I Think I've Figured Out Why 'Even Democratic Presidents Love Trade Deals'

     It came to me while reading Yglesias: of course they do as it increases their power. Even if the Dems in Congress are suspicious of fast track authority, a Democratic President will feel otherwise as it increases executive power. Yglesias argues that this is the President''s right, that whatever you make of the TPP, on general terms, there should be fast track authority. It's also important to realize that the President vs. foreign heads of state is at a disadvantage on trade deals as we have this wonderful system with separation of powers...

     "The case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership strikes me as fairly weak (though of course it is hard to know for sure until a full text is available) but on the main legislative fight happening right now, I think the correct conclusion is pretty clear and TPP critics are in the wrong — the Obama administration deserves its fast track authority, something the Clinton and Bush administration's had and something that isn't tied specifically to the details of TPP or any other trade deal."

    "Essentially nobody in Washington is currently willing to regard the fast track vote as anything other than a proxy vote on the merits of the underlying agreement, meaning that the two debates have gotten mushed together and blended. But the question of fast track authority is legally and conceptually distinct from approving the TPP. It is worth analyzing separately. And since unlike TPP we actually know — specifically, finally, and in-detail — what fast track does, it makes more sense to debate it now."

     The way fast track or Trade Promotion Authority works is this. Congress grants the executive branch the authority to conduct negotiations over multilateral economic pacts with other countries. It then stipulates that any such agreements reached will be submitted to congress for an up-and-down vote, rather than put through the usual legislative wringer or made to be ratified as treaties.

     Unless you think there is no international economic agreement of any kind that is worth negotiating, this is a sensible process.

     "Treating an international agreement as an ordinary piece of legislation that goes through the committee markup and amendment process would be impossible. When the president signs a deal with fellow heads of government, he can't come back three months later and say "sorry guys, Congress changed the deal."

      "For most countries this isn't a huge practical issue since they're either dictatorships or else are parliamentary systems without a US-style separation of powers. But for an American administration to finalize a complicated economic deal, it needs fast track authority."

     http://www.vox.com/2015/5/23/8644327/case-for-fast-track

     It makes sense to me-why is Obama being denied the authority that Bush and Clinton had? To be sure, it''s hard to abstract fast track authority from the specific deal as that is what it's going to be used for. 

    As for TPP itself, it''s hard to say whether it's a good or bad deal as we don't know much about it; that few details have been released might make you more suspicious that it's a bad deal, of course. 

    As he notes, a big failure of the advocates of TPP is arguing for it based on generic trade arguments-'Trade is good because it gives us more products to buy at lower prices...'

   There have been some very bad arguments made that stay totally at the level of what standard Neoclassical theory says trade does for us:

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/on-tpp-investors-business-daily-not.html

    Yglesias argues that on the question of fast track authority itself, the general issue of trade matters:

   "It would be nice to get more real sugar (as opposed to high fructose corn syrup) in American products, and to do it we would need to open our markets to Latin American sugar. It would also be nice to see US auto companies have a real practical ability to sell cars in Japan. Making it possible for Americans to buy cheaper clothing is a good idea, and the world of international trading in services has really only begun to open up.

   "To take a concrete example, in parallel to the TPP talks — but slower — the United States is trying to negotiate some kind of free trade arrangement with the European Union. At this point, nobody really has any idea what these Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks will result in, but it's clearly an idea with real promise. Europe is a large and prosperous market that already shares deep cultural and diplomatic ties with the United States. It's also a continent that takes labor rights and environmental regulations at least as seriously as we do."

    "Of course, a US-Europe free trade deal could also have negative consequences. Wall Street would like to use it as a vehicle to undermine financial regulation. Pharmaceutical companies are always making mischief in the trade process."

     "But it's worth actually seeing what can be negotiated. The gains from things like letting the exact same cars that are considered safe enough to drive in Denmark be considered safe enough to drive in Detroit (and vice versa) could be really big. It would be a shame to let some generic notion that "trade deals" are bad scuttle the process before it starts."

    The proponents of TPP probably would do better to offer up specifics like he offers on Europe rather than theoretical generalities because it seems that an impression of trade deals today is they don't have the benefits they once did-that the low hanging fruit for trade was already plucked after WWII when most tariffs were sharply lowered. 

    I think among many liberals the assumption now is that trade deals are mostly about scuttling regulation and the minimum wage-the famous 'race to the bottom.'

    I also agree with him that it would be better to kill a specific trade deal after it's finished with a straight up and down vote than for it to be stillborn at the Trade Promotion Authority level. 

    At this point I think I'm leaning towards a yes vote-it can always be voted down later. In trade agreements it's already more difficult for us than other countries as any deal is subject to separation of powers.