Why Does Obama Want This Trade Deal So Badly?
What exactly the T.P.P. will do, however, is difficult to know, because its terms are being negotiated in secret. Only “cleared advisors,” most of them representing various private industries, are permitted to work on the text.
.. A Swedish power company is currently suing Germany, seeking $4.6 billion in damages, because of steps Germany is taking to phase out nuclear power, and Philip Morris is suing to prevent Uruguay and Australia from implementing policies to reduce smoking.
.. Even a “sweetener” in the form of assistance for workers who lose their jobs because of trade agreements turns out to be partly financed by a seven-hundred-million-dollar raid on Medicare.
.. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, is reported to be working closely with Boehner and Ryan to come up with the number they need—although she still hasn’t said which way she’ll vote herself. That’s how strange the legislative politics of the T.P.P. have become. Nearly every constituency in the Democratic Party opposes it; and the more they learn about it, the more they oppose it. And yet their leader, Obama, wants it badly.
.. What’s the rush? Is it simply Obama’s wish to make his mark on history and to complete his pivot toward Asia before his time is up?