The big push is on. The “Obama Trade Express” is taking off. With the help of Republicans as well as Democrats, Obama is bound and determined to get “fast track” Trade Promotion Authority, followed by disastrous trade deals that have been called “NAFTA on steroids”!
We need to work together on tools like bipartisan trade promotion authority.”
— President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, January 20, 2015
“The president made very clear last night that TPA [Trade Promotion Authority] and TPP is now a top presidential priority and now is the time to get it done.”
— top White House aide Evan Medeiros, in remarks at the Brookings Institution, January 21, 2015
The big push is on. The “ObamaTrade Express” is taking off. With the help of Republicans as well as Democrats, Obama is bound and determined to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), both of which are officially termed “free trade agreements,” though they do not propose merely to set uniform low tariffs and allow trade to happen.
Opponents of these two agreements often refer to them as “NAFTA on steroids,” which is an appropriate moniker in several ways. One, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, they are likely to devastate employment and wages in the United States and exacerbate bad environmental outcomes in the name of free trade. Two, like NAFTA, participating congressmen and international corporations will put a full-court press on reticent Americans and politicians to pass these agreements on the “fast track.”
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