Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., said he will fight the trade deal in the Senate, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., hinted the deal could fly in 2017 if controversial language giving corporations the right to challenge a nation’s regulations is removed.
Sen.
Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., said Tuesday he is confident Democratic presidential
nominee Hillary Clinton will oppose passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement in the
lame duck session of Congress if it comes up for debate, but a like-minded
colleague suggested a future path for approving the free trade agreement in the
future.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press Daily”
program, Sanders said he will do everything he can to defeat the TPP if it
comes up for a vote later this year because it would continue the North
American Free Trade Agreement’s damage to the middle class by making it easier
to outsource jobs to low-wage countries. Sanders and Republican nominee Donald
Trump made the TPP cornerstones of their presidential campaigns, forcing
Clinton to declare her opposition to the trade pact a year ago. She now says
the final text didn’t include labor and other safeguards she expected when she
promoted TPP as secretary of state.
Clinton senses that “our trade policies have
been a disaster” and “she now understands that we cannot continue those types
of policies,” Sanders said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a fellow
progressive and vocal TPP opponent, said on the same show Wednesday that one of
the biggest concerns in the deal is the chapter on investor state dispute
resolution, which gives multinational corporations the right to challenge
governments on regulations that could limit their ability to conduct certain
cross-border business.
She said “high-powered, multi-million
corporations were whispering in the ears of our trade negotiators” to include
the dispute language so they can get rid of regulations in TPP partner nations
they don’t like.
“Take out the ISDS [investor state dispute settlement]
provision and then let’s talk about trade,” Warren said. “Ultimately, the
TPP is far less about trade as you and I once thought about it – tariffs. This
is much more about regulations and who is going to write regulations around the
world. . . . And that’s why I’m completely opposed to the TPP deal.”
Warren said Trump’s opposition to TPP is not
based on any coherent explanation of why the deals are bad from a regulatory or
economic standpoint and that he has no ideas on what to do differently.
“Trump is good at fulminating, he’s
good at waving his hands and raising his voice. What exactly is your idea
Donald Trump for trying to do better trade for the United States.There’s just
no there, there, with him,” she said.
Sen. Warren suggests fix that could save TPP
