Like most modern trade deals, TTIP has less to do with tariffs than with so-called “non-tariff trade barriers,” a euphemism for ordinary health, safety, environmental, and financial regulations that corporations want to weaken both at home and abroad. In democratic societies, the people usually decide the balance between protecting the public and satisfying commerce. But…
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Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton signaled opposition to holding a lame-duck vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a candidate questionnaire released today by an anti-TPP activist group. [Daily News| May 6, 2016 |Inside US Trade] “I have said I oppose the TPP agreement – and that means before and after the election,” Clinton said in response to…
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President Obama wrote an op-ed earlier this week in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was published in the Washington Post. The paper accepted and published, today, Michael Stumo’s letter in response. In his May 3 op-ed, “America, not China, should call the shots on trade,” President Obama made an eloquent case for the Trans-Pacific…
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by Michael Stumo This guy, Tim Worstall, is really off the rails. Forbes will print any swill, it seems. But the entire point of trade, of trade deals, as far as America is concerned is the imports which America can buy from the rest of the world. For it is the imports which make us…
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by Michael Stumo Hillary Clinton responded this week to a candidate questionnaire from the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign (OFTC) on international trade and trade deals. She re-iterated her opposition to the TPP and to holding a vote in the lame duck session. Many folks, including Hillary’s own supporters, do not trust her to stay firm…
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I’m obviously not about to endorse the guy (here’s where I said nice things about polar opposite Bernie Sanders) but please forgive me crowing for a minute about being vindicated (though I can’t claim to be always right) concerning Donald Trump’s seriousness and viability as a Republican candidate. [Ian Fletcher| May 5, 2016 |Huffington Post] In September 2015 — oh…
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When the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) was passed just over four years ago, President Obama said that the agreement would support 70,000 U.S. jobs. This claim was supported by a White House fact sheet that claimed that the KORUS agreement would “increase exports of American goods by $10 to $11 billion…” and that they would “support 70,000…
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Republican front-runner Donald Trump‘s warning against the “false song of globalism” strikes a sharply different note than President Obama did in his recent performance in London. [Curtis Ellis| May 2, 2016 |The Hill] Obama has provided further evidence that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) more closely resembles a scheme for international governance like the European Union rather…
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) this week strongly downplayed the chances for a congressional vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a lame-duck session, though he stopped short of completely ruling it out. [Daily News| May 5, 2016 |Inside US Trade] McConnell, in a May 1 interview with the agriculture news service AgriPulse, declined to…
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It’s amazing how just a little transparency forced onto the free trade deals the Obama administration been negotiating in secret totally turns the public against them. [Trevor Timm| May 4, 2016 |The Guardian] After the contents of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and the European Union was leaked and published by Greenpeace a…
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