Heads Up!! "Obama Ready to Defy Base in Order to Advance Trans-Pacific Partnership"

[OrwellwasRight]

214. No, try reading before answering.

FDR's authority had nothing to do with "secret deals". It had to do with negotiating tariffs. The power to classify all trade documents, no matter the sensitivity or the topic, came with the Trade Act of 1974. The power to negotiate the things we care about in secret (health policy, labor policy, food safety, banking regulations, intellectual property policy) came in 1974. That is qualitatively different than the Reciprocal Tariff Act, which was solely about reciprocal tariff reductions -- nothing secret, nothing untoward, no surprises in the text.

You couldn't be more wrong on the secrecy of international negotiations. Rio +20, the World Intellectual Property Organization and even the WTO do not do their negotiations in secret. They allow observers, publish draft texts, and seek input from outside stakeholders. And yes, these organizations have and do reach agreements. That is called, wait for it, DEMOCRACY!!! Where citizens have some input into making the laws they have to live under. Of course, when it is complete, you have to require countries to pass the deal as agreed upon or you'd never end. But that restriction makes no sense when there has been NO public participation or input and no democracy.

You do not know what you are talking about when you say Obama won't get Fast Track authority. I posted the tea party trade votes for you and you clearly didn't look at them. It won't be as easy as you posit and you only state it as a done deal to prevent people from taking action against Fast Track. Why do I bother debating USTR's mouthpiece?