Another critic is the man leading the U.S. Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “And I’ll tell you, I think the votes are there”.
Advertisement
Opponents of the deal have focused on the failings of the 22-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement and similar trade deals, whose effects on the US economy have been decidedly mixed. One of the ways the Association is working hard to make more worldwide markets available to its members is by urging Congress to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) this year.
“I am hopeful that TPP will be approved by our Congress this year”.
Asked whether she would be meeting Rudd in NY, she replied: “I haven’t planned to but if he’s here I’ll see him”. “But I do believe there are ways to address the outstanding issues in a manner that would not require renegotiations”.
“I gave him a significant amount of things that I think can help him to pass this but I don’t think I need to get into it”.
Despite Cutler’s hope, Obama is facing an uphill battle. In July he was the speaker for a U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event held in Cleveland, just a short distance from where the Republican National Convention was happening.
Kasich was a vocal TPP supporter during the presidential primary season, while eventual GOP nominee Donald Trump described it as a catastrophe that only he could stop.
But the chances that Congress ratifies the agreement before Obama leaves office are slim.
Republicans traditionally have backed free trade deals, but their presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has blamed the agreements for US job losses and threatened to tear them up should he win.
Obama staked his economic legacy on the TPP. Obama acknowledged their concerns in Laos last week and said the politics of the deal were “difficult” for US lawmakers.
ICTSD reporting; “Extra Diet session set to open Sept. 26, after DP elects new leader”, KYODO, 31 August 2016; “TPP free trade signatories agree not to renegotiate”, KYODO, 12 September 2016; “The case for how TPP, with fixes, could happen”, POLITICO, 8 September 2016; “Sen. And so we have come together to make sure that in this season, with so much political noise and gamesmanship, that a bill that is vital to the United States long-term interest doesn’t get left aside”. Both Republican and Democratic candidates have pilloried the TPP. But some lawmakers have voiced concerns about the possibility of the TPP coming into effect. The deal is created to reduce trade barriers, such as tariffs, between the 12 participating countries.
Advertisement
The so-called job creators, who crafted this document behind closed doors, also gave themselves the ability to challenge – in an global tribunal of unelected corporate attorneys – laws passed in the US and the other participating countries, if a corporation determines that those laws impact their “future profits”.
