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Health & Fitness

Fast Track Trade Authority Must Be Stopped!

After months of speculation, it appears a vote on Fast Track Trade Authority will occur as early as next month. Key members of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have reached a deal to introduce a bill in January that would give the President substantial power to negotiate new so-called “free trade” agreements, while reducing Congress’s ability to determine what goes into the agreement.

While this deal has been struck, opposition to actually passing the bill has been growing. Over three quarters of House Democrats have publicly expressed their opposition to Fast Track Authority, with a growing number of Republicans joining them. Congressional leaders may want this bill to pass --and certainly the President does-- but even President Obama’s own party is starting to stand up against Fast Track.

With the holidays fast approaching and Congress in recess, there will be no movement on this bill until after the new year. The Obama administration would have preferred to pass it this year, but with so much opposition it has been difficult to build support.  Without Fast Track it will be much more difficult for the Obama administration to railroad the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress. If Fast Track is voted down in Congress, TPP could very well go with it.

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Let's start with the Constitutional problem.  "Fast Track" (sometimes called "Trade Promotion Authority") is unconstitutional because it supposedly ratifies a treaty by simple majority of both houses of Congress, in violation of Article 2 Section 2 that authorizes the President to make treaties “PROVIDED TWO THIRDS OF THE SENATORS PRESENT CONCUR.”  Only a Constitutional Amendment can negate this requirement, but "Trade Promotion Authority” would only be an act of Congress --which cannot amend or violate the Constitution.

Because "fast track" is clearly unconstitutional, the President should be impeached for requesting it and any Congressman or Senator who votes for it should be immediately expelled by the Congress and/or recalled by the citizens.  Unfortunately, this "fast track" violation of the Constitution is how virtually all our Free Trade treaties have been ratified since 1974.  The American people must wake up and demand it stop or the Constitution will become an obsolete relic replaced by unconstitutional precedent and custom.

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Another unconstitutional aspect of Fast Track is that it denies Congress the ability to make any changes to a law after the President presents it to the Legislative Branch. This violates the Constitution Article 1 section 8, which says "Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations."  This Fast-Track violation of the Constitution would mean there is no accountability for any negotiating objectives Congress may have given the President. For instance, if the Congress says the President must have a fix for currency manipulation in the agreement, the President does not have to listen. Directives from Congress are only a suggestion under Fast Track.

Beyond these "fast track" Constitutional problems, the Free Trade treaties themselves would be harmful to America's sovereignty and economy.  The treaties being drafted right now are the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (US-EU deal).

The TPP (and the US-EU deal) would create bodies of global governance to adjudicate matters of economic, labor and environmental regulations, taking these essential issues of governance out of the hands of our elected Congress and President.  That's exactly what the TPP draft text published by wikileaks shows.  And the same would be true in the US-EU trade deal also being negotiated by the Obama administration.  According to the article "The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal" published December 2 by The Guardian newspaper on their website, the US-EU trade deal would allow globalized corporations to "sue governments before secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers, which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments."

Making such treaties would be an outrageous abdication of American sovereignty.  Creating these institutions of global governance to move essential regulation out of the Congress means the loss of democratic control and government responsiveness to the citizenry.

Finally, these Free Trade deals will only worsen the huge trade deficits that measure the huge loss of American manufacturing and other high value-added industries through off-shoring and outsourcing.  Every Free Trade deal so far has already deepened these problems, dismantling our country's productive economy and eroding our long-term prosperity.  On September 20, 2011, Manufacturing and Technology News reported that during the previous ten years, the US lost 54,621 factories, and manufacturing employment fell by 5 million employees.  This export of our tax base and manufacturing engines of wealth creation continues apace, and it is the fundamental reason for the fiscal crises at the federal, state and local levels.  It is also dismantling our industrial ecosystem, uprooting our skills and productive capacities in essential technologies.

There are rumors that this lack of enforceable objectives on currency manipulation may be enough to sink Fast Track in the House. This would be a rare display of sanity from our elected representatives in Washington, and would perhaps be a sign that there is hope for U.S. trade policy after all. Passing Fast Track wouldn’t mean that TPP is inevitable, but it would be a big win for the Obama administration and make it much harder to stop job-killing Free Trade agreements from passing.  Smart trade policy needs a win, and stopping Fast Track could be the spark that leads to a more prosperous United States.

Where to go if we can stop "fast track" and the Free Trade policies thus promoted?

Congress could pass a Balanced Trade law that uses a system of Import Certificates to license all imports.  By issuing these Import Certificates only in the same value as our exports, we would balance our trade.  This would divert the annual $600 Billion trade deficit into demand for US-made goods and services, directly creating millions of manufacturing jobs and indirectly creating many millions more jobs through the multiplier-effect manufacturing has.  This would add 4% annual GDP growth, grow the tax base, decrease the need for social safety net, and revive our country's long-term ability to create wealth.

A Balanced Trade law would even be legal according to our terms of membership in the WTO.  Article XII of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT 1994), annexed to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization entered into on April 15, 1994, permits any member country to restrict the quantity or value of imports in order to safeguard the external financial position and the balance of payments of the member country.

In sum, replacing the disastrous Free Trade policies with a Balanced Trade policy would reverse the disintegration of American manufacturing and employment, restore our national sovereignty and democracy, and create the prosperity needed to resolve the fiscal crises pervading government at all levels.  American citizens should urge their US Senators and Congressional Representative to do everything possible to defeat so-called “fast track” legislation for “Trade Promotion Authority,” and to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership treaties.  We should urge Congress to replace these disastrous Free Trade policies with a BALANCED TRADE POLICY.

This article adapted from 2 articles:

1) "Fast Track Trade Authority Must Be Stopped!" by Benjamin Clement, originally published December 17, 2013 at Economy In Crisis:

http://economyincrisis.org/content/fast-track-trade-authority-must-be-stopped

2) "Free Trade assaults Constitution, Sovereignty, & Prosperity" by Will Wilkin, originally published December 6, 2013 at Oxford Patch:

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