<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-tpp-trade-deal_us_5797ab5be4b01180b5307124" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-tpp-trade-deal_us_5797ab5be4b01180b5307124</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><h1 style="margin-right: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 24pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class=""><span style="font-size: 25pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.25pt;" class="">Nancy Pelosi Declares Opposition To Obama’s TPP Trade Deal<o:p class=""></o:p></span></h1><h1 style="margin-right: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 24pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;" class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.25pt; font-weight: normal;" class=""> </span></h1><h2 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 1.125rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.5rem; max-width: 630px; visibility: visible;" class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;" class="">The House minority leader joins Tim Kaine in uniting the Democratic ticket against the Trans Pacific Partnership.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></h2><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="timestampdate--published">07/26/2016 03:14 pm 15:14:57</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0.75pt 0.0001pt 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center; text-indent: -0.25in;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Symbol;" class="">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> </span></span><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0.75pt 0.0001pt 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center; text-indent: -0.25in;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Symbol;" class="">·<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman';" class=""> </span></span><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class="author-carddetails-container"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/michael-mcauliff" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span class="author-carddetailsname"><span style="color: windowtext; letter-spacing: -0.1pt; text-decoration: none;" class="">Michael McAuliff</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;" class=""> </span></span></a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="author-cardmicrobio">Senior Congressional Reporter, The Huffington Post</span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20.25pt;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class=""> </span></div><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is now on the same page as newly minted vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, coming out in opposition to the massive Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal as it’s currently written.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Pelosi (D-Calif.) made the declaration in a letter late last week to several groups that protested outside her offices in San Francisco, delivering her more than 200,000 petition signatures opposing the TPP.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">“Please be assured that I will oppose the TPP as it is currently written or any deal that attempts to separate commerce from the environment and will work to ensure our nation’s trade policies include increased transparency, more consultation, and stronger protections to create jobs, strengthen human rights and protect the environment,” Pelosi<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Pelosi_TPPLetter_0716.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: rgb(46, 112, 97);" class="">wrote in messages</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>sent to the Citizens Trade Campaign, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others involved in the campaign. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Sources<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-tim-kaine-vice-president_us_577ec219e4b0c590f7e8a3e9" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: rgb(46, 112, 97);" class="">told HuffPost Friday</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that Kaine (D-Va.) had insisted to Hillary Clinton during his vetting process that he also believed she should oppose the TPP in its current form, even though Kaine voted to make passing the deal easier with so-called fast-track authority. Clinton, who said when she was secretary of state the TPP “sets the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/13/hillary-clinton/what-hillary-clinton-really-said-about-tpp-and-gol/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: rgb(46, 112, 97);" class="">gold standard</span></a>” for trade deals, has since said that the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/oregon/files/2016/05/ORFTCPresidentialQuestionnaire_Clinton2016.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: rgb(46, 112, 97);" class="">finished product did not live up to her hopes</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and she is no longer in favor of it.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">With Kaine and Pelosi both now opposing a deal that would encompass about 40 percent of the world’s trade, it puts all the Democratic leadership — except President Barack Obama — on record against it. (Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had already declared his opposition.)<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">“We’re pretty happy about it,” said Arthur Stamoulis, the director of the Citizens Trade Campaign. “It seems like everyone who cares about elections and seeing Democrats win is speaking with a unified voice at this point.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">The trade issue has been one of the more contentious splits between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and its more trade-friendly leaders, and blocking the TPP was one of the key issues promoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in his strong challenge to Clinton in the primaries.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">In his unity speech to the party Monday night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Sanders did not let the trade issue drop, and warned that the millions of people who backed him had to make sure the current Congress did not try to pass the giant trade deal after the elections.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">“We have got to make sure that TPP does not get to the floor of Congress in the lame duck session,” Sanders said in the closing lines of his speech, to roars of approval.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Ironically, Donald Trump’s ascension to the top of the Republican heap helps the progressive cause in the case of trade, since he is aggressively opposed to the TPP.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">“He certainly makes it harder for Republican leaders to go against their base, who also oppose the TPP quite vociferously. And he puts pressure on [our leaders] as well,” Stamoulis said.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Trump, in hopes of peeling off a few Sanders supporters, told an audience in Roanoke, Virginia, Monday that Clinton’s opposition to the TPP was not genuine. He predicted that as soon as the election was over, she would try to make a couple of minor changes — adding a comma or two — and then declare that the deal had been improved.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Stamoulis suggested that would be all but impossible with Democratic leaders now united, and given the difficulty of making any change at all to the TPP, which took years to negotiate and involves a dozen Pacific-rim nations who would all balk at modifications.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">Indeed, Clinton has laid out<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/oregon/files/2016/05/ORFTCPresidentialQuestionnaire_Clinton2016.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: rgb(46, 112, 97);" class="">major concerns</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>about environmental and labor standards in the deal. She’s also taken issue with numerous technical aspects of the TPP, such as the the ability it grants corporations to challenge local laws.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">“These are things that are not a little comma here or there. They’re quite dramatic changes,” Stamoulis said.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">However, with Obama still in the White House and Republicans still in charge of Congress, an attempt to pass the TPP after the elections and before the next president is sworn in would not be out of the realm of possibility.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 15pt; line-height: 20.25pt; box-sizing: inherit;" class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);" class="">“We certainly haven’t won and we’re certainly not letting up on the gas at all in our campaigning, but they’re going to have a very hard go trying to flip immediately after the election, or even in the years that follow,” Stamoulis said.</span></p></body></html>