[CTC] Former defense secretaries push for trade pact

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Two articles below...

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/04/28/defense-chiefs-urge-congress-to-overcome-anti-trade-rhetoric-pass-pacific-trade-pact/ <http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/04/28/defense-chiefs-urge-congress-to-overcome-anti-trade-rhetoric-pass-pacific-trade-pact/>
Defense Chiefs Urge Congress to Overcome Anti-Trade Rhetoric, Pass Pacific Trade Pact

William Mauldin
Apr 28, 2016 6:08 pm ET 
Defenders of President Barack Obama <http://topics.wsj.com/person/O/barack,-obama/4328>’s Pacific trade agreement are taking out the big guns.

Eight former secretaries of defense signed a letter asking congressional leaders to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, as a way to renew American leadership in the Pacific as China flexes its economic and military muscle.

Presidential candidates from Donald Trump <http://topics.wsj.com/person/T/donald,-trump/159> to Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have criticized the deal as potentially harmful for American manufacturing and more geared toward multinational companies than workers. The candidates have unleashed a groundswell of protectionist rhetoric on the right and left sides of the political spectrum, isolating pro-trade views in the Obama administration in Congress.

Signed in February, the agreement faces an uphill battle in Congress, even though lawmakers voted less than a year ago to give Mr. Obama special trade authority to finish the deal.

Mr. Obama’s economic team says the deal would perceptibly boost U.S. gross domestic product, but military leaders are backing it as a way to keep the peace in the Pacific by encouraging countries to exchange goods and services freely and resolve disputes through a rules-based trading system.

If ratified by the U.S., Japan and other countries in the 12-nation bloc, the agreement would eliminate most tariffs and set commercial rules of the road on everything from drug makers’ intellectual property to labor laws in Vietnam.

A failure to ratify the agreement would be a sign Washington can’t follow through with its strategic plans and potentially boost the status of Beijing, the former defense officials said.

“The last thing we should do is throw this country back to the ‘American first’ policies, and the isolationism, and the Smoot-Holley approach to trade of the 1930s,” former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said on a conference call. “I just don’t think you can lead the United States of America in the 21st century by ducking behind a wall and assuming, somehow, that you can provide the necessary leadership in a troubled world.”

The current defense secretary, Ash Carter, has compared the agreement to having an extra aircraft carrier in the region.

China is not in the trade deal but is currently helping lead negotiation on a separate pact known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, that doesn’t include Washington.

Critics of the TPP brush aside strategic arguments and say the deal should be sold on its economic merits. Labor unions have blamed trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, for a slump in American manufacturing jobs.

Mr. Trump on Wednesday called Nafta and other U.S. arrangements a “total disaster” and said “there will be consequences for the companies that leave the United States, only to exploit it later.”

Backers of the TPP blame technology and the complicated forces of globalization for the manufacturing decline and see few additional factory job losses coming from the deal, which is set to boost to the technology sector, advanced services industries and many agricultural producers.



http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2016-04-28-US--Trade-Defense%20Secretaries/id-e3672191e13e4b728e0fd94ffe6282d7 <http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2016-04-28-US--Trade-Defense%20Secretaries/id-e3672191e13e4b728e0fd94ffe6282d7>
Apr. 28, 2016 6:48 PM ET
Former defense secretaries push for trade pact
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press  <http://www.ap.org/newsvalues/index.html> 
WASHINGTON (AP) — Eight former secretaries of defense are pushing congressional leaders to back one of President Barack Obama's top priorities and pass a free trade agreement they say is fundamental to national security.

The bipartisan group has penned a letter stating that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement will strengthen alliances with regional powers such as Japan and Singapore.

They also warn that a failure to ratify the agreement will result in a loss of credibility and let others, most likely China, set the rules for engagement in Asia.

The secretaries say the overall benefit to the economy and national security "cannot be overstated," though opponents argue the pact would harm U.S. jobs.

The former secretaries are Harold Brown, Frank Carlucci, William Perry, William Cohen, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel
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