Who knew? Who knew that the TPP would be great for keeping US jobs in the US?

[grantcart]

This guy knew:



There are dozens of pictures like the one below showing how the President used his office to break barriers for US businesses, but selling hundreds of of Boeings to Vietnam is of my favorites because when I arrived in Vietnam in 1978 to negotiate a deal on moving migrants the North Vietnamese generals asked me how long would it take to get the Boeing 747s to land in Vietnam, and I was momentarily lost for words and said they would have to ask United and Pan American about that.

Here is President Obama on the occasion of PRV ordering their first 100 737 Max 200 airplanes, the largest purchase of airplanes in Vietnamese history.



It really is true, Donald Trump is trying to undo everything that President Obama got done.

[nycbos]

1. He was roasted here for trying to get the TPP done.

We all (myself included) owe him an apology.

[Blue_Adept]

2. Yup, TPP was roundly hated by the majority here

And some of it was certainly understandable considering how much was negotiated behind closed doors, which is normal, but the paranoia was high and we had a lot of dissenters that likely had agendas we only now are starting to understand.

When you look back and see how many people were just agitators that were booted after years, it makes you question just how much things were steered in certain directions.

[nycbos]

3. I am willing to admit when I am wrong.

[joshcryer]

5. I think I was the most sound "defender" of the TPP here.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10025231898#post58

But balanced, nuanced opinions get shit on. It's one reason Hillary Clinton lost. She was too analytical and too fucking smart for her own good.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=735212

[Blue_Adept]

15. Very true

The comparisons of policy and "how it'll get done" for the Clinton and Trump campaigns were hilarious. But there's a whole range of issues involved there with how people perceived her and women in general.

I avoided a lot of the TPP stuff since it just didn't seem worth getting into discussions about but I followed a ton of it. it's been interesting to see the turnabout a bit in the realization of the actual long term planning that was being put into play with it in order to box in China some, which is the opposite of how it actually is now as they get ready to really expand without anything to handle it.

[Ferrets are Cool]

25. "She was too analytical and too fucking smart for her own good."

It is also why Al Gore lost. I still weep over that one.

[Cha]

8. Mahalo, nychbos.. I think you're the first one

I've ever seen admit they were wrong about this and President Obama.

I was defending him then.. I knew he would be trying to get the best deal possible for the USA. And, all those pols against it were using scare tactics to fundraise.. how did that work out for them?

[joshcryer]

4. The TPP was an obvious power grab for the US. With US interests in mind.

It was purely intellectual property based with environmental rules (that would have made it harder for developing countries to compete). Even the judicial laws in it were meant to bolster the US's standing since any cases involving the US fell under US jurisdiction and the case never, not once, lost one of those cases. Not once.

Of course, our culture has become literally one where people point fingers and call people neocons for agreeing with nuances of a thing (I specifically think that the environmental and intellectual property rules would benefit corporations over anyone else, but it still benefitted the US). You get shit on so hard for being nuanced.

[grantcart]

11. The origins of the TPP were in Asia, specifically in ASEAN.

As they watched Europe develop a common market and North America move towards a common market ASEAN set the foundations for a common market but realized that they needed a super power to anchor a large regional market and became increasingly uneasy about Chinese hegemony and wanted to establish a large trade agreement that would include the US, Australia, NZ, Canada and Japan as a counter weight to the formidable presence of the PRC.

The idea that everything begins and ends in the US is rather national centric and the idea that the US grabbed something from leaders in Asia assumes that they are unable to represent their own interests effectively, which in fact, they are. It also assumes that leaders in Canada, Australia, NZ and Japan would stand aside while the US took advantage of them.

Peer review level academic analysis that reviewed the long term effects of the TPP showed that it would establish broad benefits across a wide spectrum of countries, but that high paying American workers would be among those that benefitted the most:

https://piie.com/publications/working-papers/economic-effects-trans-pacific-partnership-new-estimates

The authors estimate the economic effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) using a comprehensive, quantitative trade model, updating results reported in Petri, Plummer, and Zhai (2012) with recent data and information from the agreement. The new estimates suggest that the TPP will increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion, or 0.5 percent of GDP, and annual exports by $357 billion, or 9.1 percent of exports, over baseline projections by 2030, when the agreement is nearly fully implemented. Annual income gains by 2030 will be $492 billion for the world. While the United States will be the largest beneficiary of the TPP in absolute terms, the agreement will generate substantial gains for Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam as well, and solid benefits for other members. The agreement will raise US wages but is not projected to change US employment levels; it will slightly increase "job churn" (movements of jobs between firms) and impose adjustment costs on some workers.

[joshcryer]

17. US jurisprudence is more developed so that's why I say that.

It's not that of course Asian countries wanted it, too, because the laws and enforcement benefits them greatly as well!

I don't mean to say that the US was trying to force it on them. It was a win win.

[grantcart]

23. Having sat as a respondent in a Thai Court that approached a Marx brother live production

I would have to agree your main line and of course agree with the body.

Its interesting to see people rush to stand with the position that Trump so proudly holds.

[Trek4Truth]

6. Anyone who took the time to do a few minutes research about it knew it was a good thing.

Well that's my opinion anyway.

[zipplewrath]

18. Just tell Warren

I mean, she might be impressed with your "few minutes of research" as opposed to her hours of analysis by her and several knowledgeable advisors.

[grantcart]

26. I find it illuminating how Democrats condemn Republicans over their refusal to accept peer review

scholarship on climate change and then turn around and do the same exact thing when peer review scholarship shows that trade agreements that attach broad mutual lowering of tariffs help us gain market penetration for our more expensive higher skilled higher capital products with significantly higher wages. We don't want the low skilled highly repetitive low capital highly fungible jobs that go to the bottom of the barrel.

In simple terms we should be competing with Switzerland, Singapore, Germany not China, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The theory of the TPP is that if we get lower tariffs overseas then the factories we have here that manufacture for export can have greater market penetration and increase sales and jobs.

Now the implementation of exiting the TPP is that our manufacturing plants that are manufacturing for export are closing and moving over seas.

First the theory, then the reality.

Here is the best peer review synopsis of what the TPP would do for the US are you going to accept scholarly work that is without ideological bias or are you going to dismiss it like the Republicans do with climate change scholarship:

https://piie.com/publications/working-papers/economic-effects-trans-pacific-partnership-new-estimates

The authors estimate the economic effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) using a comprehensive, quantitative trade model, updating results reported in Petri, Plummer, and Zhai (2012) with recent data and information from the agreement. The new estimates suggest that the TPP will increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion, or 0.5 percent of GDP, and annual exports by $357 billion, or 9.1 percent of exports, over baseline projections by 2030, when the agreement is nearly fully implemented. Annual income gains by 2030 will be $492 billion for the world. While the United States will be the largest beneficiary of the TPP in absolute terms, the agreement will generate substantial gains for Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam as well, and solid benefits for other members. The agreement will raise US wages but is not projected to change US employment levels; it will slightly increase "job churn" (movements of jobs between firms) and impose adjustment costs on some workers.

Perhaps you can visit the HD factory in Indiana and tell them how losing their jobs as a direct result of us pulling out of the TPP is a good thing. Not a single job was gained in the US by leaving.

[betsuni]

34. +1

[zipplewrath]

41. You prove my point

JUST leaving was foolish. Negotiating a treaty that served all workers in all countries however, would have been vastly superior. The objections about the TPP weren't just about who was getting richer, but what it would do to individual locations, and individual people. It was also about the impacts on the environment. NAFTA hurt Mexican farmers badly, while enriching American farmers. It caused wholesale shifts in industries in Carolina that enriched the investment class and put out of work huge numbers of blue collar workers. "On balance", the US benefited from NAFTA, because how it affected the investment class. But the worker class was hurt overall.

We already have trade with the countries involved. And good trade treaty is needed that will serve all interests in all countries, not just the investment class in the US. Oh, and still protecting the environment.

[Cha]

7. I was just going to say.. President Obama knew..

he knew it was a good deal. I hate those who tried to fundraise scare off it.

[Hekate]

9. Well yeah, and SOME of us ended up having to hide out in the BOG just to get away from the ...

...Obama Derangement Syndrome crowd.

[Jim Lane]

10. Your second picture shows sales to Vietnam WITHOUT the TPP

So it would clearly be false to say or imply that ratification of the TPP would be necessary to such sales. Whether it would increase the sales is harder to determine, and of course even increasing airplane sales wouldn't prove it was a good deal.

I proudly stand with Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, and Bernie Sanders in opposing the ratification of the version of the TPP that emerged from the final negotiations.

[grantcart]

22. That is incorrect

1) The TPP was signed on February 4th 2016 by member nations including the US and Vietnam.

It was the signing of the TPP agreement that opened the negotiations for Boeing to finalize the order that was finalized in May of 2016. Without the signing of the TPP agreement the agreement for the Boeings would never had occurred. The countries signed and joined the TPP on February 4th 2016, it would be ratified later.

2) Secretary Clinton called the TPP the "gold standard" of international trade agreements and peer review analysis by economists confirmed that. It is true that as Trump/Sanders engaged in cheap economic nationalistic populism that Clinton moderated her strong endorsement to say that she was against it as it now stood and needed to be amended. It is unfortunate that economic issues were reduced to bumper sticker phrases and the value of the TPP was lost among the yelling of "America First".

3) Economic analysis by peer reviewed level non ideological economists show that the US in general and US workers specifically would be a major beneficiary from the TPP:

https://piie.com/publications/working-papers/economic-effects-trans-pacific-partnership-new-estimates

The authors estimate the economic effects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) using a comprehensive, quantitative trade model, updating results reported in Petri, Plummer, and Zhai (2012) with recent data and information from the agreement. The new estimates suggest that the TPP will increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion, or 0.5 percent of GDP, and annual exports by $357 billion, or 9.1 percent of exports, over baseline projections by 2030, when the agreement is nearly fully implemented. Annual income gains by 2030 will be $492 billion for the world. While the United States will be the largest beneficiary of the TPP in absolute terms, the agreement will generate substantial gains for Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam as well, and solid benefits for other members. The agreement will raise US wages but is not projected to change US employment levels; it will slightly increase "job churn" (movements of jobs between firms) and impose adjustment costs on some workers.

The closing of the Harley Davidson plant which was manufacturing for export proves the academic point that should be obvious: lower tariffs overseas helps US exports.

3) Senator Sanders position on TPP is exactly the same as President Trump. The TPP would significantly lower current tariffs so that existing US manufacturers would be able to keep manufacturing exports from here. Now they have to close those factories and put them off shore to be viable.

This is as binary a choice as you will face. You can stand shoulder to shoulder with President Obama or with President Trump/Senator Sanders

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/24/trump-kills-tpp-giving-china-its-first-big-win/?utm_term=.cec3efe55810

Trump's opposition to the TPP is one of his few consistent political positions. Throughout the campaign, he issued loud calls in defense of American workers and against the perils of globalization. The pact became politically toxic for both parties last year, with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton turning against the TPP (she had initially supported it) and her leftist challenger Bernie Sanders joining Trump in framing the TPP as the project of secretive elites ready to stiff the American common man.

Sanders lavished praise on Trump for his action on TPP

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/23/tpp-trans-pacific-partnership-bernie-sanders-john-mccain

The president and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders both attacked TPP, a free trade agreement among the US and 11 other countries, on the campaign trail. Sanders praised Trump’s decision, saying TPP is “dead and gone”.

“Now is the time to develop a new trade policy that helps working families, not just multinational corporations,” Sanders said in a statement. “If President Trump is serious about a new policy to help American workers then I would be delighted to work with him.”

The TPP would lower tariffs for US goods making US manufacturers more competitive in exporting their products. Now they will have to build factories off shore instead of using their factories here.


This is a very binary situation. On the one side is President Obama and peer reviewed economic scholarship by non partisan economists that show that the TPP would increase GDP and wages (although not increase or decrease actual jobs) on the one hand and

President Trump, Bernie Sanders as well as President Putin and President and General Secretary Xi Jinping on the other. Putin and Xi Jinping could not be happy to see that the US has taken radical steps to stop market penetration in the Pacific.

If I were standing with Trump/Sanders/Putin/Xi Jingping and against President Obama on an issue I wouldn't be broadcasting it.

[Jim Lane]

30. Your argument is mostly McCarthyism -- and it's despicable.

A classic technique of Joe McCarthy was to claim that anyone who disagreed with him was on the same side as a designated villain. He used the Communists, you use Trump, but it's the same logical fallacy.

You write:

This is a very binary situation. On the one side is President Obama and peer reviewed economic scholarship by non partisan economists that show that the TPP would increase GDP and wages (although not increase or decrease actual jobs) on the one hand and President Trump, Bernie Sanders as well as President Putin and President and General Secretary Xi Jinping on the other.

That's utter bullshit. Opponents of the final TPP include, as I mentioned, Clinton, O'Malley, and Sanders. I'll now add Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren. Among the NGOs in oppositiopn, there were the AFL-CIO on labor issues, the Electronic Frontier Foundation on internet issues, Medecins sans Frontieres on pharmaceuticals, and the Sierra Club on the environment. None of this was "America First" jingoism, although you seem to be implying that it was false "America First" rhetoric, rather than policy considerations, that prompted Clinton's position. (You seem to have a pretty low opinion of Hillary Clinton. Are you saying she was lying to the American people about her actual position? Are you unwilling to conceive of the possibility that she sincerely and honestly came to disagree with you?)

You can screech about Trump and foreign leaders all you want, but you obviously know enough about the issue to know that it's not "very binary" with only good people on one side and only bad people on the other.

As to the specific issue of airplane sales -- a pretty minor factor in the big picture -- your own chronology shows that the sale you referred to occurred even though the United States did not ratify the TPP.

[grantcart]

31. I bring peer review articles by economists and you call it McCarthyism

It is an absolutely binary question

For TPP

Against TPP


Trump against

Obama for

Tonight Lawrence O'Donnell, who calls himself a socialist, made the case how competition has made American manufacturing better, that HD was a lousy manufacturer until they were challenged by foreign competition and how higher tariffs are going to kill high paying jobs. TPP reduced tariffs against American products

Jobs at Harley Davidson are going to be leaving the US to go to foreign factories, not because production costs are higher but because tariffs have made it impossible to compete.

https://rideapart.com/articles/harleys-thailand-factory-result-pulling-tpp

How steep tariffs in Southeast Asia prompted Harley-Davidson to build factory in Thailand after Trump pulled out of Trans-Pacific Partnership

In Harley-Davidson’s recent saga of not catching a break, the iconic company has been thrust into the news once again, this time regarding America's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In addition to a tariff on steel and aluminum which resulted in Harley under-calculating its cost of raw materials by between $15-20M, pulling out of the Trans-Pacific partnership has greatly impacted Harley. While the Asian Pacific (or APAC) market is by no means a top buyer for Harley, it is nonetheless what the company’s CEO, Matt Levatich calls a “critical” market.

. . .

“We were very optimistic about what the TPP would enable for Harley-Davidson. It took seven years for it to come to fruition. We could see the writing on the wall, and we got busy with Plan B,” explained Levatich

With European Union leaders continuing to threaten steep retaliatory taxes/tariffs on products including Harley-Davidson Motorcycles in response to Trump’s metal tariffs, the Milwaukee-based marque is struggling to get a hold on any and all markets it can, especially after its home market—which is by far its biggest purchaser—keeps seeing declining sales quarter after quarter and year after year. Harley-Davidson’s new Thailand plant will reportedly begin production later this year.

The US has not pulled itself out of being an export producing nation for manufacturing to the Pacific region by pulling out of the TPP. Harledy Davidson is just the beginning. No manufacturer will opt to stay in a country that is going to have to add 25% costs to import when they can get the reduction plus the lower production costs.

Leaving the TPP is going to cost us thousands of high paying jobs and we will not get any back in return.

Congratulations you got it now you have to answer for supporting the policy that is going to cost Americans jobs and hundreds of billions of increased wages.

It is the virulent populism of economic nationalism that is closest to McCarthyism but it tags foreign nations as the "boogie man" and paints the US as a perpetual victim when in fact that "balance of trade" figure fails to count intellectual, entertainment, software, embedded services and repatriated profits.

Between 2008 and 2016 the DJI went from 6,700 to 19,000, the US dollar vs the EURO went from 1.7 to 1.1

Bernie Sanders is 100% correct when he talks about the creation of mass amounts of capital, nearly $ 4,000 trillion in 2013 alone and $ 15 trillion under President Obama, for the NYSE alone. He is 100% correct when he says that terrible imbalance of wealth distribution is not only unfair but ultimately lethal for an economic system.

But you cannot have it both ways if the US experienced the greatest growth of wealth plus almost full employment, currently 3.8% and then also complain that we are the victims of an unfair international economic system when the other countries have declining capital return and higher unemployment.

[Jim Lane]

40. Your post mentioned Trump TEN times

Yes, there were economists who supported the TPP. You don't trouble to add that there were also economists on the other side. For example, Joseph Stiglitz, whose credentials in the field include the Nobel Prize, was one of Hillary's advisers on economic and trade policy, and he opposed the TPP.

Who supported the TPP? Well, you've doubtless heard of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing lobbying group. The Chamber opposed the Dodd-Frank regulation of Wall Street, opposed the DISCLOSE Act that would have addressed foreign influence in our elections, opposed the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, and submitted an amicus brief in Citizens United arguing in support of unlimited corporate spending. Not surprisingly for such a devoted servant of big business, the Chamber supported the TPP.

Now, look at what that preceding paragraph does. It gives a truthful description of the Chamber, one that puts it in a bad light in DUers' eyes, and then adds the truthful statement that the Chamber supported the TPP. That doesn't prove the TPP was a bad idea. All it does is to connect support for the TPP with a designated villain.

Did it occur to you, as you read the paragraph, that it was merely guilt by association? If so, you were right -- but, guess what, that's exactly what you did when you repeatedly equated opposition to the TPP with Trump.

I said that your post was "mostly McCarthyism". In #22 you used the word "economists" three times and the word "Trump" ten times. Your bellringer concluding paragraph was:

If I were standing with Trump/Sanders/Putin/Xi Jingping and against President Obama on an issue I wouldn't be broadcasting it.

Well, I'm standing with Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, the AFL-CIO, the EFF, Medecins sans Frontieres, the Sierra Club, Joseph Stiglitz, and plenty of others I could name. I'm happy to broadcast it, whatever you and your allies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may think.

[AtomicKitten]

12. Corporate sovereignty is a terrible idea.

Elizabeth Warren agreed it was a "terrible clause everyone should oppose."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html

The TPP prioritized the "rights" of corporations over workers, the environment, and democracy.

https://www.thenation.com/article/tpp-prioritizes-rights-of-corporations-over-workers-the-environment-and-democracy/

This is yet another issue on which neoliberals and progressives part company.

[joshcryer]

21. She was wrong. The US NEVER lost an ISDS dispute.

And would NEVER have EVER lost one because the TPP put the jurisdiction in US courts.

Read the thread here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10026415083#post112

Warren is a demagogue, she used ISDS as a wedge issue to fire up her base. It was never grounded in truth or reality.

[tammywammy]

13. I supported TPP.

[ismnotwasm]

14. And the JPR fucks right on like it was a TPP batsignal

As malinformed as ever I see.

[GulfCoast66]

16. I supported it. Many here blasted our president over it. A couple of reasons i believe

1. Trade deals are very complicated and people tend to see them as transactions they deal with in their lives. Honest reason to oppose it if you really do not understand it.

2. Nationalist and populist are not the exclusive property of the right. They are always bad, but many here were swayed by left leaning leaders who used it as a wedge issue in our own party. Scaring us that all these 3rd world people would take our jobs. The exact same thing Trump says


We will be watching Canada enrich its people for the next 20 years. Outside looking in.

Too bad. It was another of the many victims of 2016.

[zipplewrath]

19. False dichotomy

The real problem here is that the TPP could both be bad, and that Trumps approach is also bad. Backing out of the TPP without a plan to supplant it is the mistake. Same with NAFTA. Trade agreements can be bad, but that doesn't mean that something isn't needed.

[Exotica]

27. good post

[GulfCoast66]

37. I respectfully disagree with your Narritive.

There was no(maybe little) talk on DU about improving TPP. The Rhetoric I read here sounded exactly like what Trump is saying now...it was done in secret, will hurt America and take our jobs.

I have only started hearing the subtleties added since the protectionist left have realized the positions they held are now being carried out by Trump. And that it is not good for America.

Remember in cries to kill TPP on DU were at there highest before the Treaty was even completed.

We should have listened to a President Obama. He knew best.

Trade is complicated and there are losers on both sides. I think too many good democrats were led astray by leaders on the left using the issue as an emotional wedge to enhance their position in the party. Or outside the party as the case may be.

[Cha]

24. Exactly, GulfCoast..

"We will be watching Canada enrich its people for the next 20 years. Outside looking in.

Too bad. It was another of the many victims of 2016."

[grantcart]

28. Exactly

Trade agreements create winners and losers and people only see those that lose, nobody gives credit for the US firms that gain.

For example there were over 500 factories that were traced to have moved to Mexico that a few years later moved to China. In the NAFTA agreement the focus were on those factories that moved to Mexico but would have moved to China and the significant increase in US exports to Mexico that lived on after the migration of those bottom level factories that were destined to leave the US anyway.

[TheFrenchRazor]

29. "jobs?" yeah, burger-flipping jobs. when have trade deals, "free" or otherwise, ever done anything

for american workers? they are negotiated by the 1% and they benefit the 1%.

[grantcart]

32. Tariffs create barriers against products made by higher paying jobs, like HD that are made in the US

Lowering tariffs make our high paying jobs more competitive and keep the factories here.

President Obama was not negotiating for the 1% or for the benefit of the 1% he was negotiating for US jobs that had limited market penetration because of tariff barriers.

https://piie.com/publications/working-papers/economic-effects-trans-pacific-partnership-new-estimates

The new estimates suggest that the TPP will increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion, or 0.5 percent of GDP, and annual exports by $357 billion, or 9.1 percent of exports, over baseline projections by 2030, when the agreement is nearly fully implemented.

You got the facts 100% wrong. They are closing the HD factory with high paying jobs because without TPP they are going to have to pay higher tariffs, so HD is moving the factory to Thailand

https://rideapart.com/articles/harleys-thailand-factory-result-pulling-tpp

In Harley-Davidson’s recent saga of not catching a break, the iconic company has been thrust into the news once again, this time regarding America's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In addition to a tariff on steel and aluminum which resulted in Harley under-calculating its cost of raw materials by between $15-20M, pulling out of the Trans-Pacific partnership has greatly impacted Harley. While the Asian Pacific (or APAC) market is by no means a top buyer for Harley, it is nonetheless what the company’s CEO, Matt Levatich calls a “critical” market.

. .

Because of the fee tacked on for importing a motorcycle from the US, it is cheaper for Harley to setup a factory in Thailand and build bikes there rather than build them here and send them there.

“We would rather not make the investment in that facility (Thailand), but that’s what’s necessary to access a very important market,” says Levatich. “It is a direct example of how trade policies could help this company, but we have to get on with our work to grow the business by any means possible, and that’s what we’re doing.”

“We were very optimistic about what the TPP would enable for Harley-Davidson. It took seven years for it to come to fruition. We could see the writing on the wall, and we got busy with Plan B,” explained Levatich.

So because people didn't understand what the TPP really did those high paying jobs that were manufacturing for export are being changed for burger flipping jobs. You should be proud to be in such close agreement with Trump on one of his worst decisions.

[betsuni]

33. K&R

[ucrdem]

35. Big K'n'R.

Great discussion. Years of complicated multi-party negotiations down the chute because a couple of unscrupulous pols decided to demagogue their way to fame and fortune. Well, it worked for them, but US farmers, workers, writers and investors will be paying the price for decades. And what does it say when Michael Moore types can't be bothered to notice that being on the same side as Rush Limbaugh is not a good thing? To me it says there was more going on than trade policy but in the interests of discretion I'll leave it at that.

[R B Garr]

42. Exactly. The whole TPP issue was never explained in context and was just used

as a club against Hillary. I always thought it was a back door way to attack Bill C about NAFTA, so it was used as a two-fer. Agreed there was more going on than trade policy......

[Cha]

43. Thanks, ucr.. the fundraising on the anti-TPP demagoguery

was despicable. One even got some Pinocchios from the WaPo over it.

You think that stopped them.. no.

And, here we are.

[ecstatic]

36. I just hope that when the economy is in shambles again, Americans, for once

will be smart enough to put the blame where it belongs: trump and his republicans. Doubt it, but it would be nice.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

38. So many on DU roasted him for this

They since have fled to another site.

[SidDithers]

39. Not all of them have fled, unfortunately...nt

Sid