TPA passed, Cruz having voted against it on final passage but he had voted for is on a crucial cloture vote which as a practical matter assured that it would pass.
TPP, the actual treaty, has not been brought before Congress yet. Cruz is declared his opposition to it and will vote against it. Instead of two thirds of the Senate required to approve it, and instead of senators empowered to offer up amendments, the proposed treaty must pass the House and the Senate by majority vote and without a filibuster.
Steve Miller and most of this article are deliberately deceiving. This article fails to tell us that the majority of trade deals have been negotiated on identical fast-track basis. This has been done for hundreds of years by the United States. Indeed, no treaty could conceivably get through the Senate by two thirds vote if senators, bribed by K St., are entitled to offer amendments. Our trading partners have declared that they would not negotiate with our representatives if our representatives did not have fast-track assurances because they are not fools and they know the certain fate of any trade treaty offered up for ratification. That fate will be dependent not on fairness of the treaty on its merits but on the powers of special interest groups manifested in the Senate. Our trading partners know they would simply be negotiating against themselves under those circumstances and they wisely declined to play.
Cruz and Fifty-nine other senators who voted for TPA (on its first appearance) for the reasons Cruz wrote in the op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal. Those reasons include the dire consequences for the American economy if a trade deal is not consummated. The country goes into a depression without trade. No TPA, no trade deal, no trade deal, look out below. The contemplated treaty affects 40% of the world's trade, that runs in to the trillions of dollars every year.
The Pacific Rim countries and made it clear that they were disinclined to negotiate such a trade deal with America in the absence of fast-track authority which had been the practice on these trade deals the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, hence TPA.
It is a question of balance of imponderables, would Obama come back with a terrible deal, if he did would be impossible to stop under fast-track? Would it be more difficult to stop under fast-track which requires approval by a majority in both houses as opposed to two thirds of the Senate? If so, if the trade deal proves to be as bad as it apparently is, why cannot a majority in one house or the other be found to stop it?
Weigh this against the certainty of no trade deal and Cruz' decision is quite responsible and in keeping with the majority view about trade among conservatives for quite a while. This visceral, mindless opposition to trade is faithful to the ravings of Donald Trump but it is repugnant to classic conservatism.
