Obama’s Next Move on the TPP

President Obama, now openly working with the Republican Party to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership, has very few short-term options on the Trans Pacific Partnership. So he and his new trade friend John Boehner decided to cancel a proposed vote scheduled for Tuesday on the issue, with the caveat that Boehner could bring the bill up anytime before July 30. What we can then expect is that Obama hopes that the labor-green-community alliance against the TPP will be letting its guard down and he can have another 6 weeks to pressure Democrats. Labor has been publicly lauding members of Congress for standing up to the president. With Hillary Clinton seeing how unpopular the TPP has become with the Democratic Party base and therefore unwilling to press for it, it’s a bit unclear how he picks up over 100 votes in the House, even if Boehner also pressures Republicans into voting for Trade Adjustment Assistance. And if the TPP passes without the TAA, there’s no way it survives the Senate. I still feel it will probably happen, I’ve never felt more confident that it won’t than I do now.

And if this goes until 2016 without fast track being passed, it is a dead deal until 2017 at the earliest. That’s a great thing for those opposed to the Investor State Dispute Settlement courts, aggressive corporate intellectual property laws, high drug prices and extended patents for pharmaceutical companies, polluted environments, the decline middle class jobs in the United States, and the continued exploitation of labor around the Pacific Rim. If you support those things, by all means support the TPP!

One other thing: Given the gerrymandered districts of 2015, I’d like to see the AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, and other leaders of the anti-TPP movement look to primary the Democrats who continue to support the TPP.