can get a copy when it's finished and before Congress votes.

Right now you can get negotiating documents if you look, and the gov web site includes a wealth of info, in great detail.

[gcomeau]

10. Was just confused by your absolute declaration...

...it was a "corporate coup" as if you knew a thing about what it said.

Silly me.

[JDPriestly]

16. I know what has happened with NAFTA.

TPP will be worse. You can count on that. Corporations are privy to what is going on with the negotiations, what went on with the negotiations. They were permitted input. Labor was given some opportunity to have input, but essentially corporations wrote the thing.
It is a corporate coup.

[gcomeau]

17. See, there you go again.

If you haven't read it are we dealing with psychic powers here?

[JDPriestly]

18. The trade court created by the TPP, and it will create one, necessarily

will not permit us a trial by a jury of our peers.

That is a given. I do not need to read the TPP to know that for a certainty.

That is a given. The TPP will once again abolish one of our constitutional rights. The NSA has abolished the Fourth Amendment's right to a warrant, and the TPP as NAFTA before it in order to enable
"enforcement" of its rules and settlement of disputes that arise under it will conflict and end out constitutional right to a jury trial in civil disputes over a certain values if one of the parties can find a foreign corporation to represent it in the TPP trade court.

It is a violation of our rights. I do not need to read the agreement to know that. It will necessarily be objectionable on that ground. I know what I am talking about. I am not spinning a theory. OK?

[gcomeau]

19. Welcome to the concept of international agreements.

No matter WHAT kind of international treaty you enter into it's not going to be arbitrated by a jury or your American Citizen Peers. You do understand why that would be the case I hope?


Anything else?

[JDPriestly]

20. And that, in addition to our trade surplus, is the reason I think we

should negotiate treaties one on one and not with these groups of countries. We should negotiate one on one and allow issues to be resolved by choice of law agreements on specific issues and parties.

[gcomeau]

21. You do realize...

...that the number of countries involved has nothing to do with whether the treaty will be arbitrated by a jury of American citizens right?

[JDPriestly]

22. If you have an agreement between just two nations, trade disputes

can be dealt with by withdrawing from the treaty or agreement. The agreement can also include specific directions regarding the country and courts in which disagreements are to be decided. Choice of law provisions can be included in the agreement and in the contracts agreed to under the agreement. Copyright and patent disputes can be decided where they are filed. If a US company thinks its copyrights or patents have been violated, let them sue in the US and collect from the assets of citizens of the country that is permitting the violations in the US. That will be an incentive to the country that is permitting copyright and patent violations to enforce laws protecting copyrights and patents. That will have the same effect that a trade court decision that imposes liability for trademark and copyright violations on the nation or company that profits from the violation. The liability for the violations of a country's citizens will be visited on the country as a whole.

Trade courts deprive the citizens of countries like ours that have a jury system from serving on the jury that decides important commercial disputes. They I simply are not compatible with our system of justice.

Further, our law is a system of precedents as well as statutes (as opposed to the system of civil law in Europe, for instance, in which precedent is less important). Will trade court decisions be offered as precedent in our US courts? Inevitably, the trade courts will issue decisions that conflict with the decisions of our courts. What then?

Clearly, the big damages awards in the trade courts and most of the cases will be aimed at sucking money out of the wealthier nations, Canada, the US, Australia, etc. Do you seriously think that corporations are going to sue Viet Nam over its labor practices and get big damages awards?

I don't. Violations of labor rights will be the last thing any corporation sues about. And who else will sue to enforce the labor and environmental provisions? The lawsuits will emanate from the labor law violators and the environmental violators.

The big cases in the trade courts will, as they already are in the NAFTA court, concern petty issues about laws that prohibit corporate marauders from taking advantage and exacting big awards. We will also see a lot of big cases brought by sellers of dirty practices and dirty products, corporations that want to harm the environment and then sue a wealthy country over the fact that the country's environmental, safety or labor laws prohibit the corporate bullies from doing what they want.

Look at the list of cases in the NAFTA court. You can find it at Public Citizen. Most of the cases thus far have been rejected on procedural grounds. But the international lawyers will learn hos to write their papers so that the court does not reject them. It's just a matter of time until they get the nuances that win the court's approval down pat.

And the cost of defending these bogus and bullying lawsuits will lead to compromises that should not be made.

The trade courts that are set up by these agreements are a travesty of justice. No more.

[gcomeau]

24. Sigh...

If you have an agreement between just two nations, trade disputes can be dealt with by withdrawing from the treaty or agreement.

You can withdraw from ANY treaty or agreement regardless of how many countries are signatories to it. What in the world makes you think that only works with 2 signatories?

The agreement can also include specific directions regarding the country and courts in which disagreements are to be decided.

Again, this is true regardless of how many signatories there are.

Choice of law provisions can be included in the agreement and in the contracts agreed to under the agreement

Not dependent on number of signatories.

Copyright and patent disputes can be decided where they are filed.

Not dependent on number of signatories.

If a US company thinks its copyrights or patents have been violated, let them sue in the US ...

Not dependent on number of signatories.

Are we detecting a theme?

[JDPriestly]

28. If you have a trade agreement with only one nation and you decide to

end the agreement, you can still trade with other countries with which you have an agreement.

If you want to stop trading with one country, say because of its lax environmental or trade standards, you can do that if your agreement is with that one country. But if you have a trade agreement with a number of countries, countries that are diverse as to their economic development and their traditions, especially labor and environmental values and traditions, you have a big problem.

Look at the European market. Greece does not face the same economic choices that the heavily developed industrial economies like Germany and France do. Europe has a trade agreement and theoretically the same currency, but each country may establish its own financial policies and enter into debt without coordinating with other countries.

That "trade group" has not succeeded. Why should the TPP considering the disparity in the economic conditions of the countries joining in the agreement succeed? How can it?

I'm very skeptical. Maybe I will change my mind after I have read the agreement. But I think if the agreement were really all that great, President Obama would have allowed us to see ALL of it before chastising those of us who are critical and suspicious of it.

[gcomeau]

29. You can't possibly believe...

If you have a trade agreement with only one nation and you decide to end the agreement, you can still trade with other countries with which you have an agreement.

...that not having a trade agreement means not having trade.

If NAFTA ended tomorrow do you think all trade between the US and Canada would stop?

Do you think there was no trade between the US and Canada before NAFTA?


So yes, if you back out of a trade agreement you can still trade with other countries you have an agreement with. You can ALSO still trade with the country you just ended the agreement with. Just not under the same freaking terms as the agreement. You would simply go back to trading with them the exact same way you were before you signed the agreement.



(and the EU is hardly a "trade group". It's *slightly* more involved than that)

[Octafish]

23. Absolutely correct.

In Detroit, once bankrupt car makers and car suppliers are doing great, hiring like crazy for new plants overseas. They even brag about it:

Talk about a turnaround. Delphi's epic 2005 bankruptcy exacted high costs on communities, unions and the pensions of salaried retirees. Yet the creative destruction of the four-year ordeal, shaped by management, private equity investors and the demands of the Obama auto task force, produced a global supplier that now offers 33 product lines from 141 manufacturing sites in 33 countries and employs 160,000 worldwide — only 5,000 of which work inside the United States. -- Daniel Howes, Detroit News,
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/columnists/daniel-howes/2015/02/18/howes-delphi-surges-quietly-one-regret/23655511/

Most people around now don't remember what the country was like when everybody had a good job.

[msongs]

2. since he is not allowing the american people to "dig into the facts" he is full of BS nt

[joshcryer]

3. And there's ample opportunity for a SOPA/net neutrality style fight.

Where the phones literally ring off the hook all day long and the email boxes are swarmed with responses.

The question is, will that happen?

My bet is that there might be a last minute push by some progressive groups, but it won't be enough.

[jwirr]

26. If they pass the TPA even if we read it we cannot change it. The only choice we will have is pass

or not pass. That is what our telephone calls will have to be about.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

5. a month? Last night I was told 120 days

Congess can be out of session for an entire month. Especially the month it's introduced.

[pampango]

9. The poster may have meant "months-long" review. That would be more accurate. n/t

[jwirr]

27. I have heard 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and now 120 days. Would really like to know how many days?

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. & any "trade" deal proposed by whoever is president will have no amendments possible by Congress

...So, corporate lawyers will continue to have influence during the writing and negotiating of the "trade" deal, but Congress will have only a "Take it or leave it" option, presented under the context of implying "Nothing's perfect, but if you don't pass it in its entirity you're an obstructionist."


Why should corporate lawyers, rather than elected members of Congress, be the ones to have input during the writing and negotiating of details, with Congress reduced to the role of rubber stamping an unamendable bill?

[still_one]

12. Has that ever been done with trade agreements?

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. There has been evolution.

The U.S. Constitution assigns express authority over the regulation of foreign trade to Congress.
Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations ... ”
and to “ ... lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.... ” In contrast, the Constitution
assigns no specific responsibility for trade to the President. 3 Under Article II, however, the
President has exclusive authority to negotiate treaties and international agreements and exercises
broad authority over the conduct of the nation’s foreign affairs. Both legislative and executive
authorities come into play in the development and execution of U.S. trade agreements.

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33743.pdf

The Trade Act of 1974 established a Fast Track process in which legislative changes in existing law which were required to bring the US into compliance with a negotiated trade agreement would be handled with an expedited process in which no amendments were allowed.

The initial negotiations under the GATT, including the Kennedy Round (the 6th session of GATT negotiations) were conducted prior to a Fast Track process.

While the "Kennedy Round" (enacted by Congress in 1967 during the Johnson administration) was the last trade agreement to deal primarily with tariffs, it was also the first to have significant non-tariff issues.

As these non-tariff issues required changes is US law to bring laws into compliance with the agreement, and the issue of changing US law relating to non-tariff issues had not been clarified in the act authorizing the Kennedy Round (the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, in which Congress granted the President authority, for 5 years, to enter into agreements that negotiated the reduction or elimination of tariffs) the Trade Act of 1974 initiated a Fast Track process whereby changes in existing law needed to bring the US into compliance would be handled in an expedited manner (Fast Track) with no amendment.

The 1974 Fast Track process was subsequently extended through 1994, at which time it lapsed until 2002, when it was re-authorized until 2007.

Most, but not all, trade agreements have been authorized through this process.






A change that appears to be of great significance is the massive expansion of non-trade issues in these agreements, which have come to be virtually all-encompassing, so that "trade" agreements now are used as a path to limit Congressional involvement in making significant changes to environmental law, labor law, intellectual property law, health and safety regulations, and, in addition, bypass the authority of the judicial branch by establishing "investor-State Dispute Resolution" panels whose decisions cannot be appealed.

Corporate lawyers certainly understand that each of these individual changes to environmental, or labor, or intellectual property, or other law would be extremely difficult to get through Congress, and would rightly generate intense debate, and that it is far easier to make these changes part of a "trade" agreement that Congress cannot amend, but have3 only the option of rejecting the entire package.

The evolution of "trade" agreements to be all-encompassing vehicles for changing non-trade related law was certainly not anticipated when the Fast Track process was created in 1974.

A "no-amendment" up-or-down-only requirement which was designed for, and might have make sense in 1974 for tariff reduction (and for other non-tariff but strictly trade associated negotiations/agreements), when applied to 21st century negotiations which overturn environmental, labor, financial, intellectual property, health and safety law and regulations at the federal, sate, and local level, becomes (rather than a method of lowering "trade" barriers) a vehicle for corporate undermining of democratic process.

[still_one]

14. Good information. Thanks

[Faryn Balyncd]

15. You are welcome, still one.

[Orsino]

25. So why are our progressive representatives warning us against it...

...while Republicans seem to favor it tacitly? The answer to that question will probably tell us who's right and who's wrong.