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pampango

(24,692 posts)
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 10:49 AM Apr 2013

Sherrod Brown Statement Following Senate Committee Hearing On Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations

Brown Continues to Urge Administration to put American Businesses, Workers First in TPP Negotiations

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership represents an opportunity for American workers and businesses to sell products and services to new markets, but the rules of the agreement will define whether the TPP begins a new era in fair trade policy,” Brown said. “In ongoing TPP negotiations, American workers and businesses must be put first and our jobs not traded away in exchange for foreign policy goals.”


The TPP is a proposed trade agreement that currently includes the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, Canada, and Mexico. Last month, Japan expressed its intent to join the TPP. Congress has the constitutional authority to set the terms of trade and commerce with foreign nations. The Administration is conducting the TPP talks using authority which officially lapsed in 2007, suggesting it will seek renewed Trade Promotion Authority, known as “Fast Track,” to conclude TPP negotiations, as well as other trade initiatives.

Brown has long been an opponent of NAFTA-style agreements that undermine American workers and businesses. Last month Brown, U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), and U.S. Representative Sander Levin (MI-9), led a group of 49 of their colleagues in urging President Obama to put the best interests of American workers and businesses first as negotiations continued with Japan on its potential entry to the TPP. Brown and his colleagues specifically cited Japan’s longstanding efforts to impose trade barriers and block U.S. exports as actions that have hurt the American economy, domestic job creation, and specifically its auto-industry.

Earlier this month, Brown led a group of seven Senators in urging Acting United States Trade Representative Demetrios Marantis to craft disciplinary language in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations for actions taken by state-owned enterprises that discriminate and distort free markets. Failing to craft disciplinary language for these actions, Brown and his colleagues argued, would hurt the American economy and its workers and businesses by adversely affecting the United States’ ability to fairly compete in foreign markets as new nations enter the TPP.

http://politicalnews.me/?id=23179&pg=1&keys=TRANSPACIFIC-PARTNERSHIP-TPP-NEGOTIATIONS

Brown mentions action to deal with state-owned enterprises that receive government subsidies which give them an unfair advantage. "Failing to craft disciplinary language for these actions" "would hurt the American economy and its workers and businesses". "Disciplinary language" presumably would involve an enforcement mechanism that should be part of the treaty.

In this short statement Brown did not mention protections for unions, the environment and human rights but he has made previous statements that he wants to see these included in any eventual agreement.

Glad he is my senator. Wish my other one was not Portman. Talk about a schizophrenic state.
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