Tag Archives: FREE trade

Boehner Purges Conservatives Who Defy on ObamaTrade Votes

My Comments: Why is it that American citizens still believe the Republican party will save us? They are worse than the democrats, but both have the same agenda. That has been a fact for many many decades.

Written by for THE NEW AMERICAN MAGAZINE

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) have taken swift retribution against House members who dared to break ranks with “the team” on a rule vote for Trade Promotion Authority (Fast Track). On Monday, June 15, Scalise booted GOP Reps. Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Steve Pearce (N.M.) and Trent Franks (Ariz.) — all members of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) — from the whip team.

Boner

Reps. Lummis and Franks both issued conciliatory statements saying they completely “respect” Chairman Scalise’s decision — perhaps to avoid further retribution. Rep. Pearce was less tilted toward appeasement. “Not much has changed in the House. I came here to represent the people of the Second Congressional District of New Mexico. That means considering each vote on its merits and striving to do the right thing for them,” Pearce said in a statement. “Sometimes that demands casting hard votes, as I did last week. I always strive to vote on principle and that won’t change.”

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Congressional Quarterly Roll Call that it was “unfortunate” HFC members were getting booted from the whip team. “I think it’s wrong,” he said.

Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) is another HFC member who was among the 34 House Republicans voting against the TPA rule. He sees the Boehner-Scalise revenge going deeper and attacking their donor base. “Because voting against the rule is almost like a capital crime here, and we know what’s going to happen to us,” Labrador told Congressional Quarterly Roll Call. “We know that the leadership is going to come against us, we know that they’re already telling our donors not to give money to us, which, by the way, I think is unethical. We know exactly what they’re doing.”

According to Labrador, there is mounting dissatisfaction with the current House GOP leadership’s iron-fisted rule. “That’s not leadership,” Labrador said. “That’s tyranny.”

On Tuesday, in his weekly conference with House Republicans, Speaker John Boehner gave a tongue lashing to those who had voted against the trade rule the previous Thursday. “I made it pretty clear to the members today I was not very happy about it,” Boehner told reporters after the closed-door meeting at the Capitol Hill Club. “You know, we’re a team. And we’ve worked hard to get the majority; we’ve worked hard to stay in the majority.”

“And I expect our team to act like a team, and frankly, I made it pretty clear I wasn’t very happy,” he added.

In the meeting, Boehner told his fellow Republicans it was “nonsense” that some of them had voted against leadership, according to The Hill, which quoted an unnamed GOP lawmaker who was in the room.

Team Obama-Boehner-Wall Street

But, to which “team” is Speaker Boehner referring? Quite obviously he, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the other GOP Congressional leaders have teamed up with the Obama White House, Goldman Sachs and other corporate globalists to foist the secret, sovereignty-destroying TPP/TTIP/TISA treaties on the American people before they find out about them and develop widespread organized opposition. However, the outrageous lengths to which Team Obama-Boehner-McConnell has gone to keep these agreements secret and to rush them through Congress has, in the end, worked to stir public anger and unify resistance across the political spectrum. The defeat of the Trade Promotion Authority/Trade Adjustment Assistance package in the House last week, and the failure of Obama, Boehner, Scalise, and company to twist enough arms or bribe enough support for a revote on Tuesday is a hopeful sign that more members of Congress are Choosing Team America over Team Obama-Boehner-McConnell.

Photo of Rep. John Boehner: AP

Related articles:

Mr. Congressman, READ the Secret ObamaTrade Bills BEFORE You Vote!

7 Reasons Why Trade Promotion Authority/Fast Track Must Be Defeated

10 Reasons Why You Should Oppose TPP and TTIP

Paul Ryan’s Pelosi-style Freudian Slip Exposes Truth About ObamaTrade

Corporations Bribe Senators to Vote for TPP Fast-Track

CFSFTA-720x90-ad

 

Senator Reads the TPP and Exposes Its Contents; Other Elected Officials Should Do the Same

By Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance | Op-Ed, REPOSTED FROM TRUTHOUT

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is one of the few members of Congress who has taken the time to jump through the hoops and read the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But, he has gone a step farther than other members - he told members of Congress what he read. He told the truth about what the TPP says and why Congress should oppose it in a five page letter to his colleagues.

Sessions’ action flies in the face of the threats made by the US Trade Representative to prosecute elected officials who tell people what is in the trade agreement. Others should follow his example and get out the truth about the TPP.

The debate in the Senate begins on Tuesday, May 19. This is an opportunity for Senators to tell their colleagues the truth about what is in the TPP. Sessions’ “Dear Colleague” letter was leaked and reported in Breitbart. Senators from both parties may want to take a similar approach. Even better, during the debate on the Senate floor there will be an opportunity for amendments that expose problems with the TPP. Senators can tell their colleagues and, through C-SPAN, their constituents the truth about what is in the TPP.

How Senator Sessions Exposed the Truth About TPP

Breitbart has written two articles on Sessions’ revelations. In “Critical Alert: Jeff Sessions Warns America Against Potentially Disastrous Obama Trade Deal,” they report:

“‘Congress has the responsibility to ensure that any international trade agreement entered into by the United States must serve the national interest, not merely the interests of those crafting the proposal in secret,’ Sessions’ team writes in a document that lays out the top five concerns with the Obama trade deal. ‘It must improve the quality of life, the earnings, and the per-capita wealth of everyday working Americans. The sustained long-term loss of middle class jobs and incomes should compel all lawmakers to apply added scrutiny to a ‘fast-track’ procedure wherein Congress would yield its legislative powers and allow the White House to implement one of largest global financial agreements in our history - comprising at least 12 nations and nearly 40 percent of the world’s GDP.’ . . .

“The Sessions document then goes point-by-point for five full pages through the TPA trade deal, laying out why it wouldn’t help Americans - rather, it would likely hurt American workers - and why the deal doesn’t in fact provide Congress with more power over trade despite talking points from the Obama trade deal’s proponents . . .”

The second article in Breitbart, “Only Two Republicans Admit They Have Actually Read Secret Obama Trade Deal - Both Unsupportive” reports on a survey they did of Senate Republicans where they asked three questions: (1) Have you read the TPP, specifically the ‘living agreement’ in the trade deal that allows the deal to be changed and countries added without congressional review? (2) Does the Senator agree with Sen. Sessions’ call to make the TPP available to the public? And, (3) Will the Senator vote for fast track Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) if the TPP hasn’t been stripped of the ‘living agreement’ section that would allow countries to amend the deal without Congressional approval, and to even add countries (like China, if they wanted to) to the deal without Congressional approval?

Breitbart reports that one additional Senator, James Lankford (R-OK) was scheduled to read the TPP on Friday, May 16. Interestingly, the Oklahoma legislature recently passed a resolution urging their federal representatives to vote against fast track trade authority.

While the US Trade Representative has threatened members of Congress with criminal prosecution for telling others what is in the TPP, they have made no threat to Senator Sessions. No doubt if they did so, fast track and the TPP would be dead because the years of work by the Obama administration to move this forward in secret would be over, and as the first trade representative in the Obama administration, Ambassador Ron Kirk, told the media “if the American people knew what was in this agreement it would never become law.”

The Truth About Trade Is Needed Right Now

We are in the critical phase of debate about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other rigged corporate trade agreements. While Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH) has promised to publish all bills before they are voted on, he has not even read the TPP and definitely has not required it be made public. While the fast track bill can be read, the TPP is different; elected officials have limited access to it and they are not allowed to discuss what they read. So, the Congress is tying its hands on the TPP and other deals, without knowing what is in them and thereby shirking their constitutional responsibility under the Commerce Clause which directs Congress “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.”

Now, it becomes even more important because President Obama has repeatedly chided members of Congress for being inaccurate about what is in the TPP, even comparing Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to Sarah Palin talking about death panels. He makes the claim that Congress does not know what it is talking about while keeping the agreement secret and difficult for elected officials and their staff to read. On top of that Obama and his administration consistently put out false and misleading statements about the agreement. One wonders, and I hope the media begins to ask him, whether President Obama has read the agreement? As Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said in response: “We know exactly what we’re talking about. My concern is that he does not understand what’s in it.”

Obama criticized Warren for claiming that the TPP would undermine federal regulation of banks. If the language of the TPP were released we could see if he is accurate. But, after their argument on this issue, Canadian Finance Minister, Joe Oliver, bolstered Warren’s position by claiming that banking regulation that requires banks to invest with only their own money violates NAFTA.

The president has claimed that his deals are the most progressive trade agreements ever and fix the problems of NAFTA “by making labor and environmental provisions actually enforceable.” Yet, a leak of the environmental chapter actually shows the opposite - there is no environmental enforcement and the protections are weaker than agreements during the George W. Bush era.

The president also makes the claim that “no trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.” This is an outrageous claim because all previous trade agreements have required the US to harmonize its laws with the agreement. How can they not? The TPP, according to leaks, changes laws around patents and trademarks. How can the TPP say one thing about intellectual property and US law say another? They must be harmonized. Elected officials who have read the text can explain differences between US law and the TPP - what laws will have to change? For example will popular laws favoring buying American products survive the TPP? The Finance Committee refused to approve an amendment that would protect Buy America.

Certainly President Obama knows that his Organizing For America is being completely misleading when in an email: “argued that the term ‘fast track’ for TPA was a misnomer because TPA would have to go through Congress like any other bill.” OFA and Obama know the debate is not whether fast track has to go through Congress in the normal fashion but whether trade agreements will be fast tracked. Why would the president and OFA be so obviously misleading? Are they desperate?

Ralph Nader has suggested that President Obama debate Senator Warren on the TPP. This would be one way to get to the truth, hear both sides debate in public so we can all decide for ourselves whether this is an agreement that should be fast tracked through Congress outside of the traditional congressional process. But a president that has worked for his entire tenure in office to keep the TPP and other rigged agreements out of the public dialogue will certainly not take up this suggestion.

Congress Is in Position to Expose the TPP

Now, at this key moment in the debate, members of Congress who have taken the time to view the TPP are in a position to get out the truth.

The debate in the Senate with its open amendment process is an opportunity to tell the truth about all the issues in the TPP so there can finally be a public debate about trade agreements that will impact every aspect of our lives.

In the House, Republicans should be sharing the comments of Senator Sessions for a solid Republican critique of fast track for the TPP and other agreements. Democrats should be highlighting key senate amendments to their caucus to highlight shortcomings. And those who have read the TPP should share what they learned in order to strengthen opposition to fast track in the face of what will be a massive Obama effort to change their minds.

Those who oppose the TPP have the tools needed to win this debate, stop fast track and stop the TPP and other rigged agreements. If we succeed, we will have the opportunity to rethink global trade in light of two decades of experience with a failed model. It will be an opportunity to develop trade so that it protects the planet and raises the standard of living for people around the world. To achieve that opportunity, the first task is to expose the truth of what is before us.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Enemies on the Left, False Friends on the Right - Part 10

“I often warn people: Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, ‘There is no “I” in team.’ What you should tell them is, ‘Maybe not, but there is an “I” in independence, individuality, and integrity’.” George Carlin

Former Senator Jim DeMint was born in South Carolina in1951. He held the office of United States Representative for South Carolina’s 4th congressional district from 1999 to 2005. DeMint pledged to serve only three terms in the House, so rather than leave politics, in 2003 he announced his run for the Senate seat of outgoing Democrat Ernest Hollings in the 2004 election cycle. DeMint resigned from the Senate on January 1, 2013. When Edwin Fuelner recently retired from Heritage Foundation as president, former neo-con Senator Jim DeMint replaced him as president.

Heritage Foundation

Free Trade, Fair Tax, and Privatization

Jim DeMint is a proponent of free trade, (more jobs leaving America), and why shouldn’t he be? Remember NAFTA was proposed by Heritage Fellow, and CNP member, Richard Allen. The former Senator is also for the privatization of social security, and the Fair Tax, which would end up raising taxes on all Americans, and leading to a Constitutional Convention, despite what proponents say. Link Those same proponents state that a Constitutional Convention would be necessary to rid us of the 16th amendment (income tax). However, we didn’t need a Constitutional Convention to rid us of the 18th amendment, we simply had another amendment, the 21st, that nullified the 18th. Nevertheless, even the risk of passing an amendment in today’s climate of communism in America is extremely dangerous to our founding document of 1787.

Eliminating Spousal Benefit of Social Security

DeMint’s Heritage Foundation is also proposing eliminating the spousal benefit of social security. Link In other words, many women choose to take their husband’s social security, rather than their own, because most men make more money in their lifetimes than do women. Rachel Greszler, entitlements policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, said the spousal benefit for Social Security has become outdated because many women have worked long enough to get their own payments. Greszler said figures showing women make 77 cents for every dollar that men make are faulty. She contended the accurate pay disparity is between five and seven cents. I would beg to differ with her, and I’d like to see where she found her statistics. These are the kind of egregious promotions the Heritage Foundation makes. For baby boomers, this could be a devastating loss of income for surviving widows.

The Balanced Budget Amendment

In the July, 7, 2011 issue of the Wall Street Journal, then Senator Jim DeMint joined with that other bastion of neo-conservative policy, then Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, to urge a balanced budget amendment (BBA) in an article entitled, The Only Reform That Will Restrain Spending. The title is a total lie. Of course these lawmakers want a BBA! It would legalize their unconstitutional spending. Spending is limited by the “enumerated powers” listed in the Constitution. They don’t address the cause of the problem: Congress spends where they have no constitutional authority to spend. The BBAs don’t eliminate the unconstitutional spending; and they place no limits on the amount of the unconstitutional spending. The Congress will just continue to increase taxes on the American people to “balance” their budget. Bad idea! The BBA leads to the opening of a Constitutional Convention, which would be the final death knell to the Republic. The BBA tactic for a Con-Con has been used since the 70s. See Publius Huldah’s articles on same. Link

Membership in “The Family”

DeMint is a member of Doug Coe’s secretive “The Fellowship” or “The Family,” which has such members of so-called opposite political stances as DeMint and Hillary Clinton. Link Other members include Heritage’s Edwin Meese, and former Vice President, Al Gore. Link Again, see Constance Cumbey’s five part article entitled, “The Family, and its hijacking of Evangelicalism.”

Jeff Sharlet wrote an expose on this political and religious group, entitled, The Family. He also had an article in Harper’s Magazine, in February of 2012, about the Family, entitled, Jesus Plus Nothing.

From Sharlet’s website, it states:

Sharlet follows the story back to Abraham Vereide, an itinerant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the far right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who speak the language of establishment power, a “family” that thrives to this day. In public, they host the National Prayer Breakfast; in private they preach a gospel of “biblical capitalism,” military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao as model leaders, the Family’s current leader, Doug Coe, declares, “we work with power where we can, and build new power where we can’t.”

In his book The Family, Sharlet said Fellowship leader Doug Coe preached a leadership model and a personal commitment to Jesus Christ comparable to the blind devotion that Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot demanded from their followers. In one videotaped lecture series in 1989, Coe said,

“Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler were three men. Think of the immense power these three men had…. But they bound themselves together in an agreement…. Jesus said, ‘You have to put me before other people. And you have to put me before yourself.’ Hitler, that was the demand to be in the Nazi party. You have to put the Nazi party and its objectives ahead of your own life and ahead of other people.”

In the same series, Coe also compared Jesus’ teachings to the Red Guard during the Chinese Cultural Revolution:

“I’ve seen pictures of young men in the Red Guard of China…. They would bring in this young man’s mother and father, lay her on the table with a basket on the end, he would take an axe and cut her head off…. They have to put the purposes of the Red Guard ahead of the mother-father-brother-sister — their own life! That was a covenant. A pledge. That was what Jesus said.”

Networked Organizations of “The Family”

World Vision International was one of the early organizations in the network of The Family. The Family was started by Abraham Vereide in Seattle in 1935. World Vision was started in California in 1950. The headquarters of World Vision are now in little old Federal Way, just 10-15 miles south of Seattle. Here is World Vision’s 2012-990, with over a trillion dollars in holdings.

According to Amnesty International News, World Vision International has endorsed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It claims to foster opportunities to help reduce conflict levels and to contribute to the peaceful resolution of hostilities and reconciliation of disputes. They also joined the United Nations peacekeeping efforts to help those affected by civil war. World Vision also started to openly promote the international ban on land mines.

Wilberforce Foundation 2012-990 filings confirm that Wilberforce is related to and shares common management with the Fellowship Foundation.

Traditional Values Coalition uses the C Street Center of The Family for “faith-based diplomacy” in the fight against what TVC’s head, Louis P. Sheldon, calls the “Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition.”

CNP member, Sheldon was an associate of fellow CNP member, Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist jailed for influence peddling. Sheldon lobbied members of the US Congress to kill the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. Abramoff directed his client, e-Lottery, to pay $25,000 to the Traditional Values Coalition.

TVC has also been linked to the Mariana Islands worker abuse scandal. The organization was used by Abramoff to pay for the trip of then-Congressman Bob Schaffer to visit the island. The Denver Post reported that the TVC paid the $13,000 travel bill for the trip, organized by Abramoff’s lobbying firm.

Abramoff’s lobbying team would prepare questions and “factual backup” for friendly lawmakers. Trips to the island for congressmen and staff would be a key tool to “build permanent friends,” the memo said. The congressional junkets to the Mariana Islands were designed to build support in Congress among Republican lawmakers to block labor and immigration legislation for the islands, which had been found to harbor squalid working conditions and abusive labor practices.

The Oak Initiative, founded by hyper charismatic, Rick Joyner of Morningstar Ministries, has a distinctly Dominionist/7 Mountains agenda “to raise up effective leaders for all of the dominant areas of influence in the culture, including: government, business, education, arts and entertainment, family services, media, and the church.” Joyner is heavily into biblical mysticism. Link It also has a Board full of Dominionist Religious Right activists including Janet Porter, Lou Sheldon, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, Cindy Jacobs (head prophetess of the New Apostolic Reformation), Lt.Gen. W.G. “Jerry” Boykin (now VP of CNP member and UN-NGO Tony Perkin’s Family Research Council), and Marc Nuttle.

The Family and Os Hillman

The Family, aka The Fellowship, rent their C Street property where so many key legislators live, from Youth With a Mission, (YWAM). Doug Coe’s sons both work for YWAM. Here is Os Hillman’s Dominionist video that lays out The Plan to “Reclaim the 7 Mountains for the Kingdom of God.” It names Bill Bright of Campus Crusade, Francis Schaeffer of L’Abri in Lausanne, and Loren Cunningham of YWAM as sharing a common supernatural vision that started the movement. The cross links with Doug Coe’s Family/Fellowship and the CNP are unmistakable. Please note however, that this video is put up by Dominionist, Os Hillman, who helped launch the 7 mountains movement. Link

I’ve been told by researcher and writer, Sarah Leslie, that this story, regarding the vision of Bright and Cunningham, was promulgated by Os Hillman, and that had Bill Bright actually had this vision, everyone at Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) would have known about it. One of the authors of the following articles exposing this fabricated story actually worked for CCC at the time. See these articles, Seven Apostolic Spheres, Neo-Kuyperian Spheres, and Who Invented Dominionism.

And here is a letter from Os Hillman and guess where he just came from?!top

tables

Tuesday, May 20 2014Dear I have just returned from Washington, DC. I attended the Council on National Policy (CNP) meeting, a gathering of 400 of the top national political conservative leaders in America. I was invited by a leader in the organization as a guest. I returned with hope for America by what others are doing that are in the trenches, fighting for America’s values, yet very sober that we are in a critical period in our nation. There are many change agents in this group. I met many in top leadership – congressmen, senators, judicial watchdogs, state representatives, and those in business. Met with president of Focus on the Family (Tom Minnery) on Public Policy, Gary Bauer, Jeff Johnson, CEO National Religious Broadcasters, and many others. Spoke briefly at a 30 person special luncheon for a group called Conservatives of Faith on the topic of using the 7 cultural mountains as a strategy for impacting our nation and the vision of Renewal of America. Bob Williamson (Renewal of America) and I had many strategic meetings sharing our vision to raise up 100 million Christians to pray, unify and stand in the gap for our nation. Some of the speakers at CNP were Newt Gingrich, George Barna, John Fund, National Review Columnist/American Spectator, Mark Levine (conservative radio talk show personality), Thomas Fitton, President, Judicial Watch, Inc and many, many others (this man discovered the latest Bengahzi email that led to special committee being formed). One group we are beginning to work with is the Congressional Prayer Caucus made up of Congressmen who gather to pray in room 219 at the Capitol before every vote. This caucus is being spread to state governments, now 14 established. They are partnering with our Renewal of America initiative assisting with the governmental center of influence board. There were many reports on what is taking place in our nation. The man who discovered the email that shows the whole Bengahzi talking points scandal now traces back to the White House core leadership shared in depth about what is taking place and how the White House is stonewalling the entire discovery process. They have to file lawsuits to get what they want. He told us to expect more things to come. He is also involved in the IRS discovery process and told us to expect more to come from that too. Leadership is optimistic that more conservatives will come into office in the midterms elections. George Barna spoke to us and gave us a snapshot of how the American Dream is radically changing. George Barna, American Culture & Faith Institute 2014 research We are at a pivotal point in American history The American dream was once:

  • Work hard
  • Own a home
  • Fulfill marriage and family life
  • Take advantage of opportunities
  • Practice your faith of choice
  • Balance freedom and responsibility

Today there is a new dream taking place:

  • Work enough to get by
  • Customized family experience
  • Be spiritual but not religious
  • Demand freedom and rights
  • Entitled to personalized moral code
  • Situational truth
  • Advocate the new virtues
  • Happiness: comfort, convenience choices, connections, experiences
  • Unimaginable shift in our values

(This is not what the founding fathers envisioned). He did a survey among conservatives and found their attitudes as follows:

  • 84% concerned about the future
  • 99% country is headed in wrong direction
  • 99% govt is doing too much
  • 90% angry about the state of America
  • 94% morals and values are declining
  • 71% ready to engage in creating significant change

Many of our core foundations are eroding in America because of the most liberal president in the history of this nation. Yet, we know that the buck stops with us and we must ask for God’s mercy on our nation. We are in a process of judgment right now; it remains to be seen the level of judgment we will experience. God gives a nation a leader that mirrors the moral condition of the people. We must engage the body of Christ to pray, humble ourselves and engage in the battle for righteousness in our nation. Thanks for standing in the gap with me for our nation.

God bless you, Os

A Council for National Policy meeting! So, we have the Dominionists from Doug Coe’s The Family, mixed in with the 7 Mountain Mandate Dominionists, all joining with the entire political neo-con Trotskyite right in the Council for National Policy. And there’s Jim DeMint right in the middle of it.

In Part 11, we’ll look at Heritage’s former Vice Chairman and benefactor, Richard Mellon Scaife.

 

Fact-Checking the Obama Administration on Trade:

Reposted from THE PUBLIC CITIZEN

Years of unfair trade deals modeled after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have contributed to ballooning U.S. trade deficits, mass offshoring of good U.S. jobs, and a historic increase in U.S. income inequality.

But rather than change our failed trade policies, the administration appears bent on trying to hide the facts — by changing the data.

As U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman pushes for the largest expansions of the NAFTA model to date — the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) — his office has resorted to data distortions to obscure the dismal outcomes of past trade deals.

Here’s a sampling of USTR’s recent outlandish claims, based on data distortions and omissions, alongside the sobering realities about our trade policies, based on official U.S. government data.

USTR’s Trade Myths | “Factoryless Goods” | Corporate America’s Trade Myths

USTR’s Trade Myths

Reality

“The driver on our trade balance with Canada and Mexico” is fossil fuels.” The fossil fuels share of our trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has declined under NAFTA, while the total NAFTA deficit has soared 550 percent, topping $170 billion.
We have a manufacturing trade surplus with our NAFTA partners, Mexico and Canada. We have a manufacturing trade deficit with our NAFTA partners of more than $60 billion.

See the data tricks behind USTR’s NAFTA trade myths.

“Our trade balance [with Korea] has been affected by decreases in corn and fossil fuel exports” under the first two years of the Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Our trade deficit with Korea has ballooned 50 percent under the FTA, and exports to Korea have fallen. Without corn and fossil fuels, the deficit rise and export fall remain.
Under the Korea FTA, we have seen “dramatic increases in U.S. exports of key agricultural products.” Total U.S. agricultural exports to Korea have fallen more than 30 percent under the FTA.
“Sales of ‘Detroit 3’ vehicles [in Korea] are up 40 percent” under the Korea FTA. Sales of ‘Detroit 3’ autos in Korea have increased by fewer than 3,100 vehicles per year under the FTA, while sales here of imported Korean autos have increased by more than 184,000 vehicles per year.

See the data tricks behind USTR’s Korea FTA trade myths.


The Obama Administration’s “Factoryless Goods” Scam
A Proposal to Disguise the Offshoring of U.S. Manufacturing

 

A recent administration proposal would even further distort government trade data. By counting products made offshore as ‘U.S. exports,’ this scam would hide the devastation of U.S. manufacturing. It would obscure the U.S. job offshoring that unfair trade deals incentivize.

Under this Orwellian “factoryless goods” rebranding initiative, U.S. firms like Apple that have offshored their production jobs would be reclassified as “factoryless goods” manufacturers. An iPhone made in China and sold in Europe would somehow perversely count as a U.S. manufactured export. This would deceptively deflate the reported U.S. manufacturing trade deficit — and artificially inflate the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs. Apple’s brand managers and programmers would suddenly be counted as “manufacturing” workers!

Thankfully, a groundswell of public opposition has helped to stall this proposal. But it has yet to be permanently buried. As we push to change our failed trade policies, we will need to keep pushing against efforts to try to take away the evidence that such a change is direly needed. Learn more.


 

Corporate America’s Fact-Deprived Trade Factsheet Flurry

Corporate proponents of expanding the unpopular NAFTA model through the TPP and TAFTA have been hard at work to churn out “fact”sheets and studies praising the deals. But among the many sheets, you will find few facts. Below we wade through the spin from industry coalitions and corporate-driven think tanks to debunk the counterfactual claims.

Corporate Trade Myths

Reality

Peterson Institute of International Economics: The TPP “promise[s] substantial benefits and could lead to…a more peaceful and prosperous world economy.”It was the Peterson Institute that projected in 1993 that NAFTA would create 170,000 net new U.S. jobs in the pact’s first two years. The promised jobs never materialized, and instead hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs have been lost under NAFTA. Using optimistic assumptions, this pro-TPP study projected the deal could result in a meager 0.13 percent increase to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) – a fraction of the GDP increase from the latest version of the iPhone. The Center for Economic and Policy Research found that for 9 out of 10 U.S. workers, these tiny gains likely would be outweighed by a TPP-spurred increase in income inequality. The net result? A pay cut for all but the richest 10 percent.
Corporate alliances of the “Trade Benefits America” coalition: The TPP will “open new markets in countries that are not current FTA partners.” In fact, U.S. exports have lagged under FTAs. Under the Korea FTA – the U.S. template for the TPP – U.S. exports to Korea have actually fallen. Overall, U.S. export growth to non-FTA partners has actually been 30 percent higher than to FTA partner countries. How can we do more of the same and expect different results?
The Third Way think tank: Fast Tracking the TPP would help the United States “increase U.S. exports by almost $600 billion” to “Asia-Pacific markets.” This study’s $600 billion projection was based on a hypothetical rise in exports to 12 countries. Seven of them are not even in the TPP. Two more are in the TPP but already have FTAs with the United States. That leaves three of the 12 countries for which the TPP could even plausibly boost exports…if we ignore the fact that past FTAs have not brought higher export growth.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce: The TPP could create “700,000 new U.S. jobs.” The Chamber did not say how they decided this would be the TPP’s impact on jobs. They simply said it was based on the above Peterson Institute study, which included a miniscule GDP projection, but no jobs projection. It is unclear how the Chamber pulled a jobs number from a study that did not produce one.

See the TPP’s threats to U.S. jobs, wages and consumers.

Emergency Committee for American Trade: “recent data suggest that trade agreements, on the whole, actually help to improve U.S. trade balances with FTA partner countries.” The aggregate U.S. trade deficit with FTA partners has increased by more than $147 billion, or 443 percent, since the FTAs were implemented. In contrast, the aggregate deficit with all non-FTA countries has decreased by more than $130 billion, or 16 percent, since 2006 (the median entry date of existing FTAs).

See the deficit-boosting record of U.S. “free trade” deals.

European Centre for International Political Economy: Elimination of tariffs under TAFTA could result in a 0.1 to 1 percent increase in U.S. GDP. Tariffs between the EU and the United States are already quite low. That is why this study on the potential impact of TAFTA tariff elimination produced paltry results. Even if we accept the study’s unrealistic assumption that TAFTA would eliminate 100 percent of tariffs, the projected gain would amount to an extra three cents per person per day.
Centre for Economic Policy Research: Assuming that TAFTA will not only eliminate tariffs, but “non-tariff barriers,” the deal could produce a 0.2 – 0.4 percent increase in U.S. GDP. This study assumed that TAFTA would reduce or eliminate up to one out of every four “non-tariff barriers” – which, according to the study, could include Wall Street regulations, food safety standards and carbon controls. The study used a hypothetical model to project tiny gains from this widespread degradation of public interest protections, while making no effort to measure the economic, social or environmental costs that would result.
The Atlantic Council, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the British Embassy: Under TAFTA, “all states could gain jobs and increase their exports to the EU.” This study was a recycled version of the one above from the Centre for Economic Policy Research. It used the same assumption: that TAFTA would produce small economic gains from the weakening of financial regulations, milk safety standards, data privacy protections and other “trade irritants” – at no cost to consumers.

See TAFTA’s threats to consumers and the environment.