Obama and Ryan: Cordial Collaborators on Trade Policy

[RiverLover]

Obama and Ryan: Cordial Collaborators on Trade Policy
WSJ
2/5/15

They were bitter rivals in the 2012 presidential campaign, but Rep. Paul Ryan and President Barack Obama are now friendly collaborators on trade policy.

...Most Republicans back the emerging trade agreement—known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP—as well as fast-track authority. Democrats? Not so much. Many Democrats are wary of lifting trading barriers due to possible job losses, and some business leaders have criticized Mr. Obama and his economic team for appearing hesitant to tout the potential benefits of the TPP.

Business groups worry that newer Republican lawmakers, especially conservatives and those with tea-party leanings in the House, won’t vote for legislation that affirms Mr. Obama’s ability to conclude an overseas deal while limiting procedural delays and amendments in Congress.

So part of Mr. Ryan’s job is shoring up support among House Republicans, a job he’s familiar with as the former chairman of the Budget Committee, by allaying lawmakers’ suspicions of Mr. Obama and buttressing the party’s pro-business credentials at the expense of some members’ isolationism....

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/02/05/obama-and-ryan-cordial-collaborators-on-trade-policy/

So nice they represent something, just wish it was "We the People" instead of multinational corporations & their plunder for profits. We're paying, with our tax dollars, for this too.

[djean111]

1. Obama and Ryan: Cordial Collaborators on Trade Policy - can't be said enough.

Would I support or vote for Ryan? Nope. Will I support or vote for any Dem who supports the TPP? Nope.
NEVER.

[RiverLover]

2. Buypartisanship

[Populist_Prole]

27. I agree

Look everybody. This TPP abomination is bad enough on its own "merits", as been discussed here numerous times the past several weeks. No more need be said on that part of it.

The fact that conservative douchebags support this, and the ONE time they'll work with the president should ring alarm bells with everybody except DU's own token corporate shills.

[woo me with science]

3. Third Way Democrats like to collaborate with Ryan.

Remember this?

Clinton, Ryan caught on tape on Medicare cuts

https://m.

It's an exclusive club, and we're not in it..

Hillary Clinton on Social Security
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024379279

Hillary sharpens the knife for baby boomers on Social Security
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5547906

[RiverLover]

6. Clintons' actions prove they are conservative

And I say the word "conservative" b/c thanks to them, our party now has a "left wing" being pushed out by "conservative centrist dems" which is just a code for what they really are.

And the media goes along with it.

Thanks for the links woo.

[pipoman]

4. NAFTA and GATT all over again

Both of those required fast track...I'll never forget a press conference leading to the fast track vote on NAFTA where Senate and House leaders of both parties stood on the capital steps extolling the virtues of the NAFTA while tongue kissing each other....it was a mutual admiration society. ...at that moment I knew the people of the US were being fucked, and Ross Perot was exactly right. If the US survives these 30 years of sovereignty destroying, economy crushing agreements, those who championed them should go down in history as traitors to the US....IMO

[RiverLover]

7. So true.

And this will be even worse than NAFTA & GATT bc of its scope. This will be the largest "trade" deal in history. And only 5 of the 29 chapters deal with trade, the other 24 are about corporate control.

The White House's 10 Big Lies To Congress About The TPP
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/29/1360892/-The-White-House-s-10-Big-Lies-To-Congress-About-The-TPP

[pampango]

8. GATT (1948) did not require fast track. It did require Harry Truman and a Democratic congress.

Ross Perot was a republican wind bag. I wonder if he recanted his "giant sucking sound" when manufacturing employment and wages increase after NAFTA. Probably not.

If he waited until his fellow republican became president in 2001 and enacted regressive tax, pro-finance industry, corporate regulatory policies then his prediction became true. Perhaps he should have predicted that electing a republican president would create a 'giant sucking sound' of manufacturing jobs.

[pipoman]

10. Oh...a free trade believer or pretender

Go tell it to someone who doesn't know better. ...maybe there are some 20 year olds lurking who don't know any better...

[pampango]

12. I appreciate the concession on the historical record. Name-calling is something I'm not compelled

to respond to. I trust your motives are sincere and liberal.

[pipoman]

13. Wow, a new definition of 'name calling' too....

You do no that corporatism is a conservative construct, no? There isn't a single liberal thing about it....

[pampango]

14. Referencing the historical record is not "corporatism" in my book. Ignoring history (on GATT or

anything else) is something that conservatives do much better than liberals. If 'free trade believer or pretender' was meant as a term of endearment, I misunderstood.

[pipoman]

15. Defending corporatism is a conservative position

Pretending these free trade agreements is defending corporatism. Pretending the GATT is has anything to do with Truman is defending corporatism. Because something isn't a "term of endearment" doesn't make it name calling....

[pampango]

16. GATT talks started in December 1945 and it was agreed to in 1947. Who do you think was president

then? It was approved by a Democratic congress.

In early December 1945, the United States invited its war-time allies to enter into negotiations to conclude a multilateral agreement for the reciprocal reduction of tariffs on trade in goods.

At the proposal of the United States, the United Nations Economic and Social Committee adopted a resolution, in February 1946, calling for a conference to draft a charter for an International Trade Organization (ITO).

At the same time the negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva advanced well and by October 1947 an agreement was reached: on October 30, 1947 eight of the twenty-three countries that had negotiated the GATT signed the "Protocol of Provisional Application of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade". Those eight countries were the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Trade_Organization

The ITO was the product of FDR's conference in Bretton Woods in July 1944. It would have been more powerful than GATT in that it would have had a dispute resolution system like the WTO has now. That was FDR's idea.

The Conference also proposed the creation of an International Trade Organization (ITO) to establish rules and regulations for international trade. The ITO would have complemented the other two Bretton Woods proposed international bodies: the IMF and the World Bank. The ITO charter was agreed on at the U.N. Conference on Trade and Employment (held in Havana, Cuba, in March 1948), but the charter was not ratified by the U.S. Senate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference

In response, the Republican-dominated Congress opposed its ratification. So even though the US had gone to Havana and signed the Draft Treaty, by 1950, what had seemed a certainty only months earlier, ended in failure.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/research/workingpapers/2000/wp6200.pdf

A republican congress rejected the International Trade Organization that had been proposed by FDR and negotiated by Truman.

[pipoman]

17. Maybe you are living in the 1940's, I'm not...

I am actually living in the present day..ffs...

GATT was signed by 23 nations in Geneva on October 30, 1947 and took effect on January 1, 1948. It lasted until the signature by 123 nations in Marrakesh on April 14, 1994 of the Uruguay Round Agreements, which established the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 1, 1995.

[pampango]

18. You referenced GATT. I responded to it. Who's living in the past?

NAFTA and GATT all over again

Pretending the GATT is has anything to do with Truman is defending corporatism.

Next time you mention GATT, I will try to remember not to comment on it so I will not be accused of living in the past.

[pipoman]

19. The GATT you keep referencing expired in 1994..

I find it interesting that you consider it the GATT, and not the 1994 GATT...if you googled GATT to find the excerpt you posted above you would have had to either include the year or scroll the page....virtually nobody living in the 21st century who references the GATT is referring to the 1947 version....I think you knew that but it is more difficult to defend the 1994 version. ...

[pampango]

21. There is no "1994 GATT". There WAS a GATT (1948-1994). There IS the WTO which replaced GATT.

Don't post 'GATT' if you mean to post 'WTO', particularly if you're going to argue that Truman had nothing to do with GATT when his administration negotiated and signed it. (I'm not sure you would have approved of Truman's actions with respect to GATT and even moreso FDR's 1944 proposal for an International Trade Organization which would have had powers similar to the modern WTO.)

Obviously Truman had nothing to do with the WTO since he died in 1972.

We don't confuse the League of Nations with the United Nations even though the UN supplanted the League's role. We don't call the United Nations, the "1945 League of Nations". They are two different things. And we don't refer to modern Russia as the "1991 USSR". They are two different things even though one evolved out of the other.

[pipoman]

24. Couldn't be more wrong

In 1993, the GATT was updated (GATT 1994) to include new obligations upon its signatories. One of the most significant changes was the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The 75 existing GATT members and the European Communitiesbecame the founding members of the WTO on 1 January 1995. The other 52 GATT members rejoined the WTO in the following two years (the last being Congo in 1997). Since the founding of the WTO, 21 new non-GATT members have joined and 29 are currently negotiating membership. There are a total of 159 member countries in the WTO, with Laos and Tajikistan being new members as of 2013.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Agreement_on_Tariffs_and_Trade

So you see...GATT 1994 authorized the formation of the WTO, the WTO didn't replace the GATT.

[pampango]

25. From your link: The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a multilateral agreement ...

"WAS".

While GATT was a set of rules agreed upon by nations, the WTO is an institutional body. The WTO expanded its scope from traded goods to include trade within the service sector and intellectual property rights.

So you see...GATT 1994 authorized the formation of the WTO, the WTO didn't replace the GATT.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wto

[pampango]

5. "Most Republicans back the emerging trade agreement—known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership". No,

they do not.

"Democrats? Not so much." Actually, they do. In both cases that applies to people not to politicians in congress.

"conservatives and those with tea-party leanings in the House, won’t vote for legislation". That's a pretty safe bet.

"Collaborator" is a loaded term. Working for a similar goal does not necessarily make people 'collaborators' whether it is Ryan and Obama or Bernie Sanders and the John Birch Society (which mightily opposes all trade agreements and the WTO among many other international agreements and organizations); strange bedfellows, perhaps, but not collaborators.

Most of us decide what policy we support without regard to who our "strange bedfellows" (or "cordial collaborators&quot will be. I suspect that Obama and Sanders do the same.

[RiverLover]

9. Do we believe you, or Boehner, McConnell, & Ryan when they say they love the TPP?

...U.S. negotiators hope they can close out the TPP deal by the summer and get it approved by Congress — thanks to Republican votes promised by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Republicans like trade even more than they dislike Obama, evidently. It's a jobs bill that doesn't cost any money....

http://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-ignatius-trade-deal-obama-china-republicans-0201-20150130-column.html

[pampango]

11. "In both cases that applies to people not to politicians in congress." Boehner, McConnell, & Ryan'

belong to the group I refer to as "politicians in congress". Sorry for not making myself clear.

And I believe that tea partiers, the republican base and the JBS hates it. That proves little to me. Most of us support policies we believe in rather than basing our position on what others love or hate.

[Oilwellian]

20. Bitter rivals?

That made me laugh out loud. Who do you think you're fooling, WSJ?

On Edit: I hate Third Way Democrats and Republican fucks.

[Faryn Balyncd]

22. K & R...And here's an email received from Robert Reich today on this topic:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026190145

[Autumn]

23. Impressive, wonder what the TPP supporters here ( we don't know what's in it!!)

think of this. Bitter rivals my ass. Rec

[Enthusiast]

26. When one finds they're in agreement with Paul Ryan they need to check themselves.

K&R!

[woo me with science]

28. kick