Even though they are clearly going through the motions, I am still unconvinced that the administration is really serious about passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If they are serious, then they are clearly grossly incompetent, as there is exactly zero chance that progressives will back them up based on how they are being treated in this process.
My concern is that we’re damaging our foreign relations by engaging in these negotiations when it couldn’t be more clear that Congress will never sign off on the deal.
That makes the administration look impotent, which they are. But it’s their own fault because they decided that Congress would never support the Trans-Pacific Partnership if they could see the details. That’s probably true, but Congress won’t support the Trans-Pacific Partnership if they can’t see the details.
So, nothing has been gained by this lack of transparency. The language is more pro-business that it would otherwise be, but it doesn’t matter because the treaty will never pass.
It will pass if we lose the Senate! Better Vote! You keep blaming Obama for secrecy on the Trade Bill but Fareed said that your GOD, FDR started the Fast Track For Presidents on Trade Bills. They’ve been done this way since his presidency.
I don’t care about precedent.
This trade pact will not pass. It has no progressive buy-in, and you can see that having the U.S. Trade Rep meet with a few progressives off-the-record has zero influence in changing that.
I hope you’re right, but Obama has been one of the worst presidents on IP ever so I have an undercurrent of dread.
Then is PBO publicly backing it for some larger purpose than getting it passed, like to reassure the business community that he cares although he doesn’t? I was impressed by Krugman’s argument that TPP isn’t that big thing one way or the other as far as trade is concerned.
I don’t have an answer for that, but I will say that I am in touch with the White House and they have made exactly zero effort in trying to communicate with me on this trade pact.
They simply are not even trying to sell it to the progressive blogosphere, which tells me that they are not serious about actually getting it to pass.
Now, sending their trade rep into the so-called Veal Pen is a start, but it seems like their investment couldn’t get more minimal, which is the main reason I haven’t even bothered to write about this issue.
They can pass it with Republicans and Blue Dogs.
Not unless Reid agrees to it, which does not look like it is happening any time soon. Certainly not unless PBO asks much harder than he is doing.
I wish you would elaborate more about this. PBO said yesterday that he had Dems who support this thing.
…there is exactly zero chance that progressives will back them up based on how they are being treated in this process.
Um. No. Progressives won’t “buy in” because it’s a terrible deal. No amount of buttering up by the White House can change that.
But if it doesn’t pass, it’ll be because labor’s adamant opposition will keep at least some Dems honest. At that point, Republicans – who normally should love the TPP – won’t be able to shore it up. Too many of them will oppose it simply because Obama proposed it, regardless of its merits for the huge corporations that put a lot of those R’s in office.
This sort of knee-jerk opposition didn’t exist when Clinton got NAFTA passed. If Dubya had proposed this, it would have sailed through Congress regardless of the left opposition. It’s sad – but a good measure of the state of American politics – that if it fails now we can mostly thank the overt racism of the modern GOP.
Do you remember how hard Clinton and Gore worked to sell NAFTA to their own base?
It was a major effort.
I have seen nothing from the president on anything like that scale.
There’s no chance he thinks it can pass with help from the conserva-dems and the GOP? That he feels this thing doesn’t need support from the Progressive Caucus?
The Republicans are wary of anything more than two pages long that hasn’t been printed on the internet for 72 hours or that involves secrecy, foreigners, or the president.
To pass this, the president would need plenty of progressives.
Presumably we wouldn’t waste the effort on the TPP if the President didn’t want to get it done. If he wants to get it done why not make the process transparent and give progressive groups a seat at the table alongside big business? Why sideline any input from the public on this deal? Why argue that it should be fast-tracked through Congress?
You are covering for the President while crapping on the deal at the same time. It’s one thing when we’re talking CPI for Social Security tied to the poison pill for tax hikes or loophole removal. The TPP is not the same kind of risk-reward deal. It’s bad, shady politics.
“Presumably” may be the problem here.
Because Obama hates and despises Liberals.