The President's trade agenda hangs from a threat thanks to his own party throwing him under the bus. He could still get FTA but it will have to be via Conference between the House and Senate.
"The House sidetracked a high-profile White House-backed trade bill on Friday, a humiliating defeat for President Barack Obama inflicted by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and dozens of rank-and-file lawmakers from his own party."
"The 302-126 vote came a few hours after Obama journeyed to the Capitol to deliver a last-minute personal plea to fellow Democrats to support the measure, which would allow him to negotiate global trade deals that Congresscould approve or reject but not change."
"I don't think you ever nail anything down around here. It's always moving," the president said as he departed — a prescient remark given Pelosi's dramatic announcement later on the House floor.
"Slow down the fast track to get a better deal for the America people," the California lawmaker said in a speech that drew handshakes and hugs from union-backed Democrats who have labored for months to reject Obama's request for "fast track" authority in trade talks.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/obama-trade-deal-pelosi-dems-abandon
I feel like Pelosi's comment misses the way trade deals work. Her call to 'slow down' kind of sounds like the GOP on healthcare or something. There is this rather phony argument put out by Elizabeth Warren and others that this deal is bad because it's been done in secret which obscures that this is how trade deals are done. I mean there are many other countries with other governments at the table.
You can't give a finished product in the middle of negotiations. I still don't get why if this is as bad a deal as many liberal activists claim Democrats can't vote it down on a straight up or down vote. Is there fear that it can garner 50 votes in the Senate but not 60? I don't get the scorched earth opposition.
In a larger sense though I do get it. Democratic Presidents can't win on trade deals. Their party is the much more skeptical party on trade deals. Any GOP President with enough of his party in Congress will get FTA but a Democratic one is SOL because you'll always get a certain percentage of GOPers who will vote against him just because he's a Democrat while his own party in Congress will cut him off at the knees.
"After a pair of dramatic votes in the House left President Obama's trade agenda dangling by a thread on Friday, most of the attention turned to Democrats: They had bucked their president in big numbers, despite a last-minute, in-person appeal."
"The House sidetracked a high-profile White House-backed trade bill on Friday, a humiliating defeat for President Barack Obama inflicted by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and dozens of rank-and-file lawmakers from his own party."
"The 302-126 vote came a few hours after Obama journeyed to the Capitol to deliver a last-minute personal plea to fellow Democrats to support the measure, which would allow him to negotiate global trade deals that Congresscould approve or reject but not change."
"I don't think you ever nail anything down around here. It's always moving," the president said as he departed — a prescient remark given Pelosi's dramatic announcement later on the House floor.
"Slow down the fast track to get a better deal for the America people," the California lawmaker said in a speech that drew handshakes and hugs from union-backed Democrats who have labored for months to reject Obama's request for "fast track" authority in trade talks.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/obama-trade-deal-pelosi-dems-abandon
I feel like Pelosi's comment misses the way trade deals work. Her call to 'slow down' kind of sounds like the GOP on healthcare or something. There is this rather phony argument put out by Elizabeth Warren and others that this deal is bad because it's been done in secret which obscures that this is how trade deals are done. I mean there are many other countries with other governments at the table.
You can't give a finished product in the middle of negotiations. I still don't get why if this is as bad a deal as many liberal activists claim Democrats can't vote it down on a straight up or down vote. Is there fear that it can garner 50 votes in the Senate but not 60? I don't get the scorched earth opposition.
In a larger sense though I do get it. Democratic Presidents can't win on trade deals. Their party is the much more skeptical party on trade deals. Any GOP President with enough of his party in Congress will get FTA but a Democratic one is SOL because you'll always get a certain percentage of GOPers who will vote against him just because he's a Democrat while his own party in Congress will cut him off at the knees.
"After a pair of dramatic votes in the House left President Obama's trade agenda dangling by a thread on Friday, most of the attention turned to Democrats: They had bucked their president in big numbers, despite a last-minute, in-person appeal."
"That's true. It is also not very surprising, in the context of recent history. The bigger historical surprise was how many Republicans opposed a landmark bill on free trade."
"About three-quarters of the House GOP sided with Obama on so-called "fast track" trade promotion authority. You have to go back to a pair of votes under Bill Clinton -- NAFTA in 1993 and a failed fast-track push in 1998 -- to find the last time such a small share of Republicans supported a major trade bill."
"Two-fifths of House Democrats backed Clinton on NAFTA. That's the high-water mark for the party's support for major trade deals in the House in the last two decades. When only 15 percent of House Dems backed Obama on Friday, they weren't on the low or high end of that historical spectrum. They were about in the middle,"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/12/who-obama-needs-most-to-win-on-trade-now/
In my opinion, the Dems should at least get him his FTA. If they want to vote down TFF later, there's nothing wrong with that.
Still at the end of the day, this isn't surprising. The dynamics of trade authority and trade deals is that
1. Democrats are much more skeptical of them while GOPers are all for them
2. However all Presidents want trade authority even Democratic ones. Basically it''s more authority for them and they feel silly when every other country's Head of State is able to negotiate but Congress hamstrings them
3. However, Democrats in Congress hate them and they are under a lot of pressure form unions to Just Say No on any kind of trade deal down the line. The opposition is basically categorical.
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