Democrats’ civil war over free trade

Politico ^ | 16 April 2015 | Adam Behsudi

[Theoria]

The open in-fighting ramped up after a breakthrough on the historic bill was announced.

The most important trade bill in a decade has pitted Harry Reid against President Barack Obama. Liberal Democrat Rosa DeLauro against moderate Democrat Ron Kind. Labor unions against pro-business Democrats. And Elizabeth Warren against virtually everyone who supports a landmark piece of legislation that would allow the president to close what could be the biggest free-trade deal in history.

The open warring among Democrats over fast-track trade legislation, and the party’s broader existential crisis on free trade, grew more pronounced Thursday as senior lawmakers announced a breakthrough on the trade bill. Many Democrats still feel the burn, 20 years later, of lost manufacturing jobs from the North American Free Trade Agreement — pushed through by former President Bill Clinton — and they fear another Democratic president is on the verge of turning his back on working-class Americans by negotiating a trade deal that would send jobs overseas.

What’s at stake substantively is giving the president streamlined authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country free-trade deal that would dwarf NAFTA. But there’s also much more at stake politically for a Democratic Party whose progressive wing is enjoying an upswing thanks to the aggressive populism of Warren and liberals like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who are unabashedly anti-free trade deal. Obama wants to cement a legacy on global free trade, but his work negotiating with Republicans has created several factions within the Democratic Party.

[Toddsterpatriot]

when he said that NAFTA would cost the US manufacturing jobs, he was right.

When? A year? 2? 5? 20?

You can’t have “free trade” when the other countries opperate by completely different rules.

Why not? If they are free to sell here and we are free to sell there, why isn't that free trade?

When country __________ can pay its workers $1 a month with no benefits and no environmental regulation. No US company can compete.

When the EPA is regulating our manufacturers out of business, is lack of regulation elsewhere the issue?

[apoliticalone]

Any conservative that supports trade pacts like TPP really need to examine the underlying motives. These trade pacts are not about free markets. Their goal is undermining our national sovereignty, and our Constitution, and most importantly our endowed American rights- for the sake of profits for global (not American) corporations. Conservative and corporatist views may have been somewhat in alignment in 1960, but not in 2015 when big business has no specific US citizenship.

[TexasFreeper2009]

I agree completely.