Transcripts For CSPAN The Communicators 20150427 : vimarsana

We will let reid wilson jump in. Guest that is the Labor Movement argument. Our standard of living goes down by other countries standard of living goes up. In fact, this doesnt change at all and arts go down anyway. And we lose manufacturing jobs. It is an interesting and difficult balancing act that the administration is trying to do. One of the points that he makes is that this is in fact negotiated and passed in a bipartisan manner by the president with both parties. Ronald reagan, bill clinton, george h. W. Bush, george w. Bush, they all passed a number of trade deals and now it is obama. Your perspective changes when youre going from capitol hill where you are one of 100 who gets to vote and essentially makes as much noise as possible without actually acting and being the executive where you actually want more authority and you want to act. Host the trade deal that seems to be hanging over this and you seem to be getting this in your piece on the Washington Post is nafta. Nafta was a failure and no more jobs killing trade deals. We were joined by a member of the leadership in the house on the democrat side and he talked about his experience with nafta. Heres a bit of what he had to say, regretting his support for nafta. [video clip] i would say that on the whole that im disappointed with what nafta has brought. We were told that it would help jobs in the country and it came nowhere near close. We have a scene of lot of dissolved businesses. We have seen a lot of American Workers in manufacturing businesses leave and go to mexico. I have a number of relatives in mexico who believe that nafta didnt benefit mexicans as they were told it would. We still have a lot of low skill, lowwage workers in mexico as well. There has certainly been a lot more commerce no doubt. The results of that commerce have not gone down the folks like we thought we go. Host a vote that you would regret . I do. I wish i demanded more. Sos of us who won the fight for american jobs, we would have signed agreements. A signed agreement that would protect the rights of workers. We were told that that find agreement is tantamount to having the agreement and the deal itself. I wanted to believe that. I believe the president when he told me he would do that in an effort about. Host reid wilson of the Washington Post. What is the cell that the Obama Administration estimate has to make to a congressman like him . Yes guest we have seen a different tact. He referred to china a number of times when he was talking in this roundtable a month ago. Roofs who are largely going to be supportive of the trade bill is this anyway. Last week though, he sat down with a large group of supporters organizing for america, a political winning an outgrowth of its 2008 in 2012 campaign. He talked about how important this was for American Workers and how good it was going to be, and by the way, he criticized a number of his opponents on the left, the people who are supposed to be his closest let allies allies, like msnbc or lisbeth worn, and he said the arguments were dishonest and not telling the truth about what was going on. It was a very different pitch to a little obvious been to a business obvious. He does not need any more support from them because he has got all he is going to get. On the other hand though, he needs to brought the criticism from the left. He knew as allies back in the full. He needs to get his allies back in the fold. One of the benefits of getting your allies back in the fold is not being dishonest. Its much more of a populist pitch and a proworker and promiddleclass engel than anything that we have heard before. Host more specifically on that topic from your colleague at the Washington Post, he had a piece in his deep read column saying, the president shifts his trade pitch if viewers want to look at that as well. You are an the line for democrats. Josie, good morning. Caller i have a question for mr. Wilson. If it were possible, what sunset phrase could be embedded in the law so for those of us who have supported president obama more confidence that he is that the vagueness in the tpp is going to balance our country . Guest part of the trade Promotion Authority is that the final deal by the way, it is important to receive remember that the actual deal itself has yet to be finalized. Theres still a long ways to go for that. Host any concerns about the closeddoor nature . Guest opponents of tpa are critical and the whole tpp speaking negotiated behind closed doors. The report to your point it would not allow congress to amend anything to change anything or to place any limits on the transpacific partnership. It would only get the option to vote in favor or against nafta. No other options. Host donnas on our line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. My question is this. Dig morris in one of his daily email blasts recently reported that the agreement will have a provision for the free mobility of labor among signatory countries, slumber to the kind of thing that exist within the european union. Id not heard that from anybody else and see that anywhere else. I wondered if you could tell us that is really correct. Guest i find it very hard to believe that that would be the case. Again, to remind everybody, the tpp is not finalized. We dont know a lot of the details about what is in it. That seems pretty extreme and i doubt that that would be a part of the final position. Provision. I feel like all the republican supporters of this would fall off the faster host even if it went through, they would get that upanddown vote. Guest as a matter of fact, there are couple of members who are actively trying to persuade their colleagues to vote in favor of tpa. Tom emmer, a freshman republican from minnesota as one of them. He has been circulating a letter asking them to sign on. There were a number who didnt. Some were asked why he didnt get all these sent signatures. He mentioned that a lot of people dont want to give president obama the authority. His argument to them was, wait a minute this is an act of accountability measure. If we pass the tpa, at least we get a vote on it. Congress would get to ratify a formal treaty anyway. In this case, they would get that vote. Tom emmers pitch was, wait a second, guys, this is a way to get some input on the bill. Host bob in michigan is next. Good morning. Caller mr. Wilson, we hear a lot about the u. S. And 12 or so other countries. Ask the expert, could you quickly name those other 12 countries that everybody listening knows what those other 12 countries are . Guest i was hoping that no one would ask that, bob. Japan is involved. I think it is cambodia, vietnam and thailand. I that point, i have got to stop by that point, i got to stop and let somebody pull up a really good map. Host United States, australia, brunei, chile, malaysia, mexico, new zealand, peru, and vietnam. Guest i got cambodia wrong, but the rest of them are in there. Host lets go to susan in massachusetts. Good morning. Caller that is interesting that peru is included in the tpp list of countries. I feel at the tpp like the tpp is redundant. Dont we already have existing trade partnerships and diplomatic treaties with other commercial relations with these countries . You mentioned earlier that one of the goals of the trade deal like the tpp are to prevent countries from going to war with each other. From a list of countries you just mentioned, theres no way that we would ever go to war with these countries. They are stable and upwardly mobile. They have emerging and a strongly welleducated middle classes. I just feel that this is an agreement that has been crafted completely by Major Industries that are fishing for the labor markets. These people have no allegiance to the United States. They are not american patriots. They are multinational you know, organisms. A perfect example is that congress once again forces its responsibility to be a legislative audit. They dont declare wars. We are now in our second decade of these illfated boondoggles in the middle east. All undeclared wars and now we are going to have another trade agreement which will affect the lives and livelihoods of americans across the nation in congress is going to force the right to have any input on modifying the agreement and having a sunset provision. Again, this is a result of big industry and lobbyist filling the void because americans dont go to the polls anymore and we have turned over our lives really to these multinational entities. Host can i ask you a question . Do you think members of congress should be able to tell the administration what to bring to the negotiating table here . You are talking about them of abandoning what theyre responsible these are. Do you think it would create too many cooks in the kitchen for the administration trying to create any sort of agreement . Caller sure. It is the citizenry and the congress themselves. I dont know. Again, the lobbyists then would insert all sorts of manipulations because the process itself is so broken. It is a condrey. Quandary. I really dont know. I just feel that these are countries that we have peaceful relationships. We have strong diplomatic partnerships. We are going to go to war with them. I dont feel that the tpp is a necessary overlay. I do existing agreement and relationships that we have with these countries should be enough to foster trade cooperation. Guest susan has touched on something that i think is a deep and well in sentiment both parties and that is this notion that Major Industries have a leg up an advantage. Big business is writing loss and changing tax codes and doing everything that favors land, where as the middle class and the average american is getting left behind. That leaves the nest the unevenness of the recovery has exaggerated this problems. It feels and exist deeply in both sides. I think that is part of the reason and the rise of the tea party was the beginning of this feeling. The rise of the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party is another outgrowth of that. The a people in the Republican Party has been much more violent of the last six or eight years than the changing embolization abolition of the Democratic Party and that is because the democrats have a president. As they dont have a president you see president obama becoming a lameduck and a list of the war is taking shots at him and their disagree. That demonstrates that there is a similar of people coming in the democratic appealing coming in the Democratic Party. Host peter is waiting on the line for republicans. Good morning, peter. Caller good morning and thank you for taking my call. Mr. Wilson, if you could quickly, please clarify why the closeddoor nature of the negotiations. Another commentator on the left a number of commentators on the left have been very critical because of the figures he. If they need congresss approval, it seems so strange that they wouldnt be wanting more input and communication with congressman as to what the details of the agreement will be. That is all. Thank you very much. Guest of course, they would be able to see what is in the agreement once it comes to capitol hill. I think that this they rather common political tactic that we have seen in the last decade or so. It is the increased demand for transparency in every possible negotiation. Sometime, negotiations go better when the doors are closed. People can be honest with each other and trade horses and things like that. That is how Appropriations Bills used to work when two members of congress would sit in a room and say you get this and i get this and everyone comes out happy in the end. That is a more effective way of making a deal. It is also less transparent way of making a deal. There certainly a tradeoff there. The fact that there is less transparency in the tpp process is very clearly the cornerstone of the less argument against it. Host one of the members that would be asked to vote on it is democrat sherrod brown. He was on our Newsmakers Program yesterday on cspan. He talked about fasttrack impact on the u. S. Economy and what congress should do. Here is a bit from that interview. [video clip] when you think about what fasttrack means, it will affect 50 of the worlds gdp. We have not on a fasttrack bill or anything close to this in over a decade. So Congress Needs to be serious about this and needs to slow it down and spend a lot of time debating it. It is not coincidently that the more the public knows about the trade agreements that the less the public likes about them. Almost every Interest Group in this town wants to see it passed. The same Interest Groups are the ones that have a history of outsourcing jobs and that is why it is so important. It has cost us jobs and theres potential that this trade agreement would allow china without a vote of congress to be included down the road. We are engaging with our partners to play by a different set of rules from the rules that we play. And that is the role of fixing currency manipulation with which china and japan used to do and china does repeatedly. All of those are particularly important to fix as this bill moves ahead. Host if you want to see that complete interview on our Newsmakers Program, you can go to our site at www. Cspan. Org. We have 10 minutes left with reid wilson. Liz is waiting to chat with you on the new jersey line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. I enjoyed the discussion. All these trade agreements have not benefited the lower middle classes and the working class. As such, we have lost jobs for these folks, causing this great disparity of income between the haves and the havenots that we currently have. The president is trying to sell it as having Worker Protection however, a kind of rings hollow because when he and the democrats had their chance to push checks for the average American Worker working here to be able to get a union and raise their wages and improve their lifestyle, they could not be bothered. So i dont think that we can count on the democrats or the republicans to try and uphold any environmental or labor laws that are supposedly signed agreements. They are not the main agreement to beats type of deals. Host are you a member of a union or union family . Caller i am. So few people are. That is why we have such huge amounts of people earning substandard wages and not having these intentions that will come back to haunt us in 10 or 15 years when people with underfunded 401 k s run out of money. That is age 75 and they live to 90. We have no plans for these things. Host what is the communication coming from your Union Leadership and their correlating efforts here is their correlating effort to get touch with congress . Caller i always try to get in touch with congress. I know they try to mobilize existing membership. When only 9 of the private Sector Workers are having a union card, you cant be that effective. We need to raise the amount of people who have a job with a pension and benefits. This agreement will undercut it. Host that is lives in new jersey. Reid wilson, wont you jump in. Guest what are the part one of the parts and interesting statistics that it can across while writing the story is that i took a look at the number of manufacturing jobs by Congressional District. The Census Bureau has fantastic day to on that stuff. One thing is sure. Whether or not these trade deals have cost jobs, they cost certain kinds of jobs and those of the manufacturing jobs. The average Congressional District has 10. 6 of the actual positions and they are manufacturing jobs. That number is down significantly by four or five points when nafta passed back in 1993. This is lasik and number of manufacturing jobs a significant number of manufacturing jobs are gone and as part of the changing economy and it could be something to do with the trade deals as well as manufacturing moves overseas into mexico and places like that. Whether or not the trade deals the cells themselves are actually costing americans jobs, it is very clear that manufacturing jobs that were there during nafta are not there now. Host five or 10 minutes left with reid wilson of the washington tossed post pic of clipped is waiting in saint augustine, florida. Good morning. Caller this seems to be a lot of innuendos. It is worth noting that as long as there have been nations there has been tax and deals. There is the asian pacific. There is the atlantic. Im sort of going to agree with the lady the couple of calls ago. It is ironic that this is going on at the same time when china is going around the world making huge deals. The african continent and the latest with pakistan about opening waterways. How does this affect the nicaraguan deal with the canal down there . Does all this look into this . Does this impact tpp . I will take your answer off the air. Guest china looms large in this. China looms large in the debate over tpp. President obama has made the case that creating these trade partnerships with other asian and pacific countries would do well to solidify the relationships and sort of without saying it isolate china a little bit. Host because of the rise in china . Guest the rise of china makes these deals necessary. When he was making a speech to his group of democratic supporters in organizing for america, they did not bring that up. He mentioned china a grand total of once. China looms large in this. They are growing influence in our hemisphere and growing in places like africa. Is becoming a big deal and becoming a concern. Their activities in the South China Sea have become a point of concern for just about every other nation that borders the South China Sea and has some sort of territorial claim there. If something really awful happens to the world, that might be the flashpoint. Host new york is up next. Ron is on a line for democrats. Do i get the sound right . Caller yes, absolutely. It is right in the middle of long island. My question relates to the arbitration clause that is part of tpp. Im not sure people are aware of the fact that the arbitration clause would allow foreign entities and corporations to supersede and bypass american laws, especially environmental law at the local level. And rather than going and bring the action in a court to the United States, it would go before arbitration boards. Many people feel that the arbitrators on the board will be packed by a very very prowall street and business entities. Can you address that issue . With regard to china, it is a fate a copley. Fait accompli. They are trying to his a world bank. I will take your responses off the air. Guest the arbitration clause is something that is not only a big concern to the labor groups that oppose this. Heres another one of those frames bedfellow moments. We have the labor groups to oppose this in the democratic groups in general who oppose an arbitration clause because they can supersede and like environmental laws, which those groups dont want to see overshadowed. It could supersede labor laws. They dont want to see that overshadowed either. On the other hand on the right, the conservatives are very worded worried and have been about american law being superseded by International Law whether it is the United Nations a criminal courts. They go. The left and the right are going to find a number of reasons to come together in opposing this. The question is whether it is paul ryan president obama facing is that are there enough on the right to see International Bodies supersede american law and president obama speaking to democrats on the left because they think it is bad for labor in the middle class . Can those at up to 218 votes . Host we saw the tpa in Committee Last week and the fasttrack legislation and the members of the senate discussing it. One does it come up in the house when does it come up in the house . Guest the debate is ongoing. Their goal is to finish the whole process during this work per before Congress Goes on its next recess. Iod they believe very strongly that if they go to recess and they sent all these members to their local districts that they will be yelled at. Host get it to the floor. Guest get into the floor and get it passed it for the next recess. Recesses are bad for controversial bills because people will actually show up and yell at members of congress. Over the recess and the bill was introduced, ron white went home to oregon and he has done town Hall Meetings in his career. Hes into town Hall Meetings over the break. They were both in rural parts of oregon and far away from portland, which is where the big population later center is. Thats labor centers. Host bob, good morning. Caller can you give me all right . Host yes. Caller im appreciative of mr. Wilsons knowledge and insight. I applaud his originality child in the issue. His neutrality in this issue. Host what is your question or comment . Caller my comment is that we know what nafta has done to this country. We dont need a lesson on that. We are pretty stupid. Unions are being destroyed just constantly. We should trade some union rights for getting a passage of this bill because china looms large as he has spoken about. It is more a strategic move to get this trade bill done. We also know that corporations have been hoarding our cash. Have they invested in the United States . I could use profanity, but know they have not. We have been screwed overseas where they move their corporations there and sell the goods back to us and we will buy them just like we have from china. I will listen for the response. Host any thoughts from bobs comments . Guest North Carolina is a center for anxiety about trade deals because of all those manufacturing jobs in u. S. , there are a significant number of them in North Carolina. Textile facilities, especially. This gets back to the main point that those who oppose this on the left and right there is this deep well of anxiety over the role of corporations and the feeling that the deck is stacked against the average american. That is a very real feeling and a feeling that has seeped into american politics, not just in this but i would say in the 2006 2000 8, 2010, and 2014 elections have been part of it. A shocking number of americans believe that they are being left behind and that this is a number another one of the deals that will advantage the corporations of the average americans. That is a feeling that every politician is going to have to deal with as they run for reelection and try to build a coalition. It is a deepseated feeling and our culture right now. Host reid wilsons piece on this in the Washington Post. Obamas fight for trade powers face altered Political Landscape your cod. We appreciate all of your work and we will see you again. Up next, Daniel Ellsberg joins us. He is the author of secrets. He will talk about the role of government whistleblowers. Later, in our annual your money segment, elana schor will be here to talk about federal inspections of oil and gas pipelines. We will be right back