Trump Wins The Unions: Teamsters Praise TPP Withdrawal, Labor Chiefs Describe "Incredible" Meeting With Trump

Shortly after Donald Trump made good on one of his core campaign promises on Monday morning by signing an executive order formally withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal, Trump told labor union leaders that he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement "at the appropriate time."

The remarks came at the start of a meeting at the White House with leaders of construction, carpenters, plumbers and sheet metal unions, during which Trump pledged to stop trade deals that harmed American workers. 

According to the White House, participants included North America's Building Trades Unions President Sean McGarvey, Laborers' International Union of North America President Terry O'Sullivan, SMART sheet metal workers' union President Joseph Sellers, United Brotherhood of Carpenters President Doug McCarron and Mark McManus, president of the United Association that represents plumbers, pipefitters, welders and others. The union meeting also included several local union officials and follows a gathering of 12 chief executives of large companies at the White House to discuss revitalizing the U.S. manufacturing economy.

“This is a group that I know well,” Trump said referring to the union bosses, adding “we’re going to put a lot of people back to work” and “stop the ridiculous trade deals.”

When Trump said the administration “just officially terminated TPP,” it prompted applause from the labor chiefs (and this time it certainly wasn't by paid members of the studio audience), who later described their meeting with Trump as "incredible."

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TPP Is a Monopoly Protection Scheme, the Exact Opposite of a “Free Trade” Deal

Normally when we think of “free trade,” us lay people, we think of removing barriers to the exchange of goods and services. Removing barriers is the “free” part of “free trade.” Of course, there really is no such thing as a “no barriers” market, since even the simplest of markets always has rules, and those who write the rules are “picking winners and losers” by definition.

Consider, for example, a flea market held in the parking lot of a local fairground on a Saturday. To participate, you have to register for a space with the organizers (the parking lot isn’t infinitely long or wide), set up an approved tent or table, and usually, if your goods are sold by weight or volume, have your weights and measuring devices certified by the organizers as honest.

All of the restrictions above place limits on the “market” — put it under control of the organizers — but consider for a minute just the last one, certified weights and measures. How is that not “picking winners and losers”? Winners — Vendors with honest scales. Losers — Vendors who cheat their customers.

Or consider a flea market without that requirement. Winners — Vendors who cheat their customers. Losers — Vendors with honest scales.

A lot has been written, in fact, about the non-existence, by definition, of anything resembling a “free market,” including much by the writer Masaccio (main site here).

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Trump, Clinton, Obama and the TPP

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement between the US and eleven other Pacific Rim countries was under negotiation for the first seven years of the Obama presidency. For the first four years, Hilary Clinton was the Secretary of State, directly supervising the negotiations. Even after she quit her cabinet position to launch for her second presidential bid, she continued to tout it in superlative terms.

Yet, by early 2016, most presidential aspirants, including Mrs. Clinton, had disowned the TPP. No new information about the TPP had come to light to prompt this volte face. Nor had the then new Secretary of State John Kerry added anything radically new to the proposals she was associated with during her tenure.

While largely in the interests of corporate America, the TPP is not in the interests of the US economy or the public at large. While it is in the interest of US transnational corporations (TNCs) to source manufactures and services from low-wage Asian economies for the US market, by doing so, they are likely to displace those previously producing those goods, increasing US unemployment. This, in turn, reduces aggregate demand and increases the current account deficit in the US balance of payments.

US Corporate Interests

The TPP will promote US corporate interests by institutionalizing new arrangements which undermine the sovereignty of TPP countries, including the US itself. For instance, the TPPA’s patent and copyright provisions are stronger and for longer durations. This would strengthen corporate monopolies, especially of US TNCs, raising the prices of goods, especially pharmaceutical drugs, in all TPP countries. Thus, while US TNCs stand to profit greatly, consumers in all TPP countries, including the US, would be worse off.

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Backlash Against Trade Deals: The End of U.S.-Led Economic Globalisation?

There is much angst in the Northern financial media about how the era of globalisation led actively by the United States may well be coming to an end. This is said to be exemplified in the changed political attitudes to mega regional trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) that was signed (but has not yet been ratified) by the US and 11 other countries in Latin America, Asia and Oceania; and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) still being negotiated by the US and the European Union.

President Obama has been a fervent supporter of both these deals, with the explicit aim of enhancing and securing US power. “We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. We should do it today while our economy is in the position of global strength. …We’ve got to harness it on our terms. If we don’t write the rules for trade around the world – guess what? China will!”, he famously said in a speech to workers in a Nike factory in Oregon, USA in May 2015. But even though he has made the case for the TPP plainly enough, his only chance of pushing even the TPP through is in the “lame duck” session of Congress just before the November Presidential election in the US.

However, the changing political currents in the US are making that ever more unlikely. Hardly anyone who is a candidate in the coming elections, whether for the Presidency, the Senate or the House of Representatives, is willing to stick their necks out to back the deal.

Both Presidential candidates in the US (Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton) have openly come out against the TPP. In Clinton’s case this is a complete reversal of her earlier position when she had referred to the TPP as “the gold standard of trade deals” – and it has clearly been forced upon her by the insurgent movement in the Democratic Party led by Bernie Sanders. She is already being pushed by her rival candidate for not coming out more clearly in terms of a complete rejection of this deal. Given the significant trust deficit that she still has to deal with across a large swathe of US voters, it will be hard if not impossible for her to backtrack on this once again (as her husband did earlier with NAFTA) even if she does achieve the Presidency.

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Framing Votes for TPP as the Surrender of National Sovereignty (i.e., Treason)

The left critique on TPP starts with how it hurts labor, and moves on to how it hurts the environment. The difficulty here is that these critiques don’t appeal to the right, and it will take left and right, ganging up, to defeat the party establishments on TPP. I would like to suggest that a focus on national sovereignty — more concretely, framing the proponents of TPP as traitors — is a better approach, because left and right can agree on it. Let’s start with this gem from the press:

(“Interesting that…” on the Twitter is never interesting in a good way; openers like “Interesting that puppies are cute” do not figurely largely there, and certainly not in political Twittter. Personally, I find it interesting that Times stenographer Alcindor is not only displaying open bias against Sanders, but vending the Clinton line that Sanders is really doing the Republicans’ work (“cheering on”). Perhaps I’m guilty of oldthink; after all, we have so few reporters these days, and so very many public relations operatives in training. But I digress.) What I find interesting is that it’s possible for a socialist like Sanders and a reactionary like McConnnell to find common cause in opposing TPP (assuming, for the sake of the argument, that McConnell isn’t simply trying to muscle Obama to get a better deal for Kentucky tobacco interests). More like that, please.

First, I’ll show how to frame the proponents of TPP as traitors. Then, I’ll look at the political state of play, and apply the framing.

Why the Proponents of TPP Are Traitors

There are two reasons: First, they consciously seek to weaken the national defense. And second, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system is a surrender of national sovereignty.

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How Long Can Economic Reality Be Ignored?

Trump and Hitlery have come out with the obligatory “economic plans.” Neither them nor their advisors, have any idea about what really needs to be done, but this is of no concern to the media.

The presstitutes operate according to “pay and say.” They say what they are paid to say and that is whatever serves the corporations and the government. This means that the presstitutes like Hitlery’s economic plan and do not like Trump’s.

Yesterday I listened to the NPR presstitutes say how Trump pretends to be in favor of free trade but really is against it, because he is against all the free trade agreements such as NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic partnerships. The presstitutes don’t know that these are not trade agreements. NAFTA is a “give away American jobs” agreement, and the so-called partnerships give away the sovereignty of countries in order to award global corporations immunity from laws.

As I have reported on many occasions, the Oligarchs’ government lies to us about everything, including economic statistics. For example, we are told that we have been enjoying an economic recovery since June, 2009, that we are more or less at full employment with an unemployment rate of 5% or less, and that there is no inflation. We are told this despite the facts that the “recovery” is based on the under-reporting of the inflation rate, the unemployment rate is 23%, and inflation is high.

GDP is measured in current prices. If GDP rises 3% this year over last year, the output of real goods and services might have risen 3% or prices might have gone up by 3% or real output might have dropped but is masked by price increases. To know what really happened the nominal GDP number has to be deflated by the amount of inflation.

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Could This Lawsuit Be the Straw That Breaks the TPP’s Back?

Throw into this mix the current U.S. presidential race. So too could strong statements by U.S. presidential contenders have an influence.  Bernie Sanders, the independent Senator from Vermont, has been opposed to NAFTA from the start and is a harsh and outspoken critic of the TPP and its investment chapter.  Sanders has made this one of his campaign issues and Hillary Clinton, under heavy pressure from the more populist Sanders, said in the fall of 2015 that she would not support the TPP in its current form.  Not surprisingly, given her past support of trade agreements, she has largely avoided the issue on the campaign trail. But the Democratic party base deeply opposes the agreement, and a broad coalition of citizen groups under the Citizens Trade Campaign is rallying people against it.  On the Republican side, all the remaining candidates support the TPP save the frontrunner and likely Republican nominee, Donald Trump.  Trump has attacked the TPP, charging that it will accelerate the shift of good U.S. jobs to Asia.

In the context of this fluid debate, it is crucial for academics, activists, politicians, and citizens in the United States and around the globe to speak out against this outrageous assault on democracy enshrined in the TPP.  In the longer-run, we need a truly democratic set of rules to replace the current investor provisions in trade agreements, a new set of rules that do not give global corporations unfair advantage over people and the environment.  This is not pie in the sky; promising alternatives have been raised in the trans-Atlantic trade negotiations that are going on right now.

In the short term, however, the current TPP strengthens these undemocratic rules.  The TransCanada case offers new chilling evidence as to why these agreements are a danger to the environment, to workers, and to democracy, and why the TPP must be stopped.

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