Obama Defeated and Democratic Party Divided over Fast-track Trade Policy

While Russia blithely lies to Secretary of State John Kerry, promising to champion the Minsk peace deal for Ukraine while at least several thousand Russian troops are in Ukraine continuing to support, supply and arm pro-Russia separatists, and while the Arab Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, assert their own agenda by refusing to follow what they consider a dangerous and defeatist Obama Middle East policy -- President Obama is experiencing a mutiny at home. The Democrats in the US Senate are flexing their muscles by refusing to give President Obama his Pacific trade proposal. Senate Democrats yesterday filibustered a key initiative of their own Democratic President because of serious disagreements on trade policy. ~~~~~ Yesterday, Senate Democrats, including several who actually support President Obama’s trade proposals, refused to vote to begin debate on the question of whether to grant him the ability to bring trade deals to the Congress for an up-or-down yes-or-no vote. They want four amendments to be included in the bill before they will debate it. The bill, called Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) - or fast-track trade authority, would apply first to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country trade deal currently being negotiated by the Obama administration. The Senate debate yesterday produced an unlikely partnership between Obama and Senate Republicans. Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and an unbending White House foe, spoke from the Senate floor to plead with Democrats to support the President. The procedural vote required 60 Senators to vote in the affirmative in order to take the bill out of committee and bring it to the Senate floor for debate and voting. The final 52-45 result fell short. After the defeat, Senate GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said : “What we just saw here is pretty shocking. I don’t routinely quote President Obama, but today is no ordinary day.” McConnell noted that Obama has accused opponents of trade deals in his own party of “making stuff up” and has said that their arguments don’t “stand the test of fact and scrutiny.” McConnell seems to agree with the President, saying : “It was hard to argue with him.” ~~~~~ The impetus for the Democrat breakdown has been brewing for some time. The TPA would allow the President to finish negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal in quasi-secrecy. Then, Congress would vote yes or no, but could not offer amendments. The TPP would set new tariff and regulatory terms for trade and business investment in the US and 11 Asian countries that represent one-third of world trade. Obama says the deal would be an important US “pivot” towards Asian countries like Malaysia, Brunei, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam to counter China’s rising influence. The President also sees the trade deal creating opportunities and addressing vital modern-day issues in the global economy. Opponents view the trade deal as primarily a boon to big business with high risks for average workers. They contend it would encourage US multinationals to go on exporting manufacturing jobs to low-wage nations while restricting competition. One of the biggest controversies is over an obscure TPA provision that would allow multinational corporations to challenge regulations and court rulings before special tribunals that operate outside the domestic legal systems of the US and other participating countries. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Obama's former consumer advisor, went public with their opposing views on the TPA. Warren, who has become the leader of the far left progressive wing of the Democratic Party, targets one provision - formally known as “investor-state dispute settlement” or ISDS - in her opposition to the TPA. She argues that the appeal process could expose US taxpayers to massive monetary damages outside the US legal system if corporations sue the government over new laws to protect the environment or workers. Warren also has argued that the framework of the trade agreement is structured to allow a future President to undercut provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law that was enacted after the 2008 economic crisis. Obama, angry at Warren, says she is “absolutely wrong” about ISDS : “Think about the logic of that, right? The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2007, 2008. And then I sign a provision that would unravel it?  I’d have to be pretty stupid....this is all hypothetical, speculative.” ~~~~~ TPA isn't the only trade issue the Senate will vote on. Other proposals include Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) offering wage support and training for workers whose jobs are shipped overseas, a bill requiring the Commerce Department to act against countries that manipulate their currencies to gain an unfair trade advantage, and a fourth bill to renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that allows some preferential treatment for goods imported from Africa. Republicans allowed the TAA bill to move in tandem with the TPA bill to assuage Democrats’ fears that it would be killed by the Republican majority. However, the currency manipulation proposal and the AGOA are part of the package Majority Leader McConnell is planning to bring to the Senate floor later. Seeing an opportunity to get all four of the bills to pass together, even Democrats who support granting the President TPA declined to vote to begin debate unless all four side bills were included. McConnell refused, saying the vote to take the bill out of committee and begin debate should be on the exact bill approved by the committee. That explains the Democrat "no" vote -- some Democrats opposed the whole TPA idea and some were trying to muscle McConnell. It didn't work. ~~~~~ But, dear readers, there's another story line at work here. Hillary Clinton has been announcing rapidfire leftist positions to win over the progressive left wing of the Democratic Party -- supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants, even using Obama-style executive orders; campaign finance reform; same-sex marriage. But, she has been noticeably silent on one issue where unity between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic party would help Democratic President Obama. Trade policy has been a difficult issue for Hillary ever since Bill Clinton enraged labor unions with the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) in 1994. Adding to her discomfort is the entry into the 2016 primary race of avowed trade sceptic Bernie Sanders, the left wing Vermont Senator. Sanders guarantees that Mrs. Clinton won’t be able to hide from the controversy around TPA - the Obama version of Nafta. “Can you make it go away?” Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, said jokingly to donors last month, in private remarks said to refer to discomfort among party leaders over the TPA Obama wants. Hillary Clinton has seldom spoken about either TPA or the two future deals that fast track negotiating authority is designed to facilitate : the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Hillary's public statements include : "Any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security.” But, some point to comments by her campaign team that suggest Hillary has a more sceptical view of TPA than President Obama has. Even GOP House Speaker John Boehner has said : “She can’t sit on the sidelines and let the President swing in the wind here.” And union leaders agree that fence-sitting is not a long-term option. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka warned Mrs. Clinton : “Candidates can’t hedge their bets any longer and expect workers to rush to the polls in excitement, to run out and door-knock and phone-bank and leaflet only to have their candidate of choice turn a back towards the policies.” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill says : “while this is still being negotiated, she will be watching closely to see what is being done to crack down on currency manipulation, improve labor rights, and protect the environment." But, if TPA comes terminally unglued in the Senate, Hillary's wait-and-see caution may well have helped the Warren left wing progressive Democrats win the day. And perhaps that's what Hillary actually wants -- to be silent, irritating no faction of the Democratic party, while her preferred outcome, a defeated TPA, prevails.