TPP A Go Go

The fine folks at my favorite news publication, The Christian Science Monitor, have put up a bias free (as per the usual) piece on the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership agreement. Take some time to go over it and review the facts. Here's something that jumped out straight away for all the NAFTA whiners out there.

In reviewing the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, CRS found that "NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters."

This is one of those great myths from the left that really needs to go away. Meanwhile, even the progressive press is starting to cave...

Turncoat Democrats, It’s Time to Support Obama on Trade

The answer emerges from the top TPP hit on Google, an op-ed posted Tuesday by a lobbyist for U.S. domestic manufacturers. The lobbyist, who has read recent TPP drafts as part of his Democratic lobbying work, is outraged that Obama negotiators “dismiss individuals like me who believe that, first and foremost, a trade agreement should promote the interests of domestic producers and their employees.” 

This candid statement puts the anti-TPP campaign squarely in historical context. Powerful domestic interests have opposed free trade from before the U.S. Constitution was ratified and continued to oppose trade deals like Bill Clinton’s NAFTA negotiations in the 1990s. The beneficiaries of free trade—from the jobless who might get jobs, to the low-income consumers who benefit from cheaper products, to the high-poverty regions of the developing world that would benefit from exporting to U.S. consumers—just don’t have the same public relations resources. But although the social media campaign is an anti-TPP rout, its substantive arguments are profoundly at odds with progressive traditions.

Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it?