In a controversial move that came as a shock even to many of the American people’s elected representatives, a coalition of establishment lawmakers in both parties — primarily Big Government Republicans — unveiled a secretly negotiated globalist plan to empower Obama with “fast-track authority” for “trade.” Under the bill, backed by top establishment GOP figures, the administration will have an even freer hand to negotiate pseudo-free trade deals with foreign governments — deals that critics say will harm U.S. sovereignty, the U.S. economy, and more. Despite GOP talking points about “free” trade and “markets,” Obama’s own AstroTurf group, Organizing for Action, sent an e-mail blast to supporters on Friday boasting that the administration was “crafting a progressive trade agreement.”
In a White House blog post, the administration also bragged about how “progressive” its establishment Republican-backed plot was going to be. “Passing a modernized [Trade Promotion Authority] TPA is important for two reasons,” the White House said. “First, it will help us close the deal on negotiations in the Asia-Pacific on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (or TPP), the most progressive trade agreement in history.” (Emphasis added.) The post also boasted about foisting radical new rules and regulations on other nations via “trade” regimes, adding that the “TPP will be the greenest trade agreement in history.” Instead of addressing real criticisms, the White House propaganda points mostly attacked strawmen: “We can’t afford to close ourselves off,” for example.
The “bi-partisan” Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill, which would surrender even more congressional authority to the Obama administration, announced by the House and Senate tax committees on April 16, would also make it easier for the White House to surrender even more U.S. sovereignty to international tribunals and bureaucracies under the guise of promoting “free” trade — more properly described as managed trade. Together, the economic super-blocs being concocted under the ObamaTrade scheming would ensnare about two-thirds of the global economy. In other words, the economic regulatory regime developed by Obama, unaccountable bureaucracies, Big Business, and foreign governments will literally dominate the world economy.
However, bipartisan resistance to the secretive scheming and the “Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act” is still growing. From Big Labor and Big Green to conservatives and constitutionalists, criticism spans the political spectrum. To blunt the opposition, apparently the latest effort is packed with concessions and giveaways to Big Labor, Big Green, and the far-left, such as tax-funded welfare for those who lose jobs as a result of the scheme, in an effort to bring them all onboard. But it may not be enough.
If approved by Congress, which has responsibility over trade under the U.S. Constitution, the newly unveiled legislation would grant vast new powers to the administration as it seeks to hammer out a series of deeply controversial “trade” deals. Then, after the White House uses the TPA powers and finalizes the sovereignty-subverting agreements with foreign governments, dictatorships, lobbyists, and crony capitalists, a simple majority of the American people’s elected representatives would have a chance for an up or down vote — with no opportunity to amend the agreements at all. And congressmen would be under immense pressure from special interests and high-powered lobbying to ram it all through. Virtually every analyst, official, and even lawmakers acknowledge that foisting the unpopular scheme on an unwilling public will be far easier with TPA.
Establishment forces claim the “trade” regimes Obama and establishment Republicans are pushing will help promote more “free” trade. They also argue that the administration must craft the deals in secret with Trade Promotion Authority to ensure their success — otherwise, foreign governments and tyrants may not be willing to negotiate, because Congress could amend the deal in response to demands from their constituents. Critics on both sides of the aisle, though, are warning that the deals would be devastating to the United States from multiple angles.
The first agreement being sought, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), would create, among other outrages, supranational bureaucracies and tribunals purportedly superior to the U.S. government, as well as above about a dozen foreign governments and dictatorships around the Pacific Rim. The other governments that are involved in the scheme, so far at least, include those ruling Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Communist Vietnam, Brunei, Chile, and Peru.
Despite the fact that the pacts are being negotiated by special interests, the White House, and foreign regimes behind closed doors, Wikileaks has been releasing to the public leaked portions of the agreement, which have sparked widespread alarm across the political spectrum. Among other concerns, one recently leaked chapter of the TPP revealed a plot to establish international kangaroo “tribunals” that could and would overrule American courts, laws, and even the U.S. and state constitutions for the benefit of foreign corporations or governments.
The other controversial deal being pushed by Obama, Big Business, and the establishment wing of both major parties is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It aims to accelerate the “integration” of the United States and the European Union — a goal that globalist operatives openly boasted about in Congress just a few decades ago. If approved, the TTIP scheme would begin a process of “harmonizing” the U.S. and EU legal and regulatory regimes on the road toward even deeper economic and ultimately political merger.
Ironically, a remarkably similar process to the TTIP — in which pseudo-“free trade” regimes morph into more and more autocratic governance systems — was used to secretly subvert the sovereignty of European nations. Beginning with simple “free trade” schemes, globalists were able to foist the unaccountable EU super-state on the peoples of Europe against their will. The transatlantic merger is, in actuality, merely the next phase in a long-term globalist plot to eliminate self-government and national sovereignty around the world, in favor of international governance.
On Thursday, a Senate hearing convened by pro-TPA Finance Committee Chairman Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and ranking Democrat pro-TPA Senator Ron Wyden (Ore.) about the proposed fast-track scheme brought in top Obama apparatchiks to tout the plan. Among them were Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Obama Trade Representative Michael Froman. A number of senators, though, were reportedly “furious” about the hearing being held before they had even seen — much less read — the bill.
“Today we’re meeting in a hearing that was noticed 12 hours before it began on a bill we haven’t seen, with witnesses, I assume, who know more than we do, and frankly, will never tell us,” complained Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), adding that previous “trade” schemes had been thoroughly vetted by lawmakers before having to vote on them. “We can’t fast track fast-track, that’s a complete abdication of our responsibilities.”
Even Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a senior establishment operative widely expected to lead Senate Democrats after current Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) retires, feigned outrage about the recently unveiled fast-track scheming. “This process is not good,” Schumer was quoted as saying by the Huffington Post, one of the first outlets to report on the latest deal in Congress to expand Obama’s powers via fast-track and trade-promotion authority. “We are supposed to vote on TPA, tie our hands and not vote on amendments, before we’ve seen what the [Trans-Pacific Partnership] is. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Democrats, along with conservative and constitutionalist Republicans, have largely opposed the TPA scheme so far — at least in part due to anger among their base of voters. With Democrat Wyden’s support, though, as well as the firm backing of lawmakers whom critics refer to as “Republicans in Name Only” (RINOs), some analysts suggest that granting TPA to Obama is essentially a done deal. In the House, the bill to empower Obama is being championed by Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee who purports to support markets yet is a chief advocate of the Obama administration-backed managed trade scheming.
Despite powerful supporters, fast-growing opposition to the secretive machinations is making waves. “Congress is being asked to delegate away its constitutional trade authority over the TPP, even after the administration ignored bicameral, bipartisan demands about the agreement’s terms, and then also grant blank-check authority to whomever may be the next president for any agreements he or she may pursue,” argued Global Trade Watch Director Lori Wallach in a widely quoted statement lambasting the latest congressional scheme. “Rather than putting Congress in the driver’s seat on trade, this bill is just the same old fast track that puts Congress in the trunk in handcuffs. I expect that Congress will say no to it.”
Also opposing the TPA scheme are more than a few conservative, constitutionalist, and liberty-minded organizations. “We consider the introduction of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill to be a very big deal,” said Larry Greenley, director of missions for The John Birch Society, a constitutionalist group and affiliate of this magazine with chapters in all 50 states that is working to stop it. “Arguably the biggest threat to the continued existence of the United States as an independent nation under the Constitution is the Obama administration’s current initiative to negotiate and get congressional approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreements (TTIP).”
“These agreements would put our nation on the path to political integration with the other nations involved in these negotiations, and are being promoted by the same organizations that destroyed the independence of 28 European nations with the creation of the European Union,” added Greenley. “And, since virtually everyone believes that the TPP and TTIP deals cannot be approved by Congress without a TPA bill in place, we must prevent congressional approval of TPA. We’re asking our members and all supporters of our national independence to phone their representative and senators now in strong opposition to the TPA bill.”
As suggested by Greenley and JBS, which supports genuine free trade as opposed to sovereignty-subverting managed trade, the pseudo-free trade schemes are part of a much larger agenda that ultimately has little to do with trade at all. Globalist architect Henry Kissinger, for example, a longtime proponent of a “New World Order,” explained even recently that regional regimes would be crucial to imposing global governance on humanity. “The contemporary quest for world order will require a coherent strategy to establish a concept of order within the various regions and to relate these regional orders to one another,” he explained in his latest book, World Order.
Similar notions have been promoted for decades. In 1962, globalist Lincoln P. Bloomfield, with the Institute for Defense Analyses, prepared a report for the U.S. State Department entitled “A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations.” In it, he outlined how regionalism — along with conflict and cooperation among supranational regional powers — would be the fastest way to impose world government. For decades, top U.S. officials openly promoted world federalism and Atlantic Union, with the congressional record being packed with brazen evidence.
If the American people hope to preserve what liberty, sovereignty, and prosperity remains, stopping the globalist “free trade” agenda is crucial. The surest way to do that, at least for now, is to ensure that establishment Republicans in Congress do not succeed in surrendering their responsibility over trade to the Obama administration and special interests.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at [email protected]
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