Brexit, TPP and the Year of the Woman

It looks like 2016 may be the real year of the woman.

“Support for Theresa May is surging among Conservative MPs, with almost 100 now backing her bid to become party leader as Michael Gove’s late entry into the race struggled to gain momentum.”

“His allies admitted it had been a bumpy start, with only a handful of MPs turning up for his opening speech compared with dozens a day earlier in support of May. Gove is estimated to have the public support of 20 MPs.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/01/support-for-theresa-may-as-tory-party-leader-surges-as-gove-campaign-struggles

When people discuss the virtues of Theresa May they sound very similar to Hillary's. Someone with experience, someone competent, highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and yes, someone safe.

We need safe and boring right now.

Exciting leadership is rarely a good thing.

I don't consider a smart pragmatist who gets things done-or in May's case, prevents her country from destroying itself-boring anyway. But some evidently do.

To me surviving, and becoming a functioning country again is exciting. I also count not catching Ricketts as exciting. Others find catching it more exciting, what can I say?

Here is British paper, the Independent, on Theresa May:

"Boring and competent Theresa May is what the nation needs after the shock of the Brexit vote."

"With all the space in British politics opening up before her, a lesser politician might have stumbled – but she strode to the lectern and declared that everything as far as the eye could see was hers."

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/boring-and-competent-theresa-may-is-what-the-nation-needs-after-the-shock-of-the-brexit-vote-a7114531.html

Here she makes a very Hillary Clinton like statement:

She said who she was: “I know I’m not a showy politician. I don’t tour the television studios. I don’t gossip about people over lunch. I don’t go drinking in Parliament’s bars. I don’t often wear my heart on my sleeve. I just get on with the job in front of me.”

Actually, I could take this whole year of the woman further.

Angela Merkel is a very important player now on the world stage-Germany is now more important than the UK for American foreign policy-and Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland is doing a great job.

She is already talking about Scottish Independence again.

It's the female leaders who don't want to blow up the system. That's why in 2016, the best man for the job is a woman in so many places.

Why is this the case? Maybe too many male politicians are too cavalier about blowing things up for their own short term political gain-Ted Cruz, Boris Johnson, etc.

But I also got to thinking. Both Hillary and Teresa May will face some really tough challenges if they win right away.

1. May, especially as she has to figure out how to put her country back together again. She is a Remainer and doesn't want Brexit. But she has also seemed to take away her wiggle room by declaring categorically that Britain has chosen Brexit and there can be no overturning by Parliament or another referendum.

If this is so are her hands tied? Does she have to go forward? Or does she find wriggle room somewhere? A good politician always needs to find the wriggle room.

2. Ditto Hillary in the US with TPP. It's not quite as dangerous an issue as Brexit. But clearly every effort has been made to box her in on ripping up TPP root and branch her first day in office.

Cleary this is not what President Obama wants. He and Bernie reportedly butted heads at their meeting the day after the primary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/29/obama-and-sanders-battle-over-tpp-and-the-democratic-platform/

In her heart, I believe she still supports TPP. There has been such a campaign of fear over it, but it's totally overdone. Taking on Vietnam and Laos as trading partners won't destroy the US economy nor are most US companies going to move to Vietnam now.

"We can and should have a moratorium on trade agreements. The process by which they’re negotiated is undemocratic, they uplift investor rights over sovereign rights, they reverse the order in which certain challenges should be tackled, and they fail to deal with currency issues."

"But globalization cannot nor should not be stopped."

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/1/12080974/trump-free-trade-proposal

I added just that first sentence of Jared Bernstein's next paragraph to point out that he seems to contradict himself.

He says we nee a moratorium on trade agreements but that globalization cannot and should not be stopped.

In any case, note that he doesn't criticize TPP substantively but aesthetically-in terms of process.

It's so undemocratic.

Here's the trouble. As it is, the President has to beg Congress to even negotiate a trade deal while all the other countries of the world just do it. Now, in addition we're supposed to handcuff him even further?

Theres no way you can negotiate with trading partners and negotiate it on social media at the same time.

Donald Trump says he wants fair trade. That's what Bernie said too. Thats what everyone says: I'm not anti trade just anti unfair trade.

Bill Clinton said that when negotiating NAFTA as well. The real trouble is, though, is that what's sounds more fair to us is less fair to trading partners.

For instance: what constitutes manipulating your currency? Was QE an attempt to manipulate ours?

If we want to put more conditions on us, then other countries will put more on us.

Anyway, I don't know how Hillary wiggles around this issue. The obvious thing is for Obama to pass it in the lame duck. But presumably Hillary is supposed to swoop and stop them.

Even a strong Hillary supporter like Barney Frank tied her hands when he was on CNBC when he declared that TPP can't be passed in the lame duck.

Yet this deal is much more about geopolitics than economics. The reason Obama wants it is because it's an important part of his Pivot to Asia. Of getting closer to South East Asian countries as a buffer against China.