For a man who campaigned on promises of unprecedented executive transparency, President Obama seems inordinately fond of making laws in secret. A couple of months ago he kept his Net Neutrality plan hidden from public view until after the FCC commissioners had enacted it (by a single vote), and now he’s doing the same thing with his proposed trans-Pacific trade agreement.
It is one thing to conceal troop movements in wartime behind a veil of secrecy, but quite another to conduct the normal, peacetime business of the Republic in this way, and I find the lack of popular indignation at this man’s insolent disregard for the consent of the governed deeply dispiriting. You’d think that things like this would remind us all of what the tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with, but I suppose if so you’d be remembering a more virile and vigorous America, and not the one that long ago settled into a paunchy and infantile senescence.
Well, at least we have Senator Jeff Sessions. Unlike the flaccid GOP leadership — especially Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is now Theoden to Obama’s Saruman — Senator Sessions has made an impressive flourish of intact vertebrae with a letter to the President demanding that any proposed trade agreement should, as God and The Framers surely intended, be put before the people and their representatives for free and open debate.
You can read the thing here. (I note with interest the word ‘enormity’.)
19 Comments
(I admired you Malcolm erm … ‘inserting’ the word “flaccid” referencing the GOP leadership.
http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/2007/08/finding-myself-lost-in-translation.html
You’re well on the way to at least, “Honorary Hillbilly of Arts Language BS.)
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And while generally speaking, finding myself nauseous whenever I encounter the nowadays eponymic Trigger Warning I think I could live quite easily with any mention of Mitch McConnell being so prefaced.
Senator Sessions’ letter is very pointed and well done. It is also very much over the head of the general public who may not even know much about the deal. I think some of the provisions mentioned might be alarming to some, especially the Nucor executive and people like him.
Aren’t most of these multi nation deals secret out of necessity? Each country gets something special and none need to know what is allowed for some but not all.
I have always thought that trade deals all boiled down to one thing–how much country X gets in the way of access to our market vs how little the US gets to the market of X.
Besides, if Obama agreed in writing to the principles within the letter, his agreement to them or anything else has proven to be worthless.
Any joint of “inserting” and “flaccid” is surely admirable, and most likely lucrative.
Henry, and shows a great deal of determination on the part of “he who is determined”.
Megan McArdle explains why you and Elizabeth Warren are wrong (paragraphs two through four):
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-13/obama-critics-accusation-of-sexism-doesn-t-stick
Peter, I’m sorry, but I am not persuaded that there is any good reason why the terms of a possible deal can’t be made public in advance. Wouldn’t putting together a proposal that is already known to be acceptable to the public and their representatives be better than wasting everybody’s time with a secret “take it or leave it” deal that is as likely as not to be shot down once revealed because it cannot be modified?
It may vex other nations that we live in a quasi-democratic, nominally Constitutional republic, and not a monarchy, but there it is. (I’ll confess that the more I read of history, the more it’s beginning to vex me, too.)
FDR did not make his negotiations with Churchill and Stalin public knowledge until after the Yalta conference – and did not seek Congressional approval for their agreement. Ditto for Reagan’s negotiations with Gorbachev and Bush’s negotiations to end our involvement in Iraq. Numerous administrations have reached nuclear agreements with the Soviet Union without making the deliberations part of the public record (which, unlike Yalta, Reykjavik. and Iraq did require Senate approval).
Secrecy is a necessary element of negotiation with foreign powers for trade and nuclear accords. As McArdle notes, once the deal is reached, Congress and the public has as much time as they need to debate and review it before it is passed or voted down.
Then why seek the fig leaf from Congress at all?
Also, this doesn’t have the urgency of wartime (Cold or otherwise) negotiations; it’s just a peacetime trade deal that we ought to take our time to get right. Why not let the people’s representatives in Congress play a more active role in shaping it, rather than just giving them veto power?
Because the Senate has to approve treaties, and the trade deal qualifies as a treaty.
If you were to ask why Yalta or Bush’s agreement with Iraq are not defined as treaties requiring Senate approval: I don’t know. My point is simply that there is nothing unusual about negotiating with foreign governments in secret, as opacity is often a necessity.
Again, when it comes to wartime negotiations, I agree; I think that the argument is significantly weakened, though, when it comes to a simple trade agreement like this. Any opacity is lost anyway as soon as the terms would come back to Congress after the deal is struck.
Also, I think it is fair to ask: if a simple trade deal qualifies as a “treaty” requiring Senate consent, why the hell doesn’t the same apply to nuclear negotiations with our existential enemy, Iran?
I think what many object to here is not just the secrecy, but the degree to which what is supposed to be a coequal branch of government (now in control, supposedly, of an opposition party!), nevertheless habitually abdicates its Constitutional power in response to executive caprice.
Satan works is best in the darkness. Our black messiah has brought us to the lips of Moloch: our children burn in the actual holocaust, to assuage the chosen. Take up your Christian Swords; drive out those who have led a Christian Nation to deny Jesus, and our faith. Else burn in hell. Oh- if you believe paying any attention to what is/has happened back in Sodom and Gommarah land has/will change it, please. Look away, and start looking for ammunition.
Also, when I wrote “fig leaf” above, I was referring to the “fast track” legislation, not Senate ratification.
Actually, if we are really going to look at this more closely, the distinction between trade agreements and treaties is an interesting topic in itself. Trade agreements are generally not considered treaties, and so are not subject to the two-thirds approval of the Senate.
Because they involve tariffs, and so become economic bills, they should, it seems, be Constitutionally required to originate in the House. This whole ‘fast-track’ business, although it’s been done for a while now, is arguably unconstitutional, in that Congress is forbidden to delegate its legislative power.
1) “Why not let the people’s representatives in Congress play a more active role in shaping it?”
I don’t have any personal experience in negotiating international trade deals, but I think this answers your question:
Trade deals are complex and difficult enough without those in Congress insisting that they include provisions which reflect their parochial concerns. For example, we protect domestic rice producers with tariffs. Other countries protect their domestic auto industries with punitive tariffs on American cars. Let’s suppose that the deal eliminates both sets of tariffs, which ends artificial government support and allows the free market to work. The Congressman from Louisiana who gets campaign contributions from rice growers would do everything he could to block the deal.
(I am very much in favor of free trade, as international commerce is not a zero sum game. The pie gets larger as trade is not distorted by government intervention. I think that Elizabeth Warren, and her embrace of mercantilism, is as wrong as wrong can be.)
It’s the same principle as bills which close military bases, which are also on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The Pentagon decides which bases are superfluous, and comes up with a list of closures. A more open process would allow those in Congress who represent districts with bases to be closed to block the bill — especially in the Senate, where a single Senator can be a huge obstacle. As a member of the Church of What Works, I think that this streamlined approach is necessary to actually getting something done.
2) I think the answer to your question about Iran is that there is no actual treaty involved. If the five countries reach an agreement with Iran, the result will not be a document to be signed by the various countries, but rather the five countries will vote affirmatively for a UN resolution terminating the sanctions.
I have mixed, and generally very negative, feelings about free-trade agreements. In recent American history they have led to exploding trade deficits and have cost millions of manufacturing jobs, because we simply cannot compete with the low cost of business and labor in the developing world. (The upside is cheap consumer goods, and rising standards of living in faraway nations.)
By the way, we are all members of the “Church of What Works”. It’s just a question of what one wants done. Presenting himself as nothing more than a non-ideological pragmatist is a pet conceit of Barack Obama’s, and I find it enormously irritating. (It is also glaringly, obviously false.)
None of us, however much some of us may wish to flatter ourselves to the contrary, is without a guiding ideology. It’s just that we tend not to see (or prefer not to see) the water we swim in.
As the last President noted, “…it’s nothing but a piece of paper.” And so we now believe.
President Bush did not say that about the Constitution.
http://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-goddamned-piece-of-paper/