[CTC] TPP in election news

Mon Feb 1 06:08:09 PST 2016

A few on TPP in the elections below…

POLITICO Morning Trade
 <>By Adam Behsudi | 02/01/2016 05:56 AM EDT

With help from Doug Palmer and Jason Huffman

TRUMP KEEPS UP ATTACK ON TPP HEADING INTO IOWA CAUCUS: Donald Trump continued to express contempt for the Trans Pacific Partnership over the weekend, telling Breitbart News that he is the country's best hope for stopping the administration's trade agenda, which he also laid at the feet of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Our leaders have negotiated terrible deals that are bleeding this country dry," Trump reportedly said in an exclusive statement to the conservative news service just days before the Iowa caucus. "The TPP is another terrible one-sided deal that rewards offshoring and enriches other countries at our expense. I will stop Hillary's Obamatrade in its tracks, bringing millions of new voters into the Republican Party. We will move manufacturing jobs back to the United States and we will make America great again." Read the Breitbart News article here: http://bit.ly/1P6zFY4 <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=5cd3e90f18879243aa0ed3908e4bf940997e9fd1dc776821527153217060354f>
TRUMP POSITION IS CONSISTENT: Even though he is a self-proclaimed "free trader," the New York magnate's anti-TPP statements are consistent with his position that previous administrations have botched trade negotiations ranging as far back as the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also told the New York Times editorial board in January that he would impose a 45 percent tariff against China to address a trade imbalance with the massive Asian economy. His most recent proposal is actually an increase from the 25 percent tariff he proposed in 2011.

"He's basically taxing poor people, and right there I don't like it," said Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute, commenting on how the additional tax would only increase the price consumers pay for cheap goods that come from China. Trump's reaction to the fact that China is not a good trading partner is correct, Scissors said, but "his response doesn't make sense."

Despite Trump's tough-on-China stance, Scissors said the millionaire's proposal to tax China "is way to the protectionist side for someone who says he is Republican." But with his rise in the polls, Scissors said Trump's policies could be striking a chord with members of the Republican party who may want to see a tougher response to China's trade practices. Trump's position "is out of whack with the Republican party four years ago," he said. "The question is how far out of whack is it with the Republican Party now?"

SANDERS BAITS CLINTON: But Donald Trump isn't the only one taking shots at Hillary Clinton's connections to the TPP. "What's her position on this bad trade deal today?" Sen. Bernie Sanders' spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement issued late last week. "It's hard to keep track of Secretary Clinton's shifting stands on the trade agreement that would help multi-national corporations ship more decent-paying jobs from the United States to low-wage nations overseas."

Clinton in October said she didn't like the trade deal based on what she knew of it. Sanders' campaign made clear the Vermont lawmaker is opposed to the TPP.

"You are looking at a senator and former congressman who has led the effort since his first day in Congress back in the early 1990s against disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China and today against the TPP," Sanders told reporters after an event in Iowa last month. "My record on trade is very, very different than Secretary Clinton's."

The most recent Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll, published Sunday, had Trump leading the Republican race, besting Sen. Ted Cruz by 5 percentage points. Clinton and Sanders were running at 45 and 42 percent respectively. See it here: http://politi.co/1OZCI6F <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=5cd3e90f18879243c3a8c50ff9e2ea0f284facbbd0144d1d06f12d904316e529>.

FROMAN ALL SET TO SIGN TPP: Obama issued a memorandum Friday empowering U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman to sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership this week, in Auckland, New Zealand. Froman will stop in Beijing for meetings with Chinese officials before traveling to New Zealand for the signing ceremony, according to a schedule released by his office. The signing is expected to take place Thursday morning in New Zealand, which will be Wednesday evening in Washington.

Froman will also hold bilateral meetings through Saturday with other TPP trade ministers before returning to the United States, providing a potential opportunity to discuss concerns that senior Republicans have raised about parts of the pact.

DUELING TPP STUDIES: Tufts University will release a study today on the TPP, in which it predicts the deal will result in a net loss of income in the U.S., worsening income inequality and a significant net job loss. The Peterson Institute, which released its own TPP study projecting income gains, didn't miss a chance to try to refute the Tufts study, which claims to use "a more realistic model that incorporates effects on employment excluded from prior TPP modeling."

"To decide which of these studies is more credible, three questions should be asked: First, is the model that is used appropriate for exploring trade policy? Second, has the TPP been depicted in that model in a sensible way? And third, are the results of the model credible?" Peterson scholar Robert Lawrence wrote in a blog post Friday.

"I argue not only that the [Peterson] model is superior on all counts but also that whatever the merits of the model used by [Tufts], it is simply not suited for credibly predicting the effects of the TPP," he added. Read Lawrence's post here: http://bit.ly/1UAuyD4  <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=5cd3e90f188792435b563c383a4013a0c7407dd6ffaefd13bbfd147ba191ce1e>and the Tufts study here: http://bit.ly/1WVf6mC <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=5cd3e90f18879243413f8a1a41ea2ff69c7e9758cb8f70a76b4c61c7a278c105>.

INTERNATIONAL OVERNIGHT

Rep. Ami Bera fails to secure the endorsement of his regional Democratic party because of his votes on trade and other issues, the Sacramento Bee reports: http://bit.ly/1Q5oLlm <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=5cd3e90f188792438673f7d9fac274502b90f9391a3cb93040348c48dff8d9db>
Public support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is holding up despite the resignation of Akira Amari, Bloomberg reports:http://bloom.bg/1nyipUj <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=5cd3e90f18879243c1e752bd70fc9e84b3e624f79317247755b8e8d6bfcd6299>
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/business/donald-trump-unions.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/business/donald-trump-unions.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0>
Unions Lean Democratic, but Donald Trump Gets Members’ Attention

By NOAM SCHEIBER JAN. 29, 2016

WASHINGTON — Of all the voters who might be expected to resist the charms of Donald J. Trump, the two million members of the Service Employees International Union would most likely be near the top of the list.

The union, which endorsed Hillary Clinton in November, is widely regarded as one of the more progressive in the labor movement. It skews female and racially diverse — roughly the opposite of a Trump rally, in other words.

But the union’s president, Mary Kay Henry, acknowledged that Mr. Trump holds appeal even for some of her members. “There is deep economic anxiety among our members and the people we’re trying to organize that I believe Donald Trump’s message is tapping into,” Ms. Henry said.

In expressing her concern, Ms. Henry reflected a different form of anxiety that is weighing on some union leaders and Democratic operatives: their fear that Mr. Trump, if not effectively countered, may draw an unusually large number of union voters in a possible general election matchup. This could, in turn, bolster Republicans in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all

of which President Obama won twice.

The source of the attraction to Mr. Trump, say union members and leaders, is manifold: the candidate’s unapologetically populist positions on certain economic issues, particularly trade; a frustration with the impotence of conventional politicians; and above all, a sense that he rejects the norms of Washington discourse.

“They feel he’s the one guy who’s saying what’s on people’s minds,” Thomas Hanify, the president of the Indiana state firefighters union, said of his rank and file.

Mr. Hanify said that Mr. Trump has so far dominated the “firehouse chatter” in his state. While he allowed that his members tilt Republican, he estimated that most followed the lead of the union’s international leadership and supported Mr. Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Ms. Henry and other labor leaders remain confident that they can keep their members in the fold by making a case that the Republicans’ economic agenda, including Mr. Trump’s, runs counter to the interests of working people. But they also see Mr. Trump as posing particular risks.

“Anyone who talks about dividing people in the country as a solution is a threat to the country, to democracy, the economy, and to working people, and we take every one of those seriously,” said Richard L. Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

The potential pairing of Mr. Trump and union members could be helped along by a sense that Mr. Trump, unlike more conventional Republicans, has historically enjoyed a cordial relationship with labor on many of his real estate projects.

“He has put his fair share into hiring union people,” said Richard Sabato, the president of a building and construction trades council in northern New Jersey. “He’s done that in Manhattan, in New Jersey.”

But that is not always the case. The owners of Trump International Hotel Las Vegas filed objections to a recent vote by roughly 500 of its workers to unionize, and the National Labor Relations Board has found merit to the claims that the

hotel violated workers’ labor rights. (The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.)

Mr. Sabato said that his members, who lean Republican but in many cases voted for Mr. Obama, would “march behind” Mr. Trump on the issue of illegal immigration.

Even more important for many union members has been the issue of economic globalization. Mr. Trump has railed against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12- country trade deal the administration finished negotiating last year. And he has bemoaned the administration’s failure to stand up to what he and many union members see as China’s mercantilist policies.

He has also fulminated against plans by the company that owns Nabisco to shift some production to Mexico — “I love Oreos,” he said, “I will never eat them again” — and vowed to impose a punishing tariff on imports of Ford cars unless the company canceled a $2.5 billion investment in plants in that country.

“We like that he does not support TPP, that he has taken the position that there should be trade tariffs for a company that moves jobs overseas,” said Ryan Leenders, 30, a member of the International Association of Machinists in Washington State. Mr. Leenders, who estimated that one-quarter to one-third of his factory’s union workers were Trump supporters, said he voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 and wrote in Ron Paul in 2012.

Reflecting the anti-establishment mood that has engulfed parts of the labor movement, Mr. Leenders said he believed that more than half of his union’s workers support Senator Bernie Sanders, while very few support Mrs. Clinton, despite the fact that the machinists union endorsed her last summer. (A machinists spokesman said that, “At this point, any estimates of support for a candidate are more a passing snapshot of popularity.”)

Many union officials are grappling with a similar dynamic, including the Teamsters, whose members have a “Teamsters for Trump” Facebook page, with more than 650 likes.

John Bulgaro, the president of Teamsters Local 294 in Albany, said that Mr.

Trump had generated excitement among his members, but that “a lot of people like Bernie Sanders.” He cautioned that they would need to hear more about Mr. Trump’s position on labor rights.

To be sure, polling of union voters shows that Mrs. Clinton remains broadly popular and would carry most Sanders supporters in a matchup against Mr. Trump. But the same polling suggests that Mr. Trump could perform unusually well among these voters for a Republican nominee.

Christopher M. Shelton, the president of the Communications Workers of America, which endorsed Mr. Sanders in December, said that while polling of his members showed Mr. Trump’s support lagging far behind support for Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton, it was higher than Republican presidential candidates typically net.

Despite Mr. Trump’s appeal, particularly among white working-class men, longtime labor officials and political operatives point out that Mr. Trump’s popularity before a single primary vote has been cast is a vastly different proposition than whether he would be able to retain that support in the fall.

“In every election around this time there are stories suggesting that union members will defect — ‘Oh, white union men won’t vote for Obama,’” Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and progressive political organizer, wrote in an email response to questions.

In the end, Mr. Rosenthal said, union voters almost always end up voting overwhelmingly Democratic in presidential elections. White male union members favored Mr. Obama in 2008, and John Kerry in 2004, by roughly 20 percentage points, according to polling commissioned by the A.F.L.-C.I.O., even as white men over all favored the Republican candidate by a large margin.

Mr. Rosenthal said that unions have proved adept at building support among their members for Democratic nominees who generally embrace their economic agenda and at undermining support for Republicans.

In a recent study of working-class voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania based on over 1,500 interviews, Working America, a labor-affiliated group, found genuine

support for Mr. Trump among Democrats. But Matt Morrison, the group’s deputy director, said that many Trump supporters were receptive to information that suggested a gap between the candidate’s words and deeds.

“Just delivering a little bit of new information, we could see that his brand takes a hit,” Mr. Morrison said, referring to reports that Mr. Trump may have used undocumented workers on some of his development projects.

Other experts cautioned that even if Mr. Trump were to retain substantial support among white male union members without college degrees, that would not necessarily yield him an electoral advantage in November if he became the Republican nominee.

The voters whom labor unions must typically work the hardest to turn out, like younger voters and Latinos, “are groups that will be highly motivated” against Mr. Trump, said Guy Molyneux, a pollster who has surveyed union voters extensively over the years.

Mr. Molyneux also said that many of the union voters attracted by Mr. Trump were among the 30 percent of union voters who already vote reliably Republican.

Still, unlike most other Republicans, whose appeal to union voters rarely extends beyond cultural issues like gun rights, Mr. Trump’s economic pronouncements have a greater potential to scramble the standard political calculus.

“I do think that Trump is a threat,” said Mike Lux, a progressive activist who is a former labor official and veteran of President Bill Clinton’s administration. “If the Democratic nominee is Hillary, and she’s mushy at all on the trade issue, Trump will take that issue and drive it and drive it and drive it.”

Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates viaFacebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on January 30, 2016, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Unions’ Leaders Wary of Trump. 

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/28/1476527/-Chamber-of-Commerce-Lobbyist-Tom-Donohue-Clinton-Will-Support-TPP-After-Election

Chamber of Commerce Lobbyist Tom Donohue: Clinton Will Support TPP After Election <http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/1/28/1476527/-Chamber-of-Commerce-Lobbyist-Tom-Donohue-Clinton-Will-Support-TPP-After-Election>

By Robert Naiman <http://www.dailykos.com/user/Robert%20Naiman>  
Thursday Jan 28, 2016 · 6:45 PM EST

In an interview from Davos with Bloomberg TV on January 20, Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, a top lobbyist for the pro-corporate-power Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP] agreement, assured viewers that if Hillary Clinton wins the Presidential election, Clinton will support the TPP <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-01-20/will-the-trans-pacific-partnership-deal-survive->, even though she opposes it now.

Reporting on the interview, Inside U.S. Trade noted <http://wtonewsstand.com/content/white-house-calls-business-tpp-meeting-donohue-sees-lame-duck-vote>:

The Chamber president said he expected Hillary Clinton would ultimately support the TPP if she becomes the Democratic nominee for president and is elected. He argued that she has publicly opposed the deal chiefly because her main challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has also done so. "If she were to get nominated, if she were to be elected, I have a hunch that what runs in the family is you get a little practical if you ever get the job," he said.
Donohue also said TPP will not be voted on prior to the election because Senate Republicans do not want to do anything that could jeopardize Republican Senators in close races. But he said he believed there was a 75 percent chance that TPP would get done in the lame-duck session after the election.

In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was pilloried <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/us/politics/etch-a-sketch-remark-a-rare-misstep-for-romney-adviser.html> when a senior campaign adviser suggested that Romney would "hit a reset button" after the primary was over. "It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again."

But now TPP lobbyist Tom Donohue is saying there's going to be an "Etch a Sketch" on the TPP after the general election in November.

Don't voters have the right to know now what Democratic and Republican politicians will do on the TPP after the election, yes or no? If you agree, you can tell your representatives in Congress so here <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/tpp-no-post-election-etch-a-sketch>.

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