Totally false. Various politicians and pundits have sought to arouse suspicions by claiming, among other things, that TPA will permit President Obama to bypass Congress and use the TPP as a backdoor to, among other things, lawlessly expand immigration, curtail gun rights, or restrict Internet freedom. At this point, however, I hope you can see just how ridiculous these claims are. Regardless of the issue, the fact will always remain that nothing can be implemented via the TPP unless Congress agrees to implement it via a formal vote.
This would include things like new work visas (something that U.S. FTAs haven’t actually done for years now) or Internet regulations or gun rules or minimum wages or whatever: it all has to become law before it has any legal force, and the only people making law are Congress (and, again, according to their own procedural rules). So, if in the TPP the president committed the United States to toss every AR-15 into the Atlantic Ocean, those guns aren’t going anywhere unless Congress formally agrees, subject to all of the constitutional, procedural, and transparency rules already discussed.
And, really, do you think this Congress is going to do anything of the sort? Really? (For more specific debunking of these crazy ideas, go here, here, here and here.)
We still don’t know precisely what’s in the TPP, and final judgment—by Congress and the public—should therefore be withheld until we do. But the idea that TPP, empowered by TPA, will grant President Obama any new legal authority to ignore or change U.S. immigration or gun or whatever laws without Congress is simply ludicrous.
Then open up the TPP/TTIP/TISA texts before the perfunctory public release period.
If it is so good, debate it in Congress!