Obama Reaffirms Commitments to Trade Agenda, Rejects Labor Criticism
President Barack Obama again went to the bully pulpit on Dec. 11 to showcase his support for Trade Promotion Authority and two huge U.S. free trade agreements currently in negotiation. The administration plans to work with Congress to enact TPA in the foreseeable future, said Obama, speaking before the administration’s Export Council. Those comments echo arguments Obama laid out before the Business Roundtable in early December (see 1412040025).
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The likelihood that Trans-Pacific Partnership countries will be able to wrap up negotiations has also increased significantly in recent months, said Obama on Dec. 11. That “doesn’t mean that it’s a done deal, but I think the odds of us being able to get a strong agreement are significantly higher than 50-50, whereas last year I think it was still sort of up for grabs,” he said, adding that the post-midterm congressional makeup is favorable to trade. Obama declined to say whether he preferred TPA enactment before TPP talks come to a close. Many Republicans, including incoming House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, continue to insist TPA is first made law (see 1412110030).
Labor advocates and Democratic allies in the House, led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., still loudly reject both TPA and the TPP (see 1412080033). Cheap international labor is already part of the global economy and U.S. resistance to TPP will not stem that tide, said Obama. "My essential response to those arguments is not to deny that there have been some consequences to China’s ascension to the WTO and offshoring, but rather that that horse is out of the barn,” said Obama at the Export Council. “So instead of fighting the last war, what we need to be doing is looking forward. And there’s no doubt that what [U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman] is negotiating creates higher labor standards and greater access than the status quo. And that’s what we should be measuring against.”
Obama also supports U.S. proposals on an investor-state mechanism in FTAs, a provision that is particularly sensitive in Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks. “The principle that we should make sure that U.S. companies, when they invest or export to other countries, are abiding with their safety rules but that those public health and safety rules are not being discriminatorily applied or a ruse in order to keep us out,” said Obama. “That should be something everybody is in favor of.”