Obama blasts Warren on TPP

[Bacon King]

I understand that in-progress negotiations can't really be public knowledge, but I really dislike the idea of Congress preemptively waiving substantive debate on something before it's finalized and released to the public

[Bacon King]

I agree entirely with Nix. The only defenses I've seen of TPP are simple straw-man attacks against protectionism that don't even acknowledge the legitimate concerns specific to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. I'd be much more amenable to an actual free trade agreement that simply removes tariffs and such. I am very wary, however, of expanded intellectual property restrictions, the serious potential for bias inherent to the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, and the lack of safeguards against currency manipulation by treaty members. Many people have other specific concerns as well but I'm not familiar enough with the details to comment on those.

The only responses my concerns have ever gotten have been little more than canned arguments about how bad trade barriers are. I believe most opponents to the TPP have substantial and specific concerns like these, and if the treaty's proponents can't offer substantial reassurances about the treaty's details then I think it will have a surprisingly difficult time passing Congress.

[Bacon King]

Wyden is the leader of the "pro trade" Democrats and he wants a bunch of other bills advanced at the same time. This is just round 1.

Yup, anyone know the bills he wants pushed at the same time?

It's a package of four bills, which include things like:

• better assistance for workers who lose their jobs due to foreign trade
• a TPP enforcement provision to combat stuff like child labor and currency manipulation among other TPP members
• trade preferences for sub-Saharan Africa
• aid to domestic steel and solar manufacturers

I couldn't find any actual bill summaries, just laundry lists of things that the four bills collectively have, so this isn't necessarily how those things are split among the bills by topic