Labor organizations oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership Trade deal in a rally outside of the Capitol in May 2014.
His name is Michael Wessel. He has served on the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission. He served as a commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission from 2001-2014. He worked on the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Barack Obama. He was the international trade co-chair for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 and the "cleared liaison" to two statutory advisory committees. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on the board of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Nine years ago, he founded the Wessel Group, "a public affairs consulting firm offering expertise in government, politics, and international affairs."
At Politico Magazine, under the headline, I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned, he writes:
The public criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That’s by design—anyone who has read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its contents. I’ve actually read the TPP text provided to the government’s own advisors, and I’ve given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can’t share my criticisms with you.
I can tell you that Elizabeth Warren is right about her criticism of the trade deal.
So-called “cleared advisors” like me are prohibited from sharing publicly the criticisms we’ve lodged about specific proposals and approaches. The government has created a perfect Catch 22: The law prohibits us from talking about the specifics of what we’ve seen, allowing the president to criticize us for not being specific. Instead of simply admitting that he disagrees with me—and with many other cleared advisors—about the merits of the TPP, the president instead pretends that our specific, pointed criticisms don’t exist.
Will President Obama now take some jabs at Wessel the way he has Sen. Warren?
Drawing on his experience, including 21 years working on trade issues for former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, Wessel acknowledges the necessity of secrecy in negotiating trade deals, but notes that even the cleared advisers are not being allowed to view the language of the 12-nation trade deal that is TPP. During the Clinton administration, he writes, he had access to the full text of the agreement in a safe right next to his desk and was regularly briefed on negotiations. That, he says, is not happening with TPP.
He says advisers instead are given "flimsy" assurances that the final deal "will balance all appropriate stakeholder interests." But they see no details, no proposals or counter-proposals from the negotiating nations:
Those details have enormous repercussions. For instance, rules of origin specify how much of a product must originate within the TPP countries for the resulting product to be eligible for duty-free treatment. These are complex rules that decide where a company will manufacture its products and where is will purchase raw materials. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 62.5 percent of a car needed to originate within NAFTA countries. In the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, it was lowered to 50 percent. It further dropped to 35 percent in the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). In essence, under our agreement with Korea, 65 percent of a car from South Korea could be made from Chinese parts and still qualify for duty-free treatment when exported to the U.S.
Under the current circumstances, Wessel says no to fast-track legislation that would authorize the president to finish negotiations and allow Congress only an up or down vote on the whole TPP agreement with no amendments allowed. If signed, that deal would be the biggest trade pact of its type. And yet in the Senate, which should be looking out for the interests of rank-and-file Americans, not just business interests, a majority clearly favors giving the president this authority.
Join us in signing and sending a petition urging House members not to approve fast-track legislation for a bad trade deal.
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Tasini has a post on this same subject here.