The trade deal “levels the playing field for American workers and American businesses” by “eliminating over 18,000 taxes – in the form of tariffs – that various countries put on Made-in-America products”, the USA trade representative’s office says on its website.
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The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign said Tuesday that she opposes a congressional vote on a pending Asian free-trade agreement later this year and said she wouldn’t seek to simply tweak the language if she became president. Will they still have the ability to protect their farm structure?
Meanwhile, the USA trade deficit continues to rise.
“If it is approved, the TPP would hand them even more power to control and exploit us”, he told reporters on a conference call. In 1970, there were around 648,000; in 2006, there were 75,000; and today, we have fewer than 58,000 dairy farms across the country. Supporters of new trade agreements say they include important and unexpected measures that do everything from preserving the environment to supporting high tech innovation.
And just where do our candidates and elected officials stand?
While many in our agricultural community would have you believe that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is all sunshine and roses, past trade deals should give us serious pause. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have consistently railed against it.
When asked if President Obama was disappointed in Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Johnson’s Democratic challenger, Russ Feingold, opposes the deal.
As it now stands, the democratic platform makes no mention of the trade deal for which Sanders has been the most vocal opponent.
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Darin Von Ruden is a Westby dairy farmer and president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
