Brian O’Shaughnessy is the chief co-chair of the CPA board.  He appeared in a teleconference for the press on Thursday (10/3/13) with Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Jim McDermott among others.  Here is the report from Utica Observer Dispatch.

Revere Copper chairman blasts trade negotiations

By NED CAMPBELL
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Oct 03, 2013 @ 04:56 PM

As four years of negotiations among the United States and 11 Asia and Pacific countries for a Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement near their end, Brian O’Shaughnessy is speaking out.

The agreement will do nothing to curb border adjustable taxes or prevent currency manipulation, said O’Shaughnessy — chairman of Revere Copper Products in Rome and co-chairman of the Coalition for a Prosperous America – practices that put United States’ manufacturers at a huge disadvantage.

“Workers on the floor here have to produce a coil of copper that can compete in global markets, and so it has to be at a low cost that covers their own wages, the cost of copper, energy, their health care costs,” he said. “When they ship that coil abroad, the foreign country can apply a value-added tax at the border and use the proceeds to pay for the health care costs of the workers in their country, including the plants that my plant is competing against.”

On Thursday, O’Shaughnessy joined Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.; Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash.; and Larry Cohen, president of Communications Workers of America; in a teleconference call monitored by Lori Wallach, director of the Public Citizens Global Trade Watch.

“There’s less transparency in the negotiations and more restricted access than ever before in any international trade agreement,” O’Shaughnessy said. “If the average American understood what was going on, they would be incensed with their negotiators.”

President Obama was scheduled to conduct a summit next week in Bali, Indonesia, with the heads of state of the 11 other nations negotiating the agreement on the sidelines of the 21st Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

With the federal government’s shutdown continuing, however, Obama’s attendance is not guaranteed.

The White House on Wednesday announced it had canceled trips to Malaysia and the Philippines — which were set to close out the eight-day, four-nation tour — because it couldn’t staff the trips.

Follow @OD_NedCampbell on Twitter or call him at 792-5013.