Congressional Democrats SLAM both Obama, and the nation, by nixing Obama's trade negotiation w/ Pacific rim

Negotiating international trade rules / deals can be very complicated.
Example:
Importing produce: we welcome delicious food from abroad. But what if they contain toxins such as pesticide residues that exceed FDA limits? The exporting country could claim we're just imposing a tariff fiddling with our own rules.
So should we accept imported food with levels of toxins the FDA deems unsafe; just so we can sell Buicks to them?

These negotiations can get quite complicated; "the devil is in the details".
Adding a legislature's approval (which means potential disapproval) adds another substantial level of complexity.

To circumvent that, Obama sought congressional authorization for our executive branch to negotiate trade with without direct congressional oversight.
Today congressional Democrats said no.

Why is this a big deal?

Because one of the Pacific rim nations in these negotiations is China, already a commercial powerhouse.
With the U.S. out of the picture (thanks Democrats!) that means China will be the one making the international trade rules, not the U.S.

What will happen next?

Uh, with the Republican Party controlling both houses of Congress, why blame Democrats for the outcome of that particular congressional vote?

dido to Davids comment.

It wouldve passed with dem support...except, his own party said "Frick you"

"" The President attended a 9:30 a.m. gathering
of House Democrats, making his case after
several high-level officials -- including Labor
Secretary Tom Perez and White House Chief
of Staff Denis McDonough -- made their
cases in the days leading up to the vote.
As he left the meeting, Obama said, "I don't
think you ever nail anything down around
here. It's always moving."
Democrats who attended said they weren't
swayed and that the President's outreach
came too late.
"The President tried to both guilt people and
impugn their integrity. I was insulted," Rep.
Peter Defazio, D-Oregon, told reporters after
the meeting.
One House Democrat told CNN on the
condition of anonymity that in Friday's
meeting, Obama "was fine until he turned it
at the end and became indignant and
alienated some folks. Bottom line, he may
have swayed some Ds to vote yes, but Pelosi
sealed the deal to vote no.""
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/12/politics/white-house-tpp-trade-deal-congress/

I haven't seen the vote tally yet. I don't read The Congressional Record anymore.
But basically yes.
The Republicans want this deal.
It's good for the United States of America.
And even if congressional Democrats don't like it; they could have sucked it up and done what was right.

Perhaps I'm just way out of line here.
But if I have assessed this properly,

if we don't get this deal; the United States of America will be subordinated to the periphery on trade, for perhaps a generation or more.

Obama gets a 2nd bite of the apple next week.
He KNOWS how important this is.
That's why Obama did something he rarely does.
Obama want to congressional events, to try to solidify support.

Problem is, those signatory to the treaty will be getting richer.
The U.S. will languish and wilt.

Sorry LT, I shouldve said it stood a better chance of passing with dem support, I havent seen the breakdown of votes yet either....my bad.

From Politico website....."If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door.

If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving.

And no matter what, you can’t discuss the details of what you’ve read.........."

Gee, wonder why there have been no details for the voters to discuss? Considering this 'deal' has been in negotiation for six years, when was the average voter going to hear about the details? Oh yeah, FOUR YEARS after it gets signed into law!

Obama wants the authority to do trade deals, and only have the deals submitted for Yes or No votes. No one however will be allowed to make amendments to future trade deals that Lord God King Bufu Obama brings forward for voting.

So in theory, you would have to cancel an entire trade deal if there was a clerical error saying China DIDN'T guarantee to pay for American goods, instead of saying it DID guarantee to pay. You would not be able to attach an amendment to correct even the most glaring errors? Wow.

WHY would anyone agree to do trade like this, UNLESS there was something to hide?

No problemo my arch cyber-chum.
We shouldn't quiver or get strung out about it. No reason to compound our misery. Let's just nock it up to Capitol Hill politics. I think that puts it on target.

We've probably both been fed from the same news sources.
And while they weren't specific, that is what they suggested.

Reports such as:
- Obama handed a stunning ("stinging") defeat by congressional democrats ... -

I hope it all works out OK, I will become cross.

well the fact noone is allowed to know whats in it, would pretty much tell you there is something to hide haha.

That's right.
That's why they should be kept as secret and passed as quickly as possible.
Complicated issues should be worked on by as few people as possible and made sure the people that are affected by it are kept as much in the dark as possible.


We also force produce on other countries, like rice to Japan, where it's given to other countries like north korea or left to rot.
Artificial demand is great for our farmers, though.


The FDA already has rules for foreign produce being introduced into the U.S. to comply with U.S. guidelines.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/ImportsExports/Importing/

If things change, it will be to make it so foreign exporters don't have to comply with U.S. guidelines.


That's a good thing.
The less bureaucracy things have to go through the easier it will be for any government to abuse the system.
You can't say "hurry up and get the good things passed, but slow down when you want to start a war or something." It won't work.


And also a net importer of food.
It can't feed it's own population.
It tried, but the more it industrializes the more people stop farming and leave their farms for the city, the more people make the more food they consume.
We import about $5 billion in food from China, and export about $25 billion in food to China.
The U.S. is China's grocery store.
We are also China's biggest export market in general. We beat out the EU for that years ago.

So

We still have a lot of clout.
We're richest. We're their pantry. We're their main customer.




Also, and kind of big, where do you get the idea that China is part of the TPP?

I've read they might be interested in joining negotiations, but negotiations haven't included China up to this point.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102517056
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/business/international/once-concerned-china-is-quiet-about-trans-pacific-trade-deal.html?_r=0
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31901246
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/barack-obama-china-join-trade-deal-tpp-118598.html

Recent stories that all say China is not part of TPP.

Obama admin. secrecy would explain it.
But that's not the only explanation.
And the sanity check is, are the legislatures of the other nations (that have them) in the loop?

I gather not.

Why not?

Due to the level of complexity.

And I don't think Obama's the first U.S. president to ask for this.
Didn't Reagan?
Haven't others?

It could be.
Or it could be that the standards of the other signatories chose a different standard, and it's a go / no-go, accept / reject offer.

Does it stink?
OBVIOUSLY!!

Is it at least potentially better than being left out of it entirely, and allowing China to make the rules that our other Pacific rim trade partners will follow?

Potentially.
And potentially not.

?
ct?
This perspective seems to be the product of the mind that believes in one-sided coins.

For the high school civics student, OF COURSE it's a good thing.
Our's is a democratic republic. We elect our representatives, and task them with such matters, where appropriate and or viable.

BUT !!!

There's a reason ships aren't commanded by parliaments.

Uh oh! Quick! There's a huge iceberg dead ahead! Call the parliament into session! Then the speaker can brief us on the situation. Then we can have a floor debate, to consider our options, and insure that the right option is selected.
Then we can have a vote on it.
And if the first vote doesn't produce a majority choice, we have more debate, and then have another vote ...

NEWS FLASH ct !!

Try that, and everyone will have long since drown!

NO !!!

Ships at sea are commanded by one chief executive officer, the "captain". And s/he makes these kinds of decisions.
This is not merely a quaint and somewhat obsolete American tradition that goes all the way back to Melville.

This is the international standard for commerce, for military, and even for most private vessels.

Again.
If this were high school civics, you'd get a B+ here.

But it isn't.

EVERY SINGLE POINT YOU MAKE HERE IS TRUE !!!
What you're blithely overlooking is that the counter-argument trumps, in most cases; in the net.

What is the TransPacific Partnership?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is a massive new investment pact being pushed behind closed doors by the Obama administration.
What we know about the TPP comes from leaked texts, discussions with negotiators from other countries and a handful of public statements and written testimony.
TPP is misleadingly called a trade agreement.But only two of its 26 chapters actually cover trade issues. It is really an expansive system of enforceable global government that the Obama administration is negotiating with eleven Pacific Rim nations: Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Japan, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Mexico and Peru.
If this agreement is enacted, the TPP will serve two primary purposes:
1. TPP would impose one-size fits-all international rules to which U.S.
federal, state and local law must conform. The pact would subject the
U.S. to the jurisdiction of two systems of foreign tribunals, including
World Bank and United Nations tribunals. These foreign tribunals
would be empowered to order payment of U.S. tax dollars to foreign
firms if U.S. laws undermined the foreign firms new special TPP privileges.
2. TPP would give foreign firms operating here a competitive advantage over American-owned businesses. Foreign businesses operating here would be exempted from financial, environmental and land use regulations that would continue to strangle American businesses.
The TPP is also specifically intended as a docking agreement that other countries including China could join over time, with Thailand, and others already expressing interest.
U.S. negotiators are pushing to complete the TPP this year.

How Will the TPP Affect the Economy?

TPP gives Foreign Companies Unfair Advantage Over American Businesses. TPP would exempt foreign companies from EPA and other onerous regulations that American firms would still be forced to comply with. Under TPP, foreign companies could actually go to an international tribunal and sue American taxpayers for cash awards to compensate them for costs associated with government regulations - something American-owned companies cannot and would not be able to do.
Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was enacted in 1994, the U.S. Labor Department has certified more than 2.5 million American jobs have been destroyed by either offshore outsourcing or by cheap foreign imports. The Economic Policy Institute estimates the number of jobs lost is actually closer to 3.5 million.
The TPP is expected to accelerate job losses, outsourcing and foreign imports. Vietnam is a communist country where businesses are owned by the government. Privately owned American businesses would have to compete against these state-owned companies under TPP. In addition, Vietnamese workers are often paid only one-third to one-half of what Chinese workers are paid. New Balance, the American athletic shoe maker, says imports from Vietnam under TPP would force it to close its American factories.
The leaked investment chapter of the TPP also includes proposals that would grant foreign banks and other corporations the power to challenge any laws, regulations and even court decisions that they believe violate the pact through for foreign tribunals that would overrule American courts and laws.

How Will the TPP Affect States Rights?

�The agreement undermines the critical checks and balances and freedoms established by the U.S. Constitution, which reserves many rights to the people or state governments. Obama's agreement would obligate the federal government to force U.S. states to conform state laws to 1000 pages of rules, regulations and constraints unrelated to trade from land use to whether foreign firms operating in a state can be required to meet the same laws as domestic firms.
�The U.S. federal government would be required to use all possible means -- including law suits, and cutting off federal funds for states to force states to comply with TPP rules. A foreign tribunal related to the World Trade Organization has already issued a ruling explicitly stating that such tactics must be employed against U.S. states or the U.S. would face indefinite trade sanctions until state laws were brought into compliance.
Leaked documents show that the U.S. trade negotiators are pushing for the TPP to include so-called investor-state provisions that would grant transnational corporations the power to challenge virtually any new environmental or consumer safety law, regulation or court decisions that negatively affects their expectation of profits as a regulatory taking throughout private tribunals that circumvent domestic judicial systems.

How Will the TPP Affect U.S. Sovereignty?

�Obama's TPP deal would empower foreign investors to use foreign tribunals to enforce special privileges only available to them. There are more than 700 establishments from TPP nations now operating in our country that would newly be empowered to skirt our courts, drag the U.S. before UN and World Bank tribunals and raid our Treasury for payment to foreign corporations.
TPP would shift decisions over the payment of U.S. tax dollars away from Congress and outside of the Constitutionally-established Article III federal court system (or even U.S. state system) to the authority of international tribunals. These UN and World Bank tribunals do not apply U.S. law, but rather international law set in the agreement. These international tribunals judge whether foreign investors operating within the U.S. are being provided the proper property rights protections. The standard for property rights protection that is the basis for the award of U.S. tax dollars is not those established by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, but rather international property rights standards, as interpreted by an international tribunal.
TPP would surrender control of 544 million acres of public land - a
quarter of the entire U.S. land area to international authorities. TPP would subject to the foreign tribunals judgment all contracts between the U.S. federal government and investors from TPP nations including subsidiaries of Chinese firms that obtain mining, logging or other concessions, run a power plant or obtain a government construction contract on U. S. federal lands. They would be able to take their disputes with the U.S. government to the UN and World Bank tribunals while U.S. companies with identical contracts would go before domestic courts. This not only creates an unacceptable double standard, it cedes control of federal lands to international tribunals.

How Will the TPP Affect the Constitution?

The TPP would establish a foreign judicial authority higher than even the U.S. Supreme Court that could overrule federal court rulings.That is unconstitutional.
� Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. In a legislative move known as fast track or Trade Promotion Authority, Congress will be asked to surrender that power to Obama so he can negotiate the TPP, sign it and enter into it before Congress even sees it. Obama will then tell Congress how long it has to review it, and tell Congress to pass it in an up-or-down vote without any amendments or revisions. This is an un-constitutional power grab by Obama.

How Will the TPP Affect the Internet?

�TPP rewrites the global rules of the Internet to impose restrictive covenants that Congress rejected when it rejected SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.
•The draft chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement insists that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) enforce copyright protection rules. The TPP would require Internet Service Providers to undertake the financial and administrative burdens of becoming copyright cops. Under TPP, Internet Service Providers would be forced to:
Terminate their users Internet access on repeat allegations of copyright infringement.
Filter all Internet communications for material Hollywood says is potentially copyright-infringing.
Block access to websites that allegedly infringe or facilitate copyright infringement.
Disclose the identities of their customers to copyright-holders on an allegation of copyright infringement. This would have a devastating effect on Internet freedom and innovation.
Rep. Darrell Issa says the secrecy surrounding the TPP could have 'serious consequences for the Internet community.
At a time when the American people and Internet users all around the world are rightfully wary of any closed-door negotiations that could adversely impact their ability to freely and openly access the Internet, the Obama Administration continues to pursue a secretive, closed-door negotiating process for the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Jackie Britain

Hope you Guys will be happy with your new United Nations Overlord directing your Trade!

Noam Chomsky recently told the Huffington Post that the Trans Pacific Partnership (or TPP) is a "neoliberal assault" to further corporate domination. While most of the author/activist's basic assertions and concerns are correct, his focus on the corporate world is one aspect of this dangerous treaty. It's not simply corporate power which would increase and become more centralized; it is all power.

It is true that the pact would benefit corporations in certain ways. High-wage American workers and Union members would face more direct competition from low-wage Malaysian, Vietnamese and Mexican workers because the Partnership would create a free trade zone with no tariffs or barriers. Manual labor would be sent abroad even more readily than it currently is.

Coming from this POTUS, our liar in chief, an enemy of "the people" and wannabe destroyer of the "Great Satan", you can bet it is nothing that benefits THIS nation!

If you carefully consider Obama's actions in general and recent actions in particular, a secret deal of any kind seems like a really bad idea.

I gather it's not "secret".
Only that the public details flow too quickly for the protracted legislative process in negotiations in a treaty between a dozen nations is too much of an obstruction.

To my knowledge, the executive branch of United States federal government is the only elected office the entire U.S. electorate votes for.
The Obama administration has been TWICE approved by the People.

And your position is:

Have you considered the alternative?

If OUR president and his highly professional team doesn't negotiate the terms of Pacific rim trade; then China will do so.

So you'd RATHER China dictates the terms under which the U.S. conducts trade, than our twice elected president's team?

Whose side are you on?
You trust the ChiComm politburo more than your own executive branch of United States federal government?

The Republicans have been a bit confusing on all this. They went out of their way to warn other nations that despite having the legal right to negotiate with them, that Obama was NOT TO BE TRUSTED to make any long term deals with anyone, since they could change the rules at any time.

Then they turn around and say it's absolutely wonderful that Obama can negotiate with other countries, and that they should be able to count on what he says completely.

The thing is, they proclaimed these exactly opposite ideals within a couple of months of each other, with no explanation as to why they had a change of heart. Or didn't.

Which version of the GOP are we, or other countries supposed to believe is the real deal?

actually not trusting any of those Basturds!

My point exactly.

First of all, the following quote seems to include John Kerry.

"If OUR president and his highly professional team doesn't negotiate the terms of Pacific rim trade; then China will do so."

So I take offense to the use of "highly professional".

You should also refrain from the use of straw man arguments. They do not help your position.

A trade deal that works well in our favor is great. Too bad we have someone who cannot be trusted at the helm. Even his own Democrats don't trust him on this one. The ONLY reason the Republicans do at this point is that they have the votes to kill a bad agreement if necessary.

In the words of Nancy Pelosi, "We have to pass the Bill to know what's in it!" Nancy isn't for this bill.

I see what he said and did about Obamacare and Isil and now I don't trust him to be either truthful or competent.