Robert Reich on the Real Reason the Corporate-Friendly TPP Is Nearly Dead

[pampango]

82. ITO/GATT - FDR/Truman, NAFTA & WTO - Clinton, Korea - Obama, only CAFTA (the smallest) - Bush.

You can see the confusion among the Democratic base. They support these trade agreements more than republicans do because they see the history of the Democratic Party, at least since the Civil War, as the anti-tariff, pro-trade party. They don't understand that "New Democrats" would have rejected all the trade agreements and organizations that earlier Democratic presidents fostered.

The republican base does reject all these previous "globalization" agreements. The right views them as part of a "liberal globalist" plot to undermine conservative America's national sovereignty. Of course, many on the left view the same agreements as a "conservative globalist" plot to undermine liberal America's national sovereignty. This has produced the 'bipartisan' opposition to these agreements when the left and right agree about little else.