[Peace-discuss] My take on Hillary and the TTP

[Robert Naiman]

To say that Trump has "unequivocally" come out against anything seems to me
a deep abuse of the word "unequivocally." A defining feature of his
candidacy is his willingness to contradict himself, on issue after issue,
over and over, sometimes within the same sentence.

I think that one should choose between opposing the TPP and saying that if
we defeat it, it won't make any difference. If the latter is true, why
bother with the former?



Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> Robert
>
>
> First, my apology for using the acronym TTP when it should be TPP. I have
> a problem with acronyms, too many to remember over a lifetime.
>
>
> You're quite right, that is not " what Stiglitz said on Democracy Now". I
> was working from memory and thus my interpretation took over. When
> Stiglitz referred to "it will be renegotiated" while it was  Virginia
> Governor Terry McAuliffe told Politico, this week, that he believes Hillary
> Clinton would support the TPP if she were elected president, but that she
> wants to make changes.
>
>
> The trade agreement will be one of the main economic issues the incoming
> president will have to make. Either way, Stiglitz a brilliant economist,
> with good intentions, appears naïve in respect to politics. He refers to
> "renegotiation" of Nafta and "renegotiation" of the TPP. "Renegotiation" is
> the word he uses and fits in with my assessment as to what we can expect of
> the changes she will make.
>
>
> A repackaging, rebranding, of the TPP, and even if we did away with Nafta
> the damage is already done, and of course not an option. It is afterall
> about control and profit for the corporations. The TPP includes 12 nations
> within the Pacific Rim, where we have our war ships provoking tensions in
> the South China Sea. It's about negating trade deals already in place
> amongst the Southeast Asian nations with China, its a financial
> stranglehold along with a military stranglehold.
>
>
> Not one of the democrats is talking about that, because that is the
> democratic plan, its the neocon and the neoliberal plan, and it will
> proceed no matter what Hillary wants, but her previous reference to the TPP
> as the "gold standard" of trade deals speaks volumes as to her intentions.
>
>
> Though not a supporter of Donald Trump, at least he has unequivocally come
> out against the TPP as well as Nato.
>
>
> Only Jill Stein has been stable and solid on issues of such  importance.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* naiman.uiuc at gmail.com <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com> on behalf of Robert
> Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
> *Sent:* Friday, July 29, 2016 9:06:16 AM
> *To:* Karen Aram
> *Cc:* Peace Discuss; Peace-discuss List
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] My take on Hillary and the TTP
>
> That's not what Stiglitz said on Democracy Now.
>
> http://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/28/will_hillary_clinton_flip_flop_again
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* It’s great to have you with us. So, you know, I was there
> on the convention floor yesterday, each day, hundreds of anti-TPP signs.
> You advise Hillary Clinton. What is her position on the TPP?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* She’s against it. And she’s against bringing it up to
> a vote in the lame-duck session, which was allegedly part of the Obama
> strategy, you know, that they’re not going to present it to Congress until
> they—the idea was not to do it until the lame-duck. Everybody has come out
> against the lame-duck. And so, I think it’s dead for Obama’s administration.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* And what will that mean for the next president?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* I think it makes it very clear that if there is ever
> to be a TPP, it has to be totally renegotiated. And the interesting thing
> is, I’ve talked to some of our trading partners, they would welcome that.
> Some of the worst provisions in there were not because our partners
> demanded it, it was because we demanded it. When I say "we," it was the
> corporate interests that, unfortunately, were represented in the
> negotiations, not we the American people. And, you know, to me, I was an
> early opponent of TPP. And it’s so heartwarming to see that an issue that I
> thought would never get raised—you know, I thought it—and I think the Obama
> strategy was to try to push it through when nobody was looking—to see that
> it’s now become a mainstream issue. So, to me, this is a real victory for
> democracy.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* Now, you said you were an early opponent. The person you
> advise, Hillary Clinton, was not an early opponent. She said it was the
> gold standard, I think was her term, for trade agreements. She has been
> immensely pressured by, I think, what has shocked the Clinton juggernaut,
> and that is the tremendous popularity of Bernie Sanders, even if he doesn’t
> have much corporate media amplification of his views, like Donald Trump
> does, and she saw she had to change. I mean, you see it on the floor every
> single day of the convention.
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Yeah, I think that’s right, but it’s more than that. I
> mean, as people started looking at what actually emerged from the
> negotiations—remember, it was all secret. What we—all we could only figure
> out was what was coming out of leaks, which turned out to be remarkably
> accurate. You know, the leaks often do provide some information that, for
> good reason, the Obama administration didn’t want. And as others have
> looked at that agreement—even the U.S. government did an estimate of what
> would be the trade benefit. You know, how would—what would be the benefit
> to GDP? Negligible. Outside studies, like at Tufts University, said it
> would actually decrease our GDP. So, the benefits, as the agreement has
> become out in the open, have clearly—have been seen clearly negative. And
> the cost—you mentioned, you know, the cost in terms of access to drugs,
> pricing of drugs. And, to me, the most important aspect, the dampener on
> regulation, what is called the ISDSprovision, the investment agreement,
> that’s the provision that Elizabeth Warren has really nailed the TPP on,
> and she’s absolutely right.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* So, what makes you so sure what Hillary Clinton’s stance
> is? She chooses her running mate, Timothy Kaine. And Tim Kaine, the senator
> of Virginia, I think as early—as late as Thursday, was hailing the TPP, but
> then chosen, given the climate, you know, says he is against it. You have
> McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, extremely close to the Clintons, who
> says she’s for it. What do you know that he doesn’t know?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Well, I think part of this is that the Democratic
> platform, which is a commitment of the Democratic Party, came out with a
> set of principles that any trade agreement, current or past, has to satisfy
> it. And if you look at those principles, the TPP, in its current form,
> doesn’t satisfy it. NAFTA doesn’t satisfy it. So, to me, although they
> didn’t make it explicit—
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* But, I mean, that was—a lot of especially the Bernie
> delegates on that platform committee pushed hard for no TPP, and Clinton
> campaign pushed very hard back, and she won.
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Yeah. But, to me, my understanding of that was they
> didn’t want to embarrass President Obama. But you read those principles,
> what a trade agreement has to satisfy, and it’s pretty obvious
> that TPP doesn’t satisfy it, NAFTAdoesn’t satisfy it. So, my
> interpretation, it’s a commitment of Hillary, the next Democratic
> administration, to renegotiate NAFTA and to renegotiate TPP. The
> interesting thing is, again, I’ve talked to some of our trade partners
> in NAFTA, in TPP, and they would welcome that. So, it’s an open door.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* What does Hillary Clinton say privately to you?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Well, I haven’t talked to her particularly on this,
> but I have talked to the policy team on it, and I think they are very aware
> why there’s such hostility, where TPP went wrong. And that, I think, was a
> wake-up call. You know, there was this sort of ideology that was very
> strong—you know, trade is what promotes growth, we’re in favor of growth,
> we want to create jobs, you know, all that. And now that you actually see
> the agreement and you look at what the studies say, there’s no GDPcoming
> out of this.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* What does Clinton’s selection of Kaine tell you?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Well, I think it’s—she’s looking for somebody that
> gives her credibility with the middle. And she was trying to make a
> political judgment about what was the best way to win the election,
> because, let me say, I believe unambiguously there’s one big issue here.
> The damage that Trump would inflict in our society, if he were elected, is
> enormous.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* How?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Anywhere from racism to his economic policies. So, to
> me, there’s no choice. You know, it is really imperative that the
> Democratic—you know, Hillary wins. And then, if I were in a position, the
> question is: What is the best vice president to win, consistent with my
> values? You know, and the vice—
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* Would Tim Kaine have been your pick?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* There are some other candidates that I would have
> looked at. There’s one other feature that, you know, when I—when you start
> doing the calculations, some of the best candidates are senators from
> states where there’s a Republican governor. And if you appoint the
> Democratic senator, the Republican governor can put a next senator in line.
> And holding the Senate for the Democrats is extraordinarily important,
> important for the Supreme Court, one of the really big issues our country
> faces. So, I guess what I would say is, these are very complicated
> trade-offs, judgments. You know, the good thing is that in Virginia, I
> think Kaine will be replaced by another Democratic senator, so that won’t
> have that negative effect. A lot of the other—well, I’ve met with Kaine. I
> can understand why she would have a lot of confidence in him. And I do hope
> he will change his position on TPP. Obviously, if he’s going to support the
> Democratic platform, he has to change.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* Supported fast track, giving President Obama fast track
> for pushing through TPP.
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* I think that was a wrong position. But the fact that—
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* Also joining with a number of other senators in fighting
> regulations of large regional banks, this just in the last few weeks.
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* And again, the issue is, once you join on the
> Democratic platform, I think he’s committed to supporting the Democratic
> platform. And—
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* We’re talking to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe
> Stiglitz. We’ll be back with him in a minute.
>
> I want to ask about how Bernie Sanders has impacted Clinton’s economic
> policies, but turn first to President Obama, who mentioned the Vermont
> senator, the former presidential candidate, last night.
>
> *PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:* So, if you agree that there’s too much
> inequality in our economy and too much money in our politics, we all need
> to be as vocal and as organized and as persistent as Bernie Sanders’
> supporters have been during this election. We all need to get out and vote
> for Democrats up and down the ticket, and then hold them accountable until
> they get the job done. That’s right. Feel the Bern.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* Wow, so there you have President Obama saying "Feel the
> Bern," Joe Stiglitz. I think that’s something he certainly felt.
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* I think that’s right. And I think the movement, as
> actually Sanders has talked about it, is a very important movement, and
> holding those elected accountable. You know, the Sanders people did have an
> impact on the Democratic platform, absolutely. And now, we are going to
> have to hold accountable those people, including Hillary and Kaine. We’re
> going to have to hold them accountable, so that they actually push for that
> agenda.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* You advise Hillary Clinton. What is the best way to hold
> her accountable? Since you don’t agree on a number of issues, what does she
> respond to?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Well, I think, partly, she’s a policy wonk. And so,
> she does respond to arguments. And, you know, over the last couple years,
> I’ve been trying to make strong arguments about why TPP is bad, not only in
> terms of the trade issues, the GDP, but access to health, regulation. I’ve
> been trying to say it’s not an issue of just dealing with the shadow
> banking system. It’s not an issue of just dealing with the "too big to
> fail" banks, the too big to regulate, the too big—we’ve got to do both. So,
> it wasn’t—you know, Sanders took one position. Hillary took the other. My
> view has been, look, these banks have done so much damage to our economy,
> both in terms of the 2008 crisis, but also increasing inequality and
> changing the focus to a short-term perspective. And that’s one of the areas
> which she’s picked up very strongly in a couple very powerful speeches
> about the dangers of short-termism, the kinds of policy that have led to
> that kind of short-termism. You know, I laid out in a book that we did for
> the Roosevelt called *Rewriting the Rules*, showing how, beginning with
> the Reagan administration, we rewrote the rules of the American economy to
> promote inequality and short-termism, and what you have to—
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* What most damaged the U.S. economy, do you believe, and
> created, generated the most inequality?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* The single most important thing, probably, in—the most
> telling event was obviously the 2008 crisis, which is very linked to the
> financial sector. But one of the things that I’ve emphasized in my work and
> in *Rewriting the Rules* is that there’s no single measure. It’s
> accumulation of thing after thing after thing. It’s the failure to have
> inclusion, inclusion of African Americans, inclusion of women, because we
> are almost the only civilized society that doesn’t have family leave, that
> makes it more difficult for women to be in the labor force. That’s an
> important—you know, we don’t have a law that says you can’t discriminate in
> wages against women. That’s one of the things that Hillary has emphasized a
> lot. That both creates inequality and damages our economy.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* You—
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Education, access to education.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* You wrote a piece
> <http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/joseph-e-stiglitz-on-donald-trumps-biggest-vulnerability>
>  in *Vanity Fair* headlined "Donald Trump’s Biggest Vulnerability." What
> is it?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* What I emphasize there is the difficulty that he’s
> going to have of even getting good Republicans to serve, you know, creating
> the administration. It’s not just one person. I mean, he tries to say, and
> this is—Kaine gave a very powerful speech, and he said, "Believe me, I’ll
> do it." Government is not that way. And democratic government is
> particularly not that way. You need to have hundreds and hundreds of people
> implementing those policies. You know, you have different agencies. And we
> are different from other countries, where the president has to appoint not
> only the secretary, the deputy secretary, the undersecretary, the assistant
> secretary, the—you know, in many cases, the deputy assistant secretary.
> That’s a huge number of people. And getting—you know, take just in the area
> of economics, getting people who are good economists, who will work with
> Trump, is going to be extraordinarily difficult.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* Donald Trump has called for getting rid of the WTO, the
> World Trade Organization—certainly, activists on the ground, 1999, the
> Battle of Seattle, that’s what they were calling for—totally challenging
> the TPP. Mixed message coming out of the Democrats. Are you concerned about
> this? And do you think Donald Trump could win? I mean, the polls show,
> coming out at this point, he’s ahead.
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* He could win. And it’s not just the polls. Remember,
> Bush did not get a majority of votes; Gore got many more votes than Bush.
> But the way our electoral system works is that you can become the president
> even with a minority of votes. So, when we say could Trump be the
> president, he doesn’t even have to win the majority of votes. He could win
> in the Electoral College. So, yes, I am very worried. And one of the things
> that I’ve been writing recently is, he’s already done an enormous amount of
> damage to the United States.
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort said today, "Mr. Trump
> has said his taxes are under audit, and he will not be releasing them." Why
> does that matter, Joe Stiglitz?
>
> *JOSEPH STIGLITZ:* Oh, it matters because there is a good reason why we
> suspect that he has not been honest about either where his wealth is, what
> his charitable contributions is, or that he’s paid a fair share of his
> taxes. Now, even if they’re under audit, he can release the taxes that he
> claims. You know, the IRS may say, "You’re wrong," but you can still say,
> "This is what I believed my income was. This is what I believed the taxes
> that I should have paid." And that will tell an important message. You
> know, when Mitt Romney released his taxes and it became clear he was
> keeping his money in the Cayman Islands, not because, the Cayman Islands,
> money grows stronger in the sunshine in the Cayman Islands, but because
> there were other reasons, that told Americans a lot, that he was paying
> under 15 percent of his income. What his taxes were as a fraction of his
> income were much, much lower than a plumber or some other person who’s
> working for a living. Something was going on that Americans said was
> unfair. We would like to know, is Trump paying his fair share? You know,
> he’s engaged in bad practices in Trump University, stiffed his workers and
> all kinds of bad practice. We want to know, is he a good citizen? Is he
> paying his fair share of taxes? So I think it’s really important. And I
> think it’s really important that his vice president release his taxes, as
> well.
>
>
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> (202) 448-2898 x1
>
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 8:36 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>> Will Hillary support TTP? Seems to be a major policy question. Joseph
>> Stiglitz, a Nobel prize economist, "she probably will after making some
>> changes". I have no doubt she will support it, she will support it with
>> gusto, the same policies of the Obama administration, just as he did the
>> Bush administration before him. Yes, she will insist on changes, its called
>> USG plan B, or C or D. When you get push back, and can't get something
>> passed because it has been noted that its dangerous, cruel or without
>> merit, immoral or just wrong. You change the name, take out that which is
>> disturbing to others, rewrite it in order to disguise it, and then bury it
>> in reams of material so that its almost impossible to find. You know, the
>> way insurance policies have become, contracts, all the fine print on
>> everything warning us of the dangers that require a microscope to discover,
>> then you repackage it as a "positive" better or unrelated to the previous,
>> and of course always, always ignore the "negatives" it imposes. You know,
>> like the EU, Nafta, doing away with banking regulations, unions, etc.
>>
>>
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>
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