[CTC] Delegates Are Using The Convention to Make TPP Politically Unacceptable || Left's TPP opposition is no passing fad

[Arthur Stamoulis]

 Couple more on TPP opposition at the DNC...
 
https://www.thenation.com/article/delegates-are-using-the-convention-to-make-tpp-politically-unacceptable/ <https://www.thenation.com/article/delegates-are-using-the-convention-to-make-tpp-politically-unacceptable/>
Delegates Are Using The Convention to Make TPP Politically Unacceptable

A clear line has been drawn at the corporate-friendly trade deal during this year's convention.

By John Nichols <https://www.thenation.com/authors/john-nichols/>
Today 9:45 am 

Philadelphia—When President Obama looked out across a packed hall at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, he could not have missed the large square signs opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. They could be seen throughout the sprawling arena. In the Texas delegation and he Oregon delegation, in the Washington delegation and the Wisconsin delegation, delegates waved signs that circled the letters “TPP” and then slashed a red line through them.

Mid-way through the president’s well-received address <http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-2016-obama-prepared-remarks-226345> to the convention, delegates in a stand directly opposite the stage unfurled a sign that read: “TPP Kills Democracy.” And right up front, wearing his “Stop TPP” t-shirt, stickers and pins was retired lawyer Stephen Spitz from Falls Church, Virginia. 

“I wanted to make sure that he saw that Democrats do not want him to submit the TPP in the lame-duck session of Congress after the election,” said Spitz, the “End Corporate Rule” coordinator for the group Progressive Democrats of America. <http://www.pdamerica.org/>
Many of the people holding up the anti-TPP signs cheered when the president spoke of addressing inequality and injustice. Some attached their various anti-TPP signs—many of them produced by the National Nurses United union—to blue-and-white signs that read “Obama,” which were distributed by party officials and filled the hall for the president’s address.

The TPP is where the line has been drawn at this convention. 

Even before delegates gathered in Philadelphia, platform drafters wrangled over the issue—finally settling on a strongly-worded statement declaring that trade agreements “must not undermine democratic decision making through special privileges and private courts for corporations, and trade negotiations must be transparent and inclusive. Democrats’ priority is to significantly strengthen enforcement of existing trade rules and strengthen the tools we have, including by holding countries accountable on currency manipulation and significantly expanding enforcement resources.” Outlining labor, environment and currency manipulation standards, and calling for “streamlined and effective enforcement mechanisms” that “protect workers and the environment,” the amendment insisted that “These are standards all Democrats believe should be applied to all trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

“The Democratic Party’s message has to be ‘No TPP’ and there can’t be any mixed signals." -- Ben Jealous

But there is still speculation that President Obama will seek to gain congressional approval in a lame-duck session following the election.

On the third night of the Democratic National Convention, delegates took every opportunity to discourage lame-duck consideration. During the speeches of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, the party’s vice presidential nominee, and President Obama, hundreds of delegates signaled their opposition to the trade deal. Some even took advantage of quiet moments to chant “No TPP.”

Obama has steadily advocated for congressional action <https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/economy/trade> on the trade agreement, while Kaine voted for “fast-track” Trade Promotion Authority to advance it. (Since his selection by Hillary Clinton to serve as her running-mate, Kaine has adopted an anti-TPP stance. But there is plenty of skepticism regarding his election-season conversion.)

Most congressional Democrats have been steadily opposed to the TPP. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders made his opposition central <http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/video-audio/defeat-the-trans-pacific-partnership> to his campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, which declared that: “The TPP would expand the same failed ‘free trade’ policies to 12 other nations that have already cost millions of jobs and shuttered tens of thousands of factories across the United States. Make no mistake: if TPP passes, it will further hurt consumers and cost American jobs.”

Sanders says: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-does-not-back-obama-trade-vote-in-post-election-congressional-session/2016/05/05/ce94f76e-12d7-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html> “Holding a vote on the TPP during a ‘lame duck’ session would be going against the will of the people.” 

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who once suggested that the TPP could serve as a “gold standard” for future trade deals, became increasingly vocal in expressing opposition as the 2016 campaign progressed. “I oppose the TPP agreement—and that means before and after the election,” Clinton wrote <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-does-not-back-obama-trade-vote-in-post-election-congressional-session/2016/05/05/ce94f76e-12d7-11e6-8967-7ac733c56f12_story.html> in response to an Oregon Fair Trade coalition survey that was released in May.

Delegates on the floor of the convention pressed the point. 

“The Democratic Party’s message has to be ‘No TPP’ and there can’t be any mixed signals, there can’t be a sense that it will suddenly reappear after the election,”says former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People president Ben Jealous, <http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/jealous-what-a-real-convention-looks-like-732000835908> a prominent Sanders supporter who has now endorsed Clinton.

Jealous is blunt about the urgency of delivering an unequivocal anti-TPP message: “The Clinton presidency that we are all trying to make happen will be jeopardized if there is a sense that Democrats are waffling on this issue.”


http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trade-bernie-sanders-left-226317 <http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trade-bernie-sanders-left-226317>

POLITICO
Left's TPP opposition is no passing fad

By Isaac Arnsdorf 
07/27/2016 06:06 PM EDT

Bernie Sanders <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=e10320add9cb454489387ecbaa06f247f5675fbd9c13ab7ac660cf35e8ae537d>' "revolution" has awakened a hostility to the Trans-Pacific Partnership that goes deeper than a hollow applause line.

Delegates and other activists, decked out in buttons and shirts opposing the TPP at the Democratic National Committee, in interviews with POLITICO, were well versed in the trade deal's provisions and the downsides of past agreements.

Opposition to TPP, at least in the Sanders wing of the party, is showing no sign of cooling off after a thwarted bid to embed that stance in the party platform. Sanders electrified the convention hall Monday with his call to stop a vote on the deal during the lame-duck session of Congress. And Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's suggestion <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=e10320add9cb454434ef09f65463f27518f9db09460b8e87029f72a423496b9b> that Hillary Clinton would flip to supporting TPP as president, with some tweaks, was swiftly repudiated by her campaign.

Left-wing protests are often denigrated for their grab-bag of causes celebre - a dynamic on display this week when anti-trade, Black Lives Matter and pro-Palestinian marchers mingled. But TPP seems to dovetail with many of those other causes: because it's so sprawling, people can project onto it whatever issues they care deeply about.

For Stephanie Goslen, a Sanders delegate from North Carolina, that's the environment. The retired teacher said the deal will lead to more carbon emissions by sending more goods across the ocean instead of producing them close to where they're consumed.

"We need to start changing how we do things. I don't think this earth has the time," she said.

Khadijah Shariff, a Houston delegate at large, said the agreement would allow food imports from countries that have lower inspection standards than the U.S. and will encourage companies to relocate jobs to lower-wage countries. She compared the TPP's provisions for corporate rights to the free-speech protections in the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

"It's going to send jobs overseas and take away from the middle class," she said.

Josh Youngerman, a 27 year old who came from New York to protest, wearing a "F--- it, I guess I'm a democratic socialist" shirt, said the pact would lead to more fracking by expanding oil and gas exports and would empower companies to sue countries for adverse regulatory or permitting decisions, like the Canadian company behind the Keystone XL pipeline is doing.

Though Youngerman said he wasn't exactly sure which countries were party to the trade deal, he also correctly explained that the TPP would help drug companies raise prices and limit generic competitors in other countries.

"My job is to always stay outraged because otherwise we can't get progress," he said. "It has to be fair trade, it can't just be free trade."

Chris Fonnesbeck, a retired social worker from Ludington, Mich., said she opposes TPP because her husband worked as a trainer in the auto industry and she's seen firsthand how past trade deals led to fewer American jobs. It's difficult to isolate the economic impact of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, but nonpartisan studies credit NAFTA with expanding trade and modestly increasing GDP, while manufacturing sectors like cars bore the brunt of the costs.

"Trade agreements have not worked out for the labor force in our country," said JoAnn Fujioka, a Denver delegate for Sanders. "I don't think it makes any sense with the history of NAFTA."

Elizabeth Davis, a Sanders delegate from North Carolina, also said the trade deal will make it easier for companies to outsource like past deals.

"As soon as it gets to be profitable, they'll decide to screw the American worker, and we'll get inferior products," Davis said.

Some of the White House's efforts to sell the trade deal, such as emphasizing the improved labor standards it would bring to Southeast Asia, failed to resonate too.

"What about increasing labor standards here?" said Maureen Sullivan, a 53-year-old realtor and Sanders delegate from Chicago. "I remember when I had a life and a job, and I was able to enjoy myself and not work 70 hours a week just to make ends meet."
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