Ten Tall Tales on Trade: Fact-Checking Obama's Top Trade Official

[unhappycamper]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28863-ten-tall-tales-on-trade-fact-checking-obama-s-top-trade-official



US Trade Representative Michael From an speaks at the WTO'S Ministerial Conference in Bali, December, 2013.

Ten Tall Tales on Trade: Fact-Checking Obama's Top Trade Official
By Ben Beachy, Eyes on Trade
Monday, 02 February 2015 10:05

~snip~

1. Fast Track Puts Congress in the Driver's Seat (of a Runaway Car, without Brakes or a Steering Wheel)

Okay, let's go with this analogy. If reviving Fast Track puts Congress in the driver's seat, it also removes the brakes and steering wheel. Reviving Fast Track would empower the administration to negotiate and sign a sweeping "trade" pact like the TPP – implicating everything from the cost of medicines to the safety of food to the reform of Wall Street – before Congress had any enforceable say over the deal's contents, even if they contradicted Congress' stated negotiating objectives. Goodbye steering wheel. Congress' role would be relegated to an expedited, no-amendments, limited-debate vote on the already-signed deal. Goodbye brakes.

~snip~

2. A Trade Surplus with Our FTA Partners (Does Not Appear in Official Government Data)

These claims defy official U.S. government data. Data from the U.S. International Trade Commission show that the United States has a $180 billion U.S. goods trade deficit with all free trade agreement (FTA) partners (in 2013, the latest year on record). In manufactured goods, the United States has a $51 billion manufacturing trade deficit with all FTA partners. Froman claimed otherwise, in part, by counting billions of dollars' worth of "foreign exports" – goods produced abroad that simply pass through the United States without alteration before being "re-exported." These goods, by definition, do not support U.S. production jobs.

~snip~

3. We Wish to Ensure Access to Affordable Medicines in the TPP (but Big Pharma Won't Let Us)

These words play politics with people's lives. They cloak the tragic reality that if the TPP would take effect as USTR has proposed, with leaks showing even greater monopoly protections for pharmaceutical corporations than in prior pacts, people would needlessly die for lack of access to affordable medicines. A new study finds, for example, that the TPP would dramatically reduce the share of Vietnam's HIV patients who have access to life-saving antiretroviral medicines. The study reveals that while 68 percent of Vietnam's eligible HIV patients currently receive treatment, U.S.-proposed monopoly protections for pharmaceutical corporations in the TPP would allow only 30 percent of Vietnam's HIV patients to access antiretrovirals. As a result, an estimated 45,000 people with HIV in Vietnam who currently receive antiretroviral treatment would no longer be able to afford the life-saving drugs.

~snip~

4. Most Exporters are Small Businesses (that Have Endured Slow and Falling Exports under FTAs)

Implying that exporting is mainly the domain of small businesses because they make up most exporting firms is like implying that the NBA is a league of short people because most NBA players are shorter than 7 feet tall. The reason small and medium enterprises (defined as 500 employees or less) comprise most U.S. exporting firms is simply because they constitute 99.7 percent of U.S. firms overall (in the same way that those of us below 7 feet constitute more than 99 percent of the U.S. population). The more relevant question is what share of small and medium firms actually depend on exports for their success. Only 3 percent of U.S. small and medium enterprises export any good to any country. In contrast, 38 percent of large U.S. firms are exporters. Even if FTAs actually succeeded in boosting exports (which they don't, per the government data noted below), exporting is primarily the domain of large corporations, not small businesses.

[Fuddnik]

1. The name From rings a bell.

I bet he is absolutely no relation to DLC, New Dem, Third-Way, corporate turd, Al From.

But, I could be wrong.

[elleng]

2. This and Education are Pres. Obama's worst, imo.