Obama defied the US public and required the GOP to pass his free trade deals

[brentspeak]

Although a http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703466104575529753735783116.html">growing majority of the American public is opposed to the so-called "free trade" deals that are aggressively lobbied for by the US Chamber of Commerce for their GOP puppets to enact into law, Obama not only pushed for the job-offshoring S.Korean/Colombian/Panamanian trade deals, but was http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll781.xml">utterly reliant on the Republicans to have them rammed through the House:

Republicans:

Aye: 239
Nay: 9

Democratic:

Aye: 31
Nay: 158

As Public Citizen's Lori Wallach notes,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/obama-free-trade-agreements_b_1008113.html

With 9 percent unemployment and Americans desperate for job creation, it is unconscionable that President Obama and House Republicans just shoved through a trio of NAFTA-style job-killing trade agreements that even the http://www.citizen.org/documents/reporters-memo-on-econ-effects-of-korea-trade-deal-jan-2011.pdf">government's own studies show will increase the U.S. trade deficit.

This represents a http://www.citizen.org/documents/Bush-NAFTA-style-Korea-trade-deal.pdf">complete flip-flop for President Obama, who won http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/activist-resources/president-barack-obama-on-trade-issues">crucial swing states by pledging to overhaul our flawed trade policies. So, it is no surprise that a sizeable majority of Democratsin Congress voted against these agreements, against Obama and for American jobs.

A larger share of House Democrats voted against a Democratic president on trade than ever before. The two-thirds of House Democrats who opposed the Korea FTA included 62 percent of the ranking members and all but nine of the 40 Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members. The Colombia FTA even got majority Democratic opposition in the New Democratic and Blue Dog Caucuses as well, overwhelming CBC opposition, and a no vote from Minority Leader Pelosi and Whip James Clyburn.

It took Bill Clinton nearly eight years of NAFTA job losses, betrayals and Clinton scandals to have nearly two-thirds of the House Democrats vote against him on trade. By following the advice on trade of the old Clinton gang reunited in his White House, Obama http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2011/10/house-dems-take-white-house-to-task.html">exceeded the same feat with his first trade votes.

Just as NAFTA, CAFTA, and the granting of MFN status to China has dramatically and permanently shrunk the US economy on behalf of the richest Americans, Obama is doing his own part for the sake of the upper 5%.

[teddy51]

1. Not impressed with any of these deals. Why does he pretend to do good things on the

one hand and take away with the other? Not one of these deals is good for the working American citizen, yet he seems to continue to push them.

:wtf:

[applegrove]

2. Say what you will about trade and unfair wage discrepancies... but trade keeps

countries from going to war with each other and reduces violence (I'm reading "the better angels of our nature" by Stephen Pinker). I'm just saying... the issues we should be focussing on is the distribution of the wealth created from trade (a progressive tax system), corporate responsibility (to follow regulations) and strong union laws - all over the world. We should be exporting that.

[teddy51]

3. The distribution of wealth from the US has been very mis-proportionate since

NAFTA. This is primarily why we are seeing the Occupy situation that we are now. Our jobs are leaving, and not coming back anytime soon, thanks to free trade deals where other countries impose back breaking penalties on the US and we impose none in return.

[Cali_Democrat]

4. The issue is that companies and their wealthy shareholders benefit when

jobs are outsourced to countries that pay peanuts for labor. Their profits increase exponentially and the shareholders get wealthier and wealthier while Americans are jobless. Free trade policies essentially increase the wealth disparity by default.

[Hippo_Tron]

7. That's a theory, just like the theory the Bush administration believed that democracy leads to peace

What does Pinker cite as evidence that trade reduces wars?

[applegrove]

9. Reduction of wars in europe as they started to really trade with each other.

[former9thward]

10. Not sure what you mean by "they started to really trade with each other".

But European countries and peoples have been really trading with each other for many, many centuries. In that period there have been countless wars including the two big ones, WW I and WW II.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[ProSense]

6. Here:

House

Republicans:

Aye: 219
Nay: 21

Democratic:

Aye: 59
Nay: 130

House

Republicans:

Aye: 234
Nay: 6

Democratic:

Aye: 66
Nay: 123

Yup, they passed!

[uponit7771]

8. *********THEY WERE BUSH'S FREE TRADE DEALS!!!!************ Obama made them better and as fair as he

...could.

Bashers hate to inject facts into their bashing