[CTC] Portland Tribune: Merkley will oppose Pacific trade pact

[Fred Heutte]

[this was in the print edition today -- fh]

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http://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/293966-171372-merkley-will-oppose-pacific-trade-pact

Merkley will oppose Pacific trade pact

Created on Wednesday, 17 February 2016 18:50 | Written by Peter Wong 

Oregon Democrat argues it will speed exodus of U.S. jobs.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley says he opposes the pending trade agreement with 12
Asian and Pacific nations, many of which he argues will benefit from jobs
that ought to remain in the United States.

The Oregon Democrat, in a meeting Wednesday (Feb. 17) with the Portland
Tribune editorial board, said some past bilateral trade agreements
benefited both the United States and the other nation.

But he says the pending agreement, officially the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, falls into the same category as much-criticized pacts with
Canada and Mexico and with Central America. Merkley says they give
advantages to manufacturers in nations with less stringent environmental
and labor standards than the United States – including U.S. companies that
move operations to such nations.

“When we reduce or eliminate barriers for countries with low standards, the
differential in cost is massive,” Merkley says. “This is about jobs in
America. We do not have a middle class unless we make things in America.”

Advocates, including President Barack Obama, argue that it will open
markets for U.S. goods and services – but Merkley disagrees.

“It is not about opening markets for U.S. goods because the goods they want
to sell in those markets are not going to be made here,” he said. “We
already know that because our manufacturers have left here to go to the
cheapest places in the world to make things.”

Among Oregon’s top trade partners are China — which is not a party to the
pending agreement — Canada, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. Korea has a
separate trade deal with the United States, which ratified it in 2011, and
Canada is part of the North American Free-Trade Agreement. But Japan,
Malaysia and Vietnam — which ranked seventh among Oregon trade partners in
2014 — are parties to the pending agreement.

As part of his pitch for the agreement, Obama spoke at Nike headquarters in
Beaverton in 2015.

Merkley and U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio were the only members of Oregon’s
congressional delegation to oppose the 2015 law that authorized Obama to
negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Congress must now ratify
without amendments in an up-or-down vote. The others voted for it.

It is uncertain when the agreement may come up for a vote in the Senate,
where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he will stall it
until after the presidential election.

Merkley says he does champion the Export-Import Bank, which Congress
reauthorized at the end of 2015 after a five-month suspension that occurred
largely because of objections by some Republicans who say the bank amounts
to subsidizing big business.

“It’s all politics,” he said. “The opposition to the bank by my colleagues
across the aisle is inexplicable
 The bank steps in and says (to a
participating business) we will provide you with insurance so that you know
you will get paid.”

The reauthorization was inserted into an omnibus appropriate measure to
keep the government operating for two years.