On June 10th the Washington Post’s editorial page chastised Congress for “making free trade difficult”. Champions of Trade Promotion Authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continue to label all skeptics as “opponents of free trade.” Many skeptics actually favor free trade, but the Trans-Pacific Partnership appears to be less about “free trade” and more about domestic regulatory harmonization. The post-WWII trade regime has been very successful in its aims of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade, expanding global market access, and integrating new players into the global trade regime. The spectacular economic rise of countries such as China, India, and Brazil is testament to the value of the trade route to lift millions out of poverty.
The House may vote on Trade Promotion (“Fast Track”) Authority (TPA) as early as Friday, June 12th. The Senate has already voted in favor of TPA and Obama has been working hard to get skeptical House Democrats on board to support it. If the House grants Obama TPA, it ties its hands to an “up or down” vote on TPP with no possibility for amendment. There is much at stake and citizens and representatives need to know who is drafting it, what it means for US democracy and sovereignty, and the effects it will have on public health.
Lobbyists representing corporate, not consumer, interests, drafted much of the TPP. William New, editor of IP-Watch and visiting fellow at Yale Law School, sued the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained hundred of pages of e-mails sent between the 600 or so “cleared advisors” and USTR. Though heavily redacted, the e-mail demonstrated an extraordinarily chummy relationship between corporate lobbyists, CEOs, and USTR. As New points out, many of the industry representatives are former USTR officials. For instance, Stan McCoy – former USTR negotiator of TPP – left USTR in April 2014 for a position as Senior Vice President and Policy Director for the Motion Picture Association. Former USTR Mickey Kantor became a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association (PhRMA). The revolving door between USTR and K Street creates incentives skewed against the public interest. Corporate interests have unparalleled access to USTR while consumers and citizens have been shut out.
TPP will give foreign investors the right to directly sue our government over domestic regulations. In March 2015 Wikileaks released a draft of the investment chapter that includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement. If investors win there is no chance to appeal. Energy companies could sue the government for unlimited damages if states or the federal government pass legislation to protect the environment. Foreign drug companies could sue for taxpayer dollars over policies designed to contain medical care costs; Eli Lilly currently is suing Canadian taxpayers for $500 million after Canada’s Supreme Court upheld Canadian patent policies that contain drug costs. Phillip Morris, International is suing the governments of Uruguay and Australia for plain packaging of cigarettes. Phillip Morris claims that it is not getting the expected benefits of its investments due to the public health regulations designed to reduce the appeal of smoking. With TPP the United States will be vulnerable to lawsuits in which private foreign investors can sue taxpayers for public regulations. 3 lawyers decide the cases in secret and there is no right to appeal their ruling. This process is a direct threat to both democracy and sovereignty. Consumers, environmentalists, and public health advocates have no similar right to sue.
TPP will raise the costs of medical care. US citizens already are reeling over prescription drug prices, which rose 13% in 2014. The hepatitis C drug Sovaldi costs $80,000 a year; very few patients can afford this drug and many governments have protested this price tag. Providing this drug at this price would economically cripple both Medicare and the Veterans’ Administration. The Intellectual Property chapter expands the monopoly rights of PhRMA and if passed, will lead to even higher drug prices. For example, USTR is proposing a 12-year period of data exclusivity for biologic drugs. That will prevent regulatory agencies from registering a generic version for 12 years, delaying cost effective generic competition. Obama’s 2016 budget calls for reducing this period from 12 to 7 years, claiming a savings of over $4 billion in the coming decade. Obama’s own trade negotiators are pushing for the longer period. This clearly undermines Obama’s professed commitment to affordable care.
On June 10th Wikileaks released a TPP Annex on “Transparency and Procedural Fairness for Pharmaceutical Products and Medical Devices”. PhRMA seeks transparency in public health care decision making over drugs and pricing, yet refuses to reciprocate by offering transparency in its costs and pricing policies. Some believe that the Annex is aimed at New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management Agency (Pharmac) that keeps drug costs low and promotes access to medicines for low-income citizens. Public health advocates see New Zealand’s system as a model for cost containment and access, and PhRMA does not want other countries to emulate it. If the United States negotiated drug prices with firms as aggressively as Canada, the government would save an estimated $229.7 billion, state governments $30.8 billion, and consumers $47.7 billion over a decade. The Annex would allow PhRMA to participate in public health deliberations over the choice and reimbursement rates for covered drugs. PhRMA directly could review and appeal Medicare and Medicaid Services decisions over choice and pricing. It would also allow direct-to-consumer advertising for drugs and medical devices. PhRMA companies could challenge domestic health regulations under Investor State Dispute Settlement if they can claim that those policies hindered investment or reduced their expected return on investment.
If Congress grants Obama Fast-Track Authority to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the TPP will be here to stay. The US is eager to spread this problematic new set of standards globally and knows it could never achieve these kinds of skewed provisions in an open, multilateral forum. That is why it is negotiating in secret, with countries already yoked to standards that go far beyond the World Trade Organization Agreements. The true targets are China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, and Thailand, but none of these countries is at the table and each would reject many of the provisions. Congress should act to block TPA so that politicians will not be forced to defend a bad deal that caters to the wishes of the “cleared advisors” at the expense of the public interest.
{ 78 comments }
chris y 06.12.15 at 4:31 pm
So why do American commentators concentrate on TPP exclusively without ever mentioning TTIP or TiSA?
James Wimberley 06.12.15 at 4:59 pm
Chris: Quite. The fast-track authorisation covers all three.
On ISDS, key reading from well-known hippies Australian CJ Robert French and retired judge on the German Constitutional Court Professor Siegfried Bross.
Niggle on the OP:
“The spectacular economic rise of countries such as China, India, and Brazil is testament to the value of the trade route to lift millions out of poverty.”
What has India’s recent improvement in growth to do with trade? The dismantling of the Permit Raj, certainly. The case of Brazil is also doubtful: exports are commodities like soya, grown by relatively few people on the planalto. Recent improvements on poverty result more from government redistribution.
StevenAttewell 06.12.15 at 5:54 pm
Well, TAA just went down, which means TPA probably will go down, which means the TPP is probably dead. All of which is a BFD.
bob mcmanus 06.12.15 at 6:07 pm
3: Not that long ago, this site celebrated TPA’s “death” in the Senate, as the death-knell of neoliberalism. I’ll just wait a while.
Roger Gathmann 06.12.15 at 6:14 pm
4. Don’t have to wait long. The house voted down fast track. It is like Charlie Brown refusing to kick the football this time. The cartoon predetermination that rules D.C. politics, where everything is made worse, was, for once, lifted. Yeah!
MF Lehman 06.12.15 at 6:28 pm
“Champions of Trade Promotion Authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continue to label all skeptics as “opponents of free trade.†”
The Post was so bitter about today’s defeat, they referred to Reps. Louise Slaughter and Gene Green who opposed the measures as “anti-trade Democrats.”
Bruce Wilder 06.12.15 at 6:31 pm
Fast-track without TAA (trade adjustment assistance — aid for displaced workers) was approved by a margin of 219-211 with 191 Republicans and just 28 Democrats in support.
I think I have to give the nod to bob mcmanus on points. All that has happened is a delay, as the Senate and House will have to reconcile their differing legislation.
bob mcmanus 06.12.15 at 6:33 pm
Trying to follow and make sense of this real-time at Naked Capitalism
It seems TPA passed 219-211 but cause “rule” and TAA the whole bill is “dead” Boehner says he will revisit TAA next week.
Why? Why did they pass TPA? Were they told it was a safe vote?
I remain neither optimistic nor pessimistic but suspicious. And patient. Maybe I’ll check my own Tea Party Congressperson.
The Temporary Name 06.12.15 at 6:36 pm
TPA covers negotiations for every trade deal under the sun, not just TPP. They give a shit about TPP because they can score points on Obama. If they retitle it the Boehner Trade Act it’s smooth sailing.
Roger Gathmann 06.12.15 at 6:58 pm
6. No, the shooting down of TAA is a bigger deal than that. One can safely vote on a TPP measure that is legislatively null. It is a big deal when the highest ranking Democrat in the House goes against Obama’s legislation. Pelosi was crucial to getting ACA, and she seems to be on board with getting rid of the fast track provision. On points, I’d say that fast track, while not dead, is pretty wounded. The more it is in the news, the more it seems like a bad idea.
Roger Gathmann 06.12.15 at 7:03 pm
ps – the more it is in the news, the more the acceleration that would happen because the fast track provisions pretty much silo debate is blocked. What’s happening is what one would hope would happen if the TPP were well and truly debated. Let’s remember that the strategy here is secrecy and stealth, with a liberal helping of false advertising. That is why it is a big deal that the strategy is coming apart.
Pelosi, I think, has a lot more political jones than Obama. If she is truly committed to ending the fast track provision, Obama will have to rely on a GOP that hated him, and that will actually refuse to make deals that would favor them – remember how Obama gave them everything in the Grand bargain and they didn’t take it. So I think there is, on balance, a lot of reason to hope.
The Temporary Name 06.12.15 at 7:26 pm
Actually doing what they said they wanted to do was political suicide, but yapping about it isn’t: they didn’t take what they said they wanted for a good reason.
Brett 06.12.15 at 8:47 pm
I’m not sure if TPP will go down without TAA. The Republicans control both houses of Congress and support TPP, but the ultra-conservative movement organizations (like Club for Growth) were pushing them to oppose TAA under threat of primary challenge.
I’m more concerned about the intellectual property provisions of TPP than ISDS. Aside from the obvious “medicine becomes more expensive” aspect of it, gathering technology and putting it to use is one of the few tactics that all of the economic development success stories since Great Britain have in common. Meanwhile, ISDS has been around forever and doesn’t affect rich countries much in earlier treaties, although I want it to be expanded so that environmental and labor groups can bring lawsuits against countries for not enforcing the environmental and labor standards that might be in such a treaty.
BJN 06.12.15 at 11:17 pm
TPA just barely squeeked by in the Senate because TAA was attached in the bill. If this has to go to conference then back to both houses to make it a TPA only bill, I would really be surprised if the Senate dems don’t filibuster it to death. Stranger things have happened by a large margin, but the longer this drags out, the more the wider public is aware of this, and this is the sort of thing that gets by because no one is paying attention except those making money on it.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© 06.13.15 at 3:20 am
TISA doesn’t get much attention because it’s on the back burner and far more secret.
Which of course means it’s also the worst of the lot.
~
Consumatopia 06.13.15 at 2:57 pm
TPA still has a good chance. It only failed this time because supporters got too cute with their legislative symbolism.
Pro-TPA Senate Dems didn’t want to vote a second time for TPA. Pro-TPA House Republicans didn’t want to vote for TAA. So they split it into two bills, thinking they could count on lots of House Democrats to vote for TAA. That way they would end up with TPA+TAA, but lots of Republicans could say they didn’t vote on TAA, and, well, I guess Senators could say they only voted for TPA once (which mattered to them for some inexplicable reason?).
This failure proves that this strategy won’t work, but in a sense I think it suggests that it isn’t even really necessary. It’s pointless to separate out TAA and TPA, because everyone knows that in this context, voting for one is a vote for the other, voting against one is voting against the other. Either pro-TPA conservatives will have to suck it up and vote for a combined TAA+TPA bill, or they’ll have to add stuff to TAA to make it more attractive to House Democrats, and there’s a good chance that either way the Senate has to vote on it again. That will take time to work out behind the scenes so we aren’t hearing very much right now. But it’s definitely possible, maybe even probable.
There is a step that anti-TPA or anti-TPP politicians could take that would bring all of this to a halt, though. Announce their intentions to campaign for the repeal of these trade agreements. They are, after all, just acts of Congress, and they can be repealed by later acts of Congress. If the point of the TPA is to give America credibility in trade negotiations, it can be nullified by attacking that credibility directly.
John Garrett 06.13.15 at 3:16 pm
First, even this much success (who knows what happens now) would never have happened without the sophisticated mobilization of the left by MoveOn and so many others: swing congressfolk were getting tens of thousands of phone calls from constituents. Second, does anybody really know what Obama was thinking — both in supporting fast track and then in going down (perhaps) with the ship?
Rich Puchalsky 06.13.15 at 3:37 pm
“does anybody really know what Obama was thinking — both in supporting fast track and then in going down (perhaps) with the ship?”
His administration is about service to rich people.
Michael Dennis 06.13.15 at 3:42 pm
Forget about all your alphabet soup trade legislation bills. No past trade bill has EVER done anything to protect the American consumer from higher prices..whether you look at drugs, food, electronics, et al. Our industry base is gone for those of you that are still ignorant and merely political stooges of ideological base of either party or agency.
There is no trade bill, or any for that matter, in either house that is going to benefit anyone except corporations in the short run and debate by these diminished representatives is a smoke screen and a sham. Too bad the average citizen is totally witless and clueless as evidenced by the eager passage of the AHCA that is a debacle of the first order.
Consumatopia 06.13.15 at 3:57 pm
It’s more than just his administration. Obama would like the business community to feel safer with Hillary Clinton and future establishment Democrats than with a Scott Walker-type demagogue. He’s basically asking corporations who they would rather have running the government, Third Way or Fox News.
js. 06.13.15 at 4:40 pm
C. @19:
That’s a really good point—and the sort of consideration that doesn’t get nearly the amount of attention that it deserves.
Roger Gathmann 06.13.15 at 5:12 pm
Actually, I think Obama’s motives are much lower. Clinton passed pro-corporationist policies in the same way in his last year, and guess what? He is now a very rich man. I don’t really understand why we think of politicians as only interested in politics – they show very much that they are interested in dessert. Look at how little blowback there was for Bernanke taking a job with Citadel, the hedge fund that benefited hugely – to the tune of 200 million dollars – when the Fed fed money through AIG to pass on to it creditors. If Obama wants dessert, he has to come up with some goodies. Of course, many an act of bribery in a republic is proceeded by an act of false consciousness, so I am sure he is convinced that what he is doing is progressive and disinterested.
js. 06.13.15 at 9:52 pm
Right, and that’s the level of explanation I’m interested in. There may be more venal stuff underneath, or there might not be, but I don’t really care about motive in that sense. I’m interested in what can fall within the range of “disinterested” reasons. And I think when we talk about politicians doing things, policy-wise, that are bad, we tend to think of them as mistaken “true believers”, implying that they believe what they’re doing is in fact in the public interest (however that’s defined) or we chalk it up to venality of one sort or another. What tends to get neglected is concern for specific institutions within political life, which certainly isn’t venal in any straightforward sense, but where the institutions stand in a quite complicated relation to any generalized notion of the public good. I’m even willing to be convinced that this isn’t the best sort of explanation in this case, but in general I think we need to pay more attention to this sort of explanation.
Brett Dunbar 06.13.15 at 10:54 pm
The problem with not having TPA is that you can’t really amend a treaty. Either you enact the treaty as negotiated or you have rejected it. You may claim to have ratified but you have actually enacted something that wasn’t on offer, which is actually a rejection. Any amendments to the text of the treaty are wrecking amendments. By rejecting TPA the democrats are abusing procedure to block a treaty, even before negotiations are complete. It was wrong when the Republicans did it and it’s wrong for the Democrats to do it.
It might be reasonable to have a longer interval between the publication of the final text and voting on ratification, I’m not sure either how long is proposed nor how long is reasonable. But you should commit to vote on the actual offer on the table not something vaguely resembling it, otherwise it is pretty much impossible to negotiate. By opposing TPA you pretty much nailed your colours to the anti trade flagpole.
Cranky Observer 06.13.15 at 10:57 pm
The text of the TPP is classified Secret in the United States. Leaked material indicates the signatory states agree to keep it secret for 10 years after ratification. Not sure how any democratically elected legislator could agree to vote on such terms at all, since they don’t know what the actual “offer on the table” is.
Layman 06.13.15 at 11:15 pm
“The problem with not having TPA is that you can’t really amend a treaty. Either you enact the treaty as negotiated or you have rejected it. You may claim to have ratified but you have actually enacted something that wasn’t on offer, which is actually a rejection. Any amendments to the text of the treaty are wrecking amendments. By rejecting TPA the democrats are abusing procedure to block a treaty, even before negotiations are complete. It was wrong when the Republicans did it and it’s wrong for the Democrats to do it.”
Forgive me, but this is nonsense. TPA – fast track authority – essentially allows the executive to conclude any deal it wants. Instead, without it, the executive can negotiate a treaty, and then bring it to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Where is the abuse in that? Why should Congress pre-approve a deal it hasn’t seen?
Rich Puchalsky 06.13.15 at 11:19 pm
js: “Right, and that’s the level of explanation I’m interested in.”
Who knows what self-justification any politician follows? If I had to guess, I’d guess that his is an exact mirror of LGM’s. He probably thinks to himself that his policies aren’t what he wants exactly, but they are the best that can be gotten while prudently working against the possibility that much worse could happen. In other words, that he is the lesser evil. (I don’t think that he would use that phrase, but he definitely does phrase things in terms of practical politics and what is possible.) So, yes, it could be that he views himself as keeping the sources of power in American politics allied to Democratic centrism.
Against this, I’ve never seen any sign at all that Obama is interested in party-building, preparing a successor, making an ideology etc. He built up an organization that did brilliantly in his first Presidential election and that he promptly trashed rather than let anyone else use it. So really there’s a good case that this is just his reflexive agreement with the elite.
bob mcmanus 06.13.15 at 11:43 pm
22: I’m interested in what can fall within the range of “disinterested†reasons.
Oh, there is plenty of work (Summers, I think, and Obama has said things) out there that says the only United States comparative advantage after globalization, and only possible comparative advantage, lies precisely in financial and legal services, software and other advanced soft tech, entertainment and media, (pharmaceuticals?) and maybe but not for long, agribusiness and extractive industries.
A nationalist economist should probably provide a good analysis of this before condemning the trade treaties.
js. 06.14.15 at 12:34 am
I think mcmanus gets what I’m talking about. The comment’s a bit hard to understand as a response to mine. I meant to be talking about specific institutional reasons for action, as opposed to considerations of the public good vs. (imputations of) venality. Rich, though, is still talking about individual psychology, which I’ve already indicated I’m not interested in.
bob mcmanus 06.14.15 at 1:13 am
I meant to be talking about specific institutional reasons for action, as opposed to considerations of the public good vs. (imputations of) venality.
Institutional vs public good? Maybe I didn’t get it.
I guess I could have included higher education of foreign students as a profit center, and especially arms and military technology sales. Woo, that last one.
As far as the comparative (or do I mean competitive) advantage in global production chains, well, it’s complicated, and whole institutionalized economic hegemonies are built around it. I guess they might say it is based around factors of production and “free trade,” free as long as the US makes the I/P laws to ensure our domestic profits. And has the sovereign currency. Whatever.
I remain non-committal, ignorant or confused. I do know a little about what Germany and Japan have done to remain 1st world. I kinda do think we could get something like the high wages for the millions at Dearborn and Gary etc back, through some radical social Keynesianism/socialism, but probably at a high cost to relative growth and prosperity and resources compared to Russia China and India etc.
But, ya know to the Vast Powers, that is not acceptable, because they want to continue a position that command the resources that maintain Full Spectrum Dominance and the Military Empire.
Rich Puchalsky 06.14.15 at 1:35 am
js: “about specific institutional reasons for action”
I don’t get it. I certainly understand not being interested in individual psychology, which is total guesswork. But the institutional reasons for action here are neither “public good” nor “venal”: politicians need money from the sources that find TPP important not because those politicians are venal (necessarily) but because they need to get elected in order to do anything. The question is then, from my point of view: why does Obama still care when he no longer can ever be elected again, given that he seems to have no interest in cementing long-term power through a movement / successor / ideology. You liked Consumatopia’s explanation, but that the exact type of explanation that C. gave (that Obama was doing this because he was concerned about preserving power for future centrist Democrats) and I wonder what the evidence for that is.
js. 06.14.15 at 1:55 am
Yes, that was my point. Indeed, my larger point was that this is generally true of institutional reasons, and that we should pay more attention to such reasons.
Well, I guess you could consider support for the TPP as evidence? I hadn’t thought about this sort of thing in this case, honestly, but I liked Consumatopia’s explanation because it is in fact providing the kind of evidence that you think is lacking. Possibly. (And I don’t think there’s no evidence—he’s campaigned for candidates, he’s made various appointments, etc.
js. 06.14.15 at 2:00 am
Also, I guess I think that institutional reasons can be genuinely disinterested. That is, that one can act to preserve or promote specific political institutions in a genuinely disinterested sort of way—esp. when one is part of the institution in question. That’s why I framed my response to RG as I did. (Maybe this is what’s confusing people?)
Rich Puchalsky 06.14.15 at 2:17 am
js: “Well, I guess you could consider support for the TPP as evidence?”
I don’t think you can, because there are too many different reasons why he could be supporting it.
I’m not saying that there’s no evidence that Obama doesn’t care about extending his organizational influence beyond two terms, but I’d really thought that he was a lot less interested in this than most Presidents are. Is he doing a lame-duck second term interest in his legacy kind of thing? I’m not arguing with any evidence that anyone has, since I haven’t looked into this at all, but from previous impressions I’d think that many of the other explanations (true belief, venality) are more likely.
john c. halasz 06.14.15 at 2:47 am
American Pharoah needs his monuments.
js. 06.14.15 at 3:12 am
RP @34:
Sure, fine. Can we just go back to what I originally said: “and the sort of consideration that doesn’t get nearly the amount of attention that it deserves.” How much do you think I really care about what’s going on in Obama’s case?
js. 06.14.15 at 3:24 am
Sorry, just to clarify: the only point that I wanted to make was that institutional reasons, in the sense that I gestured at @23 (evidently not very clearly), matter a lot more than they’re given credit form, esp. in US discourse. I don’t mean to affirm anything about Obama (though I do think that Consumatopia’s explanation is plausible), and there’s no way in fucking hell I’m getting drawn into an Internet fight about Obama
John Quiggin 06.14.15 at 4:40 am
My impression is that Obama has been captured, to a substantial extent by the permanent bureaucratic establishment, and that there is a big divided between
(a) policies & processes that are the raison d’etre for a section of the establishment (trade negotiations for the State Dept, surveillance for the security state); and
(b) issues where alternative views are allowed (equal marriage, healthcare)
Obama has moved to the left on the second kind of issue since 2008, but has remained unchanged, and committed to the establishment line, on the first
LFC 06.14.15 at 4:50 am
Wrote comment, hit wrong button and lost it.
Shorthand version: Obama does think TPP is in US national interest. Reasons not just economic but geopolitical/geoeconomic (China; ‘Asian pivot’).
Could a better deal have been negotiated, w fewer of the bad provisions Prof. Sell lays out in the OP, if USTR were less cozy with big pharma, Hollywood etc? Maybe but that’s not how USTR works, not how Washington works at the moment.
I oppose the present TPP version (and TPA) for (among other things) the reasons mentioned in the OP.
ZM 06.14.15 at 4:57 am
bob mcmanus,
“I remain non-committal, ignorant or confused. I do know a little about what Germany and Japan have done to remain 1st world. I kinda do think we could get something like the high wages for the millions at Dearborn and Gary etc back, through some radical social Keynesianism/socialism, but probably at a high cost to relative growth and prosperity and resources compared to Russia China and India etc.”
You were just complaining the other day about people with iPhones not caring about workers in developing countries. Trying to retain a division between “first world”* and other economies, with America in the advanced economy group, contradicts this concern. To be consistent you should argue here for a contract and converge approach between advanced and less advanced countries.
* “first world” actually refers to the Cold War divisions – US aligned capitalist countries are the first world; USSR and PRC aligned communist countries are the second world; and non-aligned or post-colonial nationalist countries are the third world. I think this terminology started with a French writer and that is why it got mistranslated in English speaking countries.
LFC 06.14.15 at 5:01 am
D.Bromwich’s critique of Obama in current Harper’s, which I’ve looked at only quickly and don’t agree w all of, lays out the case that on foreign policy he has been too much mastered by, rather than master of, the permanent bureaucratic establishment (to compress the argument drastically).
Consumatopia 06.14.15 at 1:04 pm
“I’m not saying that there’s no evidence that Obama doesn’t care about extending his organizational influence beyond two terms”
I didn’t mean to say that there was any such evidence. I agree that he doesn’t seem to have a long-term ideology or party organizational plan, and if even if he did it would probably be different now in 2015 than it was back in 2007 or so. I meant something much simpler–Obama thinks it would be bad for his administration and and his legacy to piss off the business community. Obama behaves the way he thinks that Democrats should behave. He’s not seeking to actually influence the next Democrat to behave this way, because that’s not necessary–the next Democratic president will face the same situation he does and probably reach the same conclusion.
I get that most of the aspects of TPP that piss us off are there because they benefit US business interests. But if even Summers is thinking that “Some matters that are pushed by elements of the business community have little or nothing to do with the interests of the vast majority of American workers. These include pressuring other countries to change health and safety regulation, to extend and strengthen patent protection and to deregulate financial services.” I find it hard to believe that the same thought hasn’t occurred to Obama.
What requires explanation is not why Obama wants trade deals, but he and the USTR are pushing for those deals to include the terms that they do, and why he’s advocating for the deals the way that he is. On the latter point, clearly Republicans want this deal a lot more than Democrats do. One might think that this means that Democrats should be able to win concessions for backing it–at least, that’s what Pelosi said after TAA failed.
Rich Puchalsky 06.14.15 at 1:38 pm
Consumatopia: “Obama behaves the way he thinks that Democrats should behave.”
I guess that I don’t see the difference between this and “true belief”, or possibly “true pragmatic belief”. js says that he wants more emphasis on institutional reasons and that he doesn’t care about Obama-specific ones, but I just don’t see anything especially institutional about this that made him think that it met his criteria. When people talk about institutional reasons I think of them as meaning something about organizations: parties, agencies of the government, organized private interests, etc. Perhaps even of institutions as existing practices of the system. I don’t see how “[he thinks that] the next Democratic president will face the same situation he does and probably reach the same conclusion” really has anything to do with institutions: he’s evaluating a system and implicitly thinking that there’s only one reasonable individual response to it and it’s his. So this comes back to psychology.
One of the characteristics of contemporary neoliberalism in the U.S. is this exact disreliance on institutional reasons. The two parties are differentiated by two vast, largely inchoate sets of beliefs (“racism” in short) that would exist in opposition even without a party apparatus, although of course a large part of what the parties do is try to solidify this division for theirs bases. The permanent establishment within the government may exist as a sort of vaguely defined establishment, but the traditional agency interests have largely been taking under Presidential control (i.e. as when Bush rearranged all the security agencies into Homeland Security). Industry has all sorts of institutions that promulgates their interests, but they are all disposable and interchangeable, so that in large part you don’t lose much by simply talking about the interests of the elite. Sometimes industries have opposing interests (as with the post here on Big Oil vs Big Coal) but this is generally temporary and tactical and expressed through a cloud of individual business leaders.
Consumatopia 06.14.15 at 2:07 pm
The difference between psychological and institutional motives is only something that came up only after I offered a theory. But I can’t help but see a difference between thinking “this policy would be good for the American people” and “this policy is good politics for me and my party, and the other policies me and my party support are good for the American people”.
Rich Puchalsky 06.14.15 at 2:16 pm
C: “But I can’t help but see a difference between thinking “this policy would be good for the American people†and “this policy is good politics for me and my party, and the other policies me and my party support are good for the American peopleâ€.”
Yes, the first is “true belief” and the second one is what I meant by “true pragmatic belief”. “True pragmatic belief” though, as I mentioned upthread, has already broken from the idea that all of one’s policies are directly good: some of them are only instrumentally good as they permit you to pursue other policies that are directly good. So from there it’s a pretty straight slide to lesser evilism, in which there may not really be many or even any policies that are directly good, but at least your whole package of policies is better for the American people than the opposing package.
bob mcmanus 06.14.15 at 3:02 pm
…but he and the USTR are pushing for those deals to include the terms that they do, and why he’s advocating for the deals the way that he is. On the latter point, clearly Republicans want this deal a lot more than Democrats do.
Well, I think Hollywood, San Jose, and Wall Street Democrats (agribusiness?) liked the deal, and dictated some of the terms.
The parties are not monolithic, have multiple elites in relationships to multiple parts of their rank-and-files, and are viewed under a lens of extreme partisan polarization mostly by those who benefit from that framing.
The current narrative is that labor got to House Democrats eearly and often, but I have difficulty believing unions have that much power. On the Republican side, looks to me like their rank-and-file is being ignored even more than the Democrats rank-and-file.
Roger Gathmann 06.14.15 at 5:55 pm
I think it is a bit distressing that material interest is so quickly dismissed from what we understand about DC. George Bush was explicit, in his last years, about how he wanted to make some bucks after getting out of the white house. Looking at Obama’s cabinet and their post-service choices, I think they very much felt that their work “fit” with highpaying jobs in the private sector. I don’t know why we can’t analyze Obama with the same lens that we analyze Peter Orszag. In The Establishment, Owen Jones has a very good chapter about the way members of the House of Commons considered that their abuses of expense accounts were perks they deserved, because they sacrificed so much for public service. Why am I supposed to believe the American president is immune to this kind of thinking? Or the people around him? I would take a bet that Jack Lew, for instance, the secretary of Treasury, makes some announcement in 2016 or 2017 that he has accepted a very lucrative position with x corporation, one that would benefit from TPP, rather than returning to NYU. In any other context, we would be talking in the muffled euphemistic way economists talk of the principle agent problem. I’m sure it isn’t a crude quid pro quo, but rather an assimilation – you rub elbows with the high fliers, everyone you meet is either wealthy or very wealthy, a certain ethos of I deserve it reigns (an ethos that Obama has used, astonishingly, to sell TPP – see his comments about how very liberal he has been and now he deserves to have us trust him blindly – this is the CEO attitude writ large), and policy that benefits the corporations that might benefit you later just seems to fall into place.
Rich Puchalsky 06.14.15 at 6:02 pm
Roger Gathmann: “I think it is a bit distressing that material interest is so quickly dismissed from what we understand about DC.”
Not quickly dismissed, but just that it’s kind of immaterial why Obama is doing it as long as he’s doing it. Or maybe not “immaterial”: just that there isn’t enough evidence to distinguish which of the many possible reasons it could be and no particular reason why this was an important question to answer. I thought that js was trying to get away from this by saying something like “There are institutional interests that are pursued that don’t just come down to psychological theories about politicians” but unfortunately the example of one that he picked out (by agreeing with Comsumatopia) doesn’t seem to me to really be an institutional interest at all.
Roger Gathmann 06.14.15 at 6:29 pm
The next stage in the anti-TPP campaign needs to open up. Why not take up Obama’s words about how this is being written for working families and demand that it be written BY working families. That corporate honchos, who are writing the pact, are all about working families is absurd, but the line does provide a base for the next step – a trade agreement really written from a populist point of view. Perhaps making generic drugs easier to get in the US for instance.
Now, that would be pretty cool.
Brett Dunbar 06.14.15 at 7:06 pm
TPA is congress agreeing that it will vote on the treaty as a whole and not attempt to cherry pick individual terms. If the executive could already bring the treaty to congress for a straight vote then they wouldn’t need a specific provision. It is very specifically not congress pre-approving the treaty sight unseen it is congress agreeing to actually vote once on the actual offer on the table and not attempt to change it.
I’m fairly certain the confidentiality rule applies to the drafts of the treaty not the final text. For fairly obvious reasons the text has to be public for have effect. The plan is for the text to be finalised, published and then voted on. Other trade agreements have proceeded like that. The negotiations are confidential the final text is published and then voted on. It is pretty much the standard way of negotiating a treaty.
Roger Gathmann 06.14.15 at 7:28 pm
50 you mean the standard way of negotiatng a treaty is to make the text available to industrial trade groups who can then write it and not to Congresspeople?
I don’t believe NAFTA was kept secret. Or Cafta. Forgive me, this is a level of non-disclosure we have never seen in a trade treaty before.
Consumatopia 06.14.15 at 9:35 pm
@50 It’s not a treaty. Also, this stuff about amendments is overblown. Obama could just tell Congress that he would veto it (and submit the original again) if they passed any amendments to it. The real use of TPA is avoiding the filibuster.
Actually, the real use is to reassure negotiating partners that if they sign a deal, Congress will probably approve it. Foreign leaders don’t want to sign onto a trade deal which might be unpopular with some factions at home if it isn’t actually going to become law.
It occurs to me that if this is how the US advertises TPA when talking to foreign negotiating partners, that if Congress doesn’t actually want to approve TPP, they might as well be honest and reject TPA. Pro-TPA folks keep saying that Congress should just pass TPA and wait until TPP is made public to make a decision on that. But a scenario in which TPP is made public but gets rejected by Congress is exactly what Obama is trying to reassure foreign leaders will not happen! So it would actually be less damaging to our relationships with other countries to reject TPA now than to reject TPP later.
Brett Dunbar 06.14.15 at 10:32 pm
The level of confidentiality on the negotiations is similar to that on earlier treaties. It seems to be a bit more restricted but not all that different.
Avoiding a filibuster seems like a good thing in itself. It’s rather an abuse of procedure to block holding a vote on a matter which would pass. If you oppose the final deal than vote against it and then you either win or lose fairly. Basically the opponents are conceding that the final deal may include enough good parts that it would pass.
The terms we know of include some trade-offs. For example the still fairly high tariffs on clothing are greatly reduced, this is something Vietnam wanted and benefits consumers in rich countries, but was opposed by uncompetitive rich country textile firms and trade unions in that sector. In return Vietnam has had to agree to allow independent trade unions, currently there is one legal government controlled yellow union. The government there is a totalitarian communist party dictatorship and really hostile to independent civil society. The dictatorship doesn’t like the idea of independent political institutions. Investors are somewhat ambivalent some at least would rather have a real trade union to negotiate with rather than deal with wildcat strikes.
Consumatopia 06.14.15 at 11:38 pm
If you oppose the final deal than vote against it and then you either win or lose fairly.
If the filibuster is still a Senate rule then it should be available to stop a bad deal. If you want to win “fairly”, then you should have to overcome the same obstacles than all other legislation has to go through.
Though, really, fairness to workers and consumers should matter more than fairness to legislators. Policy matters more than procedure.
Basically the opponents are conceding that the final deal may include enough good parts that it would pass.
Or that a majority of both houses of Congress would support some of the bad parts. If that majority wants to enact a bad deal, then they can either eliminate the filibuster or offer the other side enough goodies in the TPA bill to get it passed, which seems to be what Pelosi and now Clinton are asking for.
Suzanne 06.14.15 at 11:40 pm
@46: “The current narrative is that labor got to House Democrats early and often, but I have difficulty believing unions have that much power. ”
Maybe the unions are in a better position than usual? They have shown exceptional unity, and they’re reminding Democrats that they’ll be taking a tough vote for a not wildly popular lame-duck President who seemingly only notices their existence when he wants something from them, and they, the unions, will still be there when Obama is off writing his memoirs.
Bruce Wilder 06.15.15 at 12:05 am
And making speeches at some obscene rate of pay, which should not be confused with legalized bribery because . . .
js. 06.15.15 at 1:12 am
It’s good to know that there’s a genuine disagreement here and not just a mess of misunderstandings. (I mean that genuinely!) I think that the reasons for which political agents act, or are best understood as acting, are a bit more complicated than this paragraph implies—and I think that’s true even under the current neoliberal order in the US. But (a) this is quite off-topic, and (b) I am lazy. So, I’ll leave it at that.
I don’t mean to dismiss it at all. I think it’s a genuine explanatory factor in lots of cases. I guess I just find that material interest as an explanation is well understood and acknowledged whereas institutional reasons aren’t (why-em-em-vee, as they say). If I thought it were the other way around (in left-liberal discourse), I would be saying what you’re saying.
Anyway, sorry for the derail. I think I’m going to stop going on about this now. (But others should feel free! I’ll read with interest.)
Brett Dunbar 06.15.15 at 1:22 am
The filibuster should not be a senate rule. The Commons pretty much eliminated it some time ago. Initially by use of Guillotine motions (so called as they cut off debate) and more recently by pretty much everything being on a timetable motion. Either way once the allotted time for debate is up then the matter is voted on. It also helps that the speaker will cut off speeches that are irrelevant, repetitious or excessively long-winded.
what I meant by bad parts was the bits you oppose. If you support a specific provision than that is one of the good parts. For specific senators some parts that are good from their point of view are bad from some of their point of view. The provisions relating to trade in agriculture and clothing for example. If textile manufacture or farming are major interests in your state you may want to retain high tariffs on those products. If however they are not major influence you would probably prefer the tariffs be lowered reducing prices for your constituents. The tariff barriers against products where poor countries have comparative advantage are among the few high tariffs remaining. Due to protectionist lobbying by both business and the trade unions in those areas. Depending on the political landscape of your state cutting those tariffs could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Bruce Wilder 06.15.15 at 1:32 am
People can start talking about institutions and the reasons political agents act as a way to obfuscate, even without intending to. The beauty of neoliberalism is that you can have a discourse where no one has any idea what those with actual power are choosing, let alone what they want. So, idle and ill-conceived speculation about people who do not matter fills the void.
Consumatopia 06.15.15 at 1:34 am
Maybe not, but as long as it is, trade deals should have to overcome it like everything else does.
Then it is definitely false that anyone is “conceding that the final deal may include enough good parts that it would pass.” Something doesn’t become “good” or “bad” because a majority of legislators feel that way.
js. 06.15.15 at 2:32 am
Oh, believe me, I always obfuscate intentionally!
Bruce Wilder 06.15.15 at 6:28 am
I don’t. I have a strong and consistent record of unintentional obscurity.
Collin Street 06.15.15 at 7:41 am
> Maybe not, but as long as it is, trade deals should have to overcome it like everything else does.
Enh.
Due process only has value insofar as it produces valuable results. And, yeah, “short-cutting this ‘safety’ measure would create problems in some situations, so we should avoid doing it” is something of value, but it’s not the only thing of value and not the only thing, or even a dominant/overriding thing, that we should care about.
Ultimately “the law” isn’t morally binding in and of itself.
Layman 06.15.15 at 12:44 pm
When the facts are against you, argue the law. When the law is against you, argue the facts.
Barry 06.15.15 at 1:25 pm
“Actually, the real use is to reassure negotiating partners that if they sign a deal, Congress will probably approve it. Foreign leaders don’t want to sign onto a trade deal which might be unpopular with some factions at home if it isn’t actually going to become law.”
The use right now is that a very small, very select group who pay massive
bribescampaign contributions get to put in what they want into an indivisible package.LFC 06.15.15 at 2:55 pm
js. @23
There’s a sub-school (for lack of a better phrase) of pol sci, which I associate w the name of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and some others that I can’t recall just now, that argues (or such is my impression) that leaders are mainly motivated by the desire to stay in office or (after their term is up) presumably to have their party stay in office, and proceeds to build a somewhat elaborate theory around this. (Which am not up on the details of.) I think these kinds of ‘institutional’ reasons clearly can be motives for action, though I’m not sure Obama is esp. worried right now about helping Dems in 2016, as opposed to cementing what he considers substantive aspects of his legacy. If he were not convinced that TPP was important from that angle, I doubt he would be pushing it so hard. As for pecuniary motives, i.e. ensuring he makes a lot of money after leaving the White Hse, I doubt this drives O’s policy positions. Also I suspect that Bill Clinton prob wd have made millions giving speeches after leaving the White Hse simply by virtue of his status as ex-Pres., w/o much regard to how friendly his admin had been to corporate interests.
LFC 06.15.15 at 2:58 pm
P.s. which is not to deny that the revolving door of people betw govt and corporations is a problem; it is. I think there’s a rule about ex-officials can’t go to work for corps or other private entities on subjects they directly dealt w in govt for a pd of time (is it one year or two?) but that obvs. is a pretty weak antidote.
Bruce Wilder 06.15.15 at 3:48 pm
LFC: cementing what he considers substantive aspects of his legacy.
That is a classic bit of journalistic hackery. Really you should be embarrassed to repeat it.
LFC:I suspect that Bill Clinton prob wd have made millions giving speeches after leaving the White Hse simply by virtue of his status as ex-Pres., w/o much regard to how friendly his admin had been to corporate interests.
Because corporate interests are not the only ones to pay the big bucks for speeches by has-beens?
Roger Gathmann 06.15.15 at 3:52 pm
Legacy with who? Are we to believe that George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton go around telling people they put NAFTA in place? A legacy for a president is something that has some popular recognition. I doubt anybody thinks George W. Bush, CAFTA. Except of course the people who contribute to the foundations of the ex presidents.
But if Obama wanted TPP to be part of his legacy and garner popular recognition, then probably he ought to ixnay the high security that obscures what the fuck it is and welcome debate, This way, he can be identified as the president who raised the price of medicines considerably and created another court in which corporations can blackmail governments into watering down regulations. A legacy we can all love. Oh, and that he managed to get the Japanese to lower the tariff one percent on the import of shoe strings.
LFC 06.15.15 at 4:26 pm
That is a classic bit of journalistic hackery
You don’t think presidents are concerned about their “legacy”? I didn’t offer an evaluation of it, I said he was concerned about it. That seems fairly obvious. People have egos, politicians tend to have big ones, and that translates into a concern for how ‘history’ will remember them. Clearly Obama wants to remembered for the ACA, but presumably he wants to have some other things in there too. Foreign policy has not been a strong point of the admin, and I think he sees TPP as part of his ‘pivot’ to Asia, which he sees as a possible area where retrospective judgment *may* treat him kindly (in contrast, to say, Afghanistan or drones or etc.). Again, I’m not offering my opinion of it (I already said I was opposed to this TPP deal), just thinking about possible motives here.
LFC 06.15.15 at 4:32 pm
B Wilder
Because corporate interests are not the only ones to pay the big bucks for speeches by has-beens?
Not all ex-presidents are by definition “has beens.” Carter has been in some ways as visible as an ex-pres. as he was as pres, for example. The point was that corporate interests tend to pay for speeches by ex-presidents, esp. ones who are as good at talking as Clinton is. Had Clinton been Ralph Nader, say, not so much. But that was never in the cards. It’s a matter of emphasis more than disagreement. You’re emphasizing his ideology, which is not unimportant to corps hiring him to speak, but the fact that he’s an ex-pres. and a good speaker is the main draw, imo.
LFC 06.15.15 at 4:40 pm
R Gathmann
Are we to believe that George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton go around telling people they put NAFTA in place?
I don’t think Clinton shies away from it.
But if Obama wanted TPP to be part of his legacy
He sees it as part of the Asian pivot (see comment above), not in isolation.
This way, he can be identified as the president who raised the price of medicines considerably and created another court in which corporations can blackmail governments into watering down regulations
He has evidently convinced himself that the (supposed) benefits outweigh the negatives. I don’t agree, but that’s irrelevant to the pt re motives.
Rich Puchalsky 06.15.15 at 5:40 pm
There are actions that politicians can take that show that they are working towards institutional concerns that go beyond the pro forma actions that Obama has done. For instance, Howard Dean was a major politician in the U.S., and he really did put a lot of effort into the 50-state strategy. Bill Clinton really did seem to be invested in helping Gore be his successor — for basically egoistic reasons, but in any case it was in part a concern with the institutional strength of the party. Of course the classic case is FDR’s New Deal: he arranged mutually reinforcing interests and ideology to carry on his policies for a long time after he was gone. There’s actual evidence of this kind of activity that can be brought out if it exists.
Suzanne 06.15.15 at 5:55 pm
@71: There’s no doubt that Clinton loves to talk and people are happy to pay him for it, but glibness and being an ex-President will go only so far. He’s not just an ex-president, he’s the husband of a possible future one. I understand his rates went up sharply when Hillary was Secretary of State.
@20: I can remember when Obama was offered to us all as a change from the Third Way. Those were the days, by gum.
Scott Walker has his problems as a candidate, but business interests seem very comfy with him and his record of union-busting. Obama going all out to defeat and demoralize his base as an election year approaches seems unlikely to change that.
CharleyCarp 06.16.15 at 2:13 am
I think it might be simpler still: there’s very very little that Obama can get through Congress as currently configured. This is pretty much all he’s got. The fact that the people paying his bills — and a whole bunch of the people on his payroll — say that it’s a net good make the decision to go forward on it pretty easy for him.
Bruce Wilder 06.16.15 at 4:53 am
CharleyCarp: The fact that the people paying his bills — and a whole bunch of the people on his payroll — say that it’s a net good make the decision to go forward on it pretty easy for him.
Huh? “people paying his bills” ? “his payroll” ?
CharleyCarp 06.16.15 at 1:03 pm
Donors, elitish supporters, and senior staff.
js. 06.18.15 at 2:18 am
LFC, that’s not what I meant by “institutional reasons”, tho. For one thing, I want to very much draw a contrast between institutional reasons and standard-issue self-interest, the latter being where one might naturally place getting reelected (tho I guess not necessarily). And ‘for the sake of the party’ was supposed to be one kind of institutional reason among many.
It’s not been a bad conversation, but I’m kind of regretting going down this rabbit hole on the basis of a bit of a misreading of Consumatopia’s original comment about this. Anyway, Rich Puchalsky had a pretty good handle on what I meant back @43 (tho obviously he thinks it’s misapplied in this case, and for all I know he’s right):
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