Posted on 03/11/2016 2:02:14 PM PST by VitacoreVision
The following exchange took place during Thursday’s Republican debate in Florida:
TAPPER: Senator Cruz, you were a supporter of the Pacific trade deal, but after taking some heat from conservatives, you changed your position. Why should these voters who don’t like these trade deals trust that you will fight for them all the time and not just in election years?
CRUZ: Actually that’s incorrect. There are two different agreements. There’s TPA and TPP. I opposed TPP and have always opposed TPP, which is what you asked about.…
Senator Ted Cruz’s statement that he “always opposed TPP” is incorrect. He and Representative Paul Ryan co-authored an April 21, 2015 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (Putting Congress in Charge on Trade) in which they both supported fast-tracking TPP (the Trans Pacific Partnership). Cruz was also incorrect when he implied that TPA is separate from TPP. TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) was the “fast-track” bill that gave up Congress’s right to amend or filibuster TPP and which reduced the number of votes required to pass TPP from two thirds of the Senate to a simple majority in each chamber.
Furthermore, Cruz’s op-ed with Representative Paul Ryan was itself deceptive, as my co-authors and I noted at the time here in American Thinker: ...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Cruz has also been explicit that feels that the Obama Administration is totally unqualified to properly represent America in these negotiations and that the true deal will be negotiated by the next President .
I don't like giving the Obama Administration the authorization to negotiate anything because Obama does nothing in the interests of the American people and actually seems to want to bind America to deals that help destroy the country
Cruzes position was that he agrees with that but having America sit out the negotiations in the critical initial rounds of negotiation would be so irregular and detrimental to the national interests that it is better to have a properly restrained Obama at least show up.
A reasonable position but one that neglects Obama’s lawlessness and disregard for the country .
Obama has negotiated a TPP that is the International Trade Agreement equivalent to his Iranian Nuclear Arms deal and sell our country out just as badly as the Iranian Nuclear Deal did.
Characteristically , Obama is ignoring the need for Congressional approval and trying to end run Congress and illegally implement his disastrous TPP via executive order and ram down the throats of the American people.
Thanks for posting this. I am really sick of Cruz’s lies!
And what if a Democrat wins the WH?
He voted for fast track and that makes the Senate only need 50 votes to pass the trade bill.
Your lies and innuendos about Cruz doesn't discourage me.
Many of you Trump supporters are nothing more than celebrity worshipers. You adore him because he's cool and you're not.
Your infatuation with Trump is no different than people who worship the Kardashians.
All emotion rather than rational thought.
But good luck to you anyway..
Allow me to recycle a previous post of mine on this topic...
What Ted Cruz supported was the vote to allow for the administration to have ‘fast-track’ authority on the bill. Essentially what that boils down to is that when the treaty is submitted for vote to the senate, it gets an up/down vote without amendments. This is how you have to negotiate treaties, because a treaty is somewhat atomic in nature. You can’t slice and dice it once it has been negotiated, because if that were the case, the revised treaty would then have to go back out to each of the countries involved in the negotiation process, for them to either buy in to the changes, or to renegotiate based on the changes demanded by the senate. The resulting treaty would be different, and would thus have to be resubmitted to senate approval, for them to so the same stuff to again.
Basically, you never get anything in a final form that way.
This ‘fast track’ authority has been given to every president since FDR because it is necessary if you’re going to have international agreements.
You can be sure that if Cruz were to win the presidency, he’d be requesting this same authority on his own behalf. Don’t you think it would be somewhat hypocritical of him to say, yeah, I know I voted against it for Obama, but I want it for myself?
Of course, for a democrat, since nothing they said yesterday is ever held against them (see supreme court appointment discussions), it wouldn’t matter, but for republicans the standards are somewhat different. As such, he really didn’t have any choice, and it was the right thing to do anyway if you think the world needs to be able to have these type of negotiated agreements.
Now, one thing I completely disagree with about this whole thing is that, as usual, the politicians at all levels and both parties are being disingenuous about the treaty itself. They claim it is a ‘trade agreement’ rather than a treaty, to get around the 2/3 support a treaty needs in the senate. This is bullshit IMO. Call the damn thing what it is, (a treaty) and if it’s worth approving once it is submitted, you’ll be able to get the votes.
The establishment has been doing the slight-of-hand on these things since NAFTA, if not before. I wish Cruz had called them on their crap and said, “we’ll give the president fast-track, but the treaty has to stand constitutional scrutiny.
Once again, since the issues involved won’t fit in a tweet, or on a bumper sticker, the real issues won’t be discussed beyond throwing out silly slogans, and obfuscation.
We’re apparently the Kardashian nation now. God help us.
Why should any President have the right to make trade deals without Congress?
Exactly! His argument is that the deals won’t get passed without fast track, which means they are bad deals for the U.S.!
We support Trump because he puts America first, not the globalists like Cruz does, as linking up with a Bush proves!
Because we don’t like a liar and prefer someone born in the USA?
No one said they were the same but TPA enables that TPP will pass easily. Geesh.
‘Cruz did eventually vote against TPA, ....
From the article . Headline is very misleading.
posting something 2x does not make it true
30,000 page trade agreements have nothing to do with “economic freedom”. The globalists have sold us this crap for 30 years. When we started down this path we were far and away the largest economy and manufacturer in the world. Now China is the largest manufacturer, and their economy is the same size as ours and growing 4 times as fast, and our middle class is devastated. What used to be “American companies” are now “trans-national corporations”. First they moved their manufacturing overseas, and now the parent companies are starting to follow. Meanwhile the globalist phony conservatives don’t care if Boeing makes planes in the USA or China.
‘Fast track’ has been around since the 1930s, and Congress authorizing the President to act in their behalf in foreign negotiations is almost as old as the Constitution.
Today’s TPA actually gives Congress more power than what it replaced.
Double post caused when internet connection lost for a couple minutes. Unintentional, so no need to get your knickers in a twist.
It’s not without congress. It’s just setting ground rules for how the bill will be voted on once presented.
Yes, that is your excuse to by pass the Constitution, because no treaties would get signed without fast track!
And who did the tradition begin with-FDR!
Amazing how you guys who claim to be defenders of the Constitution ignore it when it doesn't work the way you want it to work.
And your comments about this issue being 'too complex' for us to understand are quite condescending.
We understand the issue quite well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.