Broad coalition rallies to defeat Obama on trade deal
Internet freedom activists, environmentalist, and nuns join the push to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership
“This particular agreement is likely to be the last multilateral trade agreement in a generation”
BILL SAMUEL AFL-CIO director of government affairs
Twenty years ago, when President Bill Clinton was urging Congress to enact sweeping trade legislation over objections of important constituents in his own party, the face of the opposition were the middleaged (and beyond) white, male leaders of the AFL- CIO. For President Barack Obama, the dynamic may feel the same-trying to find enough Democrats to help Republicans pass a trade deal-but the coalition is a lot broader. In addition to labour, the president is being opposed by teachers, seniors, internet freedom groups, and Sister Simone Campbell.
Once the Senate approves fast track trade negotiating authority for Obama, which could happen as early as this week, the battle will move to the House, where it expected to unleash a major lobbying battle. On the oneside, a president who is more engaged in legislative trench warfare than he has been in a long time over legislation that would give him authority to establish the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “This is personal for him,” Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, a member of the Democratic House leadership, told Bloomberg reporters and editors.
On the other: a coalition of opponents that is far more diverse than the one that tried unsuccessfully to torpedo Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, the first of several trade pacts struck since the 1990s that critics say have cost US jobs and depressed wages.
The newcomers to the fight say they are there because they have seen the results of the earlier trade agreements and now know better. “NAFTA really caught a number of folks off guard,” said Laura Peralta-Schulte, a lobbyist for NETWORK, Sister Simone’s national Catholic social justice lobby. Sister Simone became a national figure in 2012, when her Nuns on the Bus campaign opposed the House Republican budget.
Now, she’s fighting the White House, part of a faith coalition that includes 47 different organisations opposed to the trade deal, according to Peralta-Schulte. She cited concerns over the secrecy of trade negotiations and the impact on marginalised communities, including populations in Malaysia targeted by human traffickers. “The assumption is you have a trade agreement and something magically lifts standards, but as we’ve seen in other countries like Colombia, that’s not the case,” she said.
Unions remain a backbone of the opposition to the TPP. The United Steelworkers and United Auto Workers unions are among those who’ve organised plant demonstrations, and the UAW is mobili-sing retired auto workers. The AFL-CIO has been leafletting, including in the states and districts of lawmakers like those of Senator Ron Wyden, the chief Democratic negotiator on trade.
“This particular agreement is likely to be the last multilateral trade agreement in a generation,” and it “does nothing really more on labour and the environment than previous agreements,’” said Bill Samuel, AFL- CIO director of government affairs.
This time around, however, labour is now joined by a disparate-yet politically formidable-coalition.
Among the most active groups are environmental advocacy organisations like the Sierra Club, which made more than $1.6 million in contributions to congressional candidates during 2014, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, and last year spent some $360,000 lobbying Congress. The group has held rallies and phone banks and is running online and radio ads.
It says expanded trade opens the door to more hydraulic fracturing and other practices that harm the environment. The Pacific agreement would also allow foreign corporations to sue countries whose policies they believe undercut profits, mainly oil and gas companies targeting environmental regulations.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organisation concerned about free speech and internet copyright provisions threatening users’ rights, says its 22,000 members have been e-mailing and tweeting at their representatives. EEF has had success with such campaigns before: It was one of the organisations that helped bring down the Stop Online Piracy Act despite bipartisan support for the bill designed to crack down on violation of intellectual property rights.
Meantime some seniors are worried about the effects of more open markets on drug pricing that could increase their costs. “Foreign corporations or subsidiaries will be able to challenge a number of public programs,” including those providing Medicare drug discounts, the Alliance for Retired Americans said in a May 12 letter to the House and Senate.
In addition, a group called Food & Water Watch, which is concerned that the agreement will result in increased fracking and what it perceives as a negative impact on local farms, has sent 82,907 messages to Congress and held at least 15 lobbying visits including rallies and press events.