Warns Pacific partnership establishes European Union-style authority by Art Moore, 6/5/15, WND
As
it becomes apparent that most members of Congress haven’t even read the draft
of a trade deal criticized by opponents as a monumental surrender of U.S.
sovereignty, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is demanding President Obama explain
the legal basis for not releasing the text to the public.
In a
letter to Obama delivered Friday, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest noted the
president is asking for “fast-track executive authority” to pass the Trans
Pacific Partnership agreement and other trade deals. Trade Promotion Authority,
Sessions reminded Obama, would take away the most basic congressional powers,
including the power to write, amend and fully consider legislation on the
floor.
Contending the TPP is more a treaty than a
trade deal – creating a “nascent European Union” – the implications are
“extraordinary,” Sessions said.
They “ought to be discussed in full, in
public,” he said, “before Congress even contemplates fast-tracking its creation
and pre-surrendering its power to apply the constitutional two-thirds treaty
vote.”
Ratifying a treaty requires a two-thirds vote
of the Senate. With fast-track authority, an agreement like the TPP could be
passed with only a majority vote of both the Senate and the House, and no
amendments would be allowed.
“I would therefore ask that you provide to me
the legal and constitutional basis for keeping this information from the public
and explain why I cannot share the details of what I have read with the American
people,” Sessions wrote in his letter, which was first published by Breitbart
News.
The fast-track authority bill and the TPP form
a package dubbed Obamatrade that, despite President Obama’s advocacy, is
opposed by most Democrats in the House. Top labor unions contend the deal will
result in the loss of millions of American jobs.
In the Senate, Democrats initially blocked
Trade Promotion Authority, but it passed 62-37 last month, with only five
Republicans voting no. The no votes were Sessions and Sens. Susan Collins of
Maine, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Richard Shelby of Alabama.
Sessions spokesman Stephen Miller told WND
that granting fast-track trade authority would give Obama extraordinary powers
the senator believes would be detrimental to the nation.
“Not only will fast-track accelerate the loss
of jobs to expanded trade deficits, but it will empower the president to
negotiate a broad new global governance structure with lasting repercussions,”
he said.
President Obama argues the agreement
“includes strong standards that will advance workers’ rights, protect the
environment, promote a free and open Internet, and it supports new robust
measures to address unfair currency practices.”
The 12 TPP parties, along with the U.S., are
Japan, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru,
Singapore and Vietnam.
Curtis Ellis, executive director of the
American Jobs Alliance and a WND columnist who is campaigning against TPP on
Capitol Hill, said only 18 House Democrats at the moment are prepared to
support Obamatrade. A
whip count published by The Hill has 109 Republicans as “yes or leaning yes.”
Nearly every member of Congress who supports
fast-track authority apparently has not read the TPP, Ellis said. Even members
of Speaker John Boehner’s House leadership team who are whipping the votes –
House Rules Committee chairman Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas and Majority Whip
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana – have refused to answer whether or not they
have read it.
The TPP text is accessible by members of
Congress only in a secured room, and lawmakers are not allowed to disclose the
contents.
Among the likely and declared candidates for
the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, former Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Sen. Rick Santorum, Sen. Rand
Paul, R-Ky., Carly Fiorina and Dr. Ben Carson have voiced opposition to TPP.
In support of TPP are former Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush and Sens. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Lindsey
Graham, R-S.C.
No reply
Sessions pointed out he received no reply
from the president to a May 6 letter that said Congress needed the answers to
“several fundamental questions” before even considering whether or not to
“grant the executive such broad new powers.”
Among the requests, Sessions said, was to
make public the section of the TPP that creates a new transnational governance
structure known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission.
“The
details of this new governance commission are extremely broad and have the
earmarks of a nascent European Union, with many similarities,” he said.
“Reviewing the secret text, plus the secret
guidance document that accompanies it, reveals that this new transnational
commission – chartered with a ‘Living Agreement’ clause – would have the
authority to amend the agreement after its adoption, to add new members, and to
issue regulations impacting labor, immigration, environmental, and commercial
policy.”
Ellis pointed out that unlike any previous
trade deal approved by Congress, the TPP would allow other countries to join by
a consensus agreement of existing members.
He noted that the treaty that launched the
European Union established a European Commission to enforce the provisions of
the pact, which bears resemblance to the TPP’s TransPacific Partnership
Commission.
The TPP’s commission will ensure enforcement
of the agreement and must consider the opinions of other international
organizations.
“We could wake up one day and find our
businesses are being regulated out of some treaty commission in another
country,” Ellis told WND.
Free flow of people, goods, money and
services
Ellis pointed to Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s description of TPP at a White House press
conference April 18,
which mirrored the European Union’s foundational “four freedoms”: the free flow
of people, goods, money and services among members.
Abe, according to the official translation,
said TPP is “an ambitious attempt to create a new economic sphere in which
people, goods, and money will flow freely within the Asia Pacific region.”
“It’s a new economic region of freedom,
democracy, basic human rights, and rule of law,” the prime minister said.
Ellis argued the original European Common
Market was always about more than eliminating tariffs between Belgium and
France.
The TPP’s sister agreement, with Europe – the
TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – in fact is not described by
the White House as a trade agreement.
Asked for an explanation, Obama’s top trade
negotiator at the time, Ambassador Ron Kirk, told
reporters in February 2013 it’s “because it is so much broader than trade.”
At the same presser, Mike Froman – the
current U.S. trade representative who at the time was deputy national security
adviser for international economic affairs – said TTIP is “really about
both figuring out better ways of integrating our own economies, but also
working together to help establish global rules, areas –working together in
areas of common interest vis-à-vis the broader multilateral trading system.”
Wikileaks has released documents that are
part of another trade deal – a companion to TPP and TIPP focused on services
rather than goods – which is being hammered out between the U.S., the EU and 23
other nations.
Documents related to the Trade in Services
Agreement, or TISA, show the deal would prohibit American citizens from
controlling where their personal data is held and whether it can be accessed
outside the U.S.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/senator-to-obama-justify-keeping-trade-deal-secret/
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