TPP faces challenges in US Congress
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 20, 2015
The Republicans support free markets and free trade generally, so their votes in favor of the bill are not surprising. Among the five Republicans who voted against it were anti-immigration Tea Party types like Jeff Sessions and presidential candidate Rand Paul. In common with Elizabeth Warren-esque Democrats, they think foreigners will cost American workers jobs either through outsourcing or coming to the United States to work.
The section of the TPP related to foreign workers that has been leaked caused outrage among the anti-immigrant faction. The provisions open up new industries to foreign workers and mercifully require that the wait time for a visa be no longer than 30 days. Americans abroad in any of the countries affected should cheer, as should sympathetic Americans at home, but the anti-immigrant group Numbers USA thinks it's just terrible that prospective workers don't have to wait for an eternity.
Besides filibustering, Senators can ordinarily engage in other slow down measures to kill a bill. They can raise endless amendments with politically-charged language that will delay the vote and change the meaning of the bill if they are passed. But since the TPP is an international agreement, there is no place for Congress to try to unilaterally change the agreement after it is already negotiated with other countries. "Fast track" provisions would limit the number of amendments.
Basically "fast tracking" the trade deal would allow for an up-or-down vote that would make the agreement law with a majority. It's a humble request, a simple request for a representative democratic body to rely on majority rule in just one vote, but some Congress members are reacting like the Constitution of the United States is under attack.
In the House of Representatives, various trade provisions were voted on separately on June 12, and the net result was a major stumbling block for the TPP. The extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program intended to train workers whose jobs may have been impacted by trade deals, was blocked with both a majority of Democrats and Republicans voting against it. Typically worker training programs are supported by labor and the Democratic Party, but the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) actually lobbied against the bill in order to stop the TPP. The trade-related portion of the bill passed by a narrow 219-211 margin later that day.
After the vote on the TAA training program failed, Obama criticized the House, saying their action "will directly hurt about 100,000 workers and their communities if those members of Congress don't reconsider." Another vote on TAA will be taken up later, so TPP still has a chance of passing. Obama is pushing it with all his remaining political capital.
The process of approving the TPP in other member countries won't be so hard. Certainly the governing party will have no trouble in Singapore, where 79 out of 99 members of its parliament support the ruling party, or Brunei, where all 36 members are appointed by the Sultan.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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