Democrats Torpedo TPP…For Now

Despite Obama’s best efforts to fast track his trade bill through Congress, Nancy Pelosi led the House Democrats to vote against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in its current form. The final tally came down to 126-302. For now, it looks like the TPP is in a kind of legal limbo. It didn’t pass, but it hasn’t been defeated either. According to the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — House Democrats rebuffed a dramatic personal appeal from President Obama on Friday, torpedoing his ambitious push to expand his trade negotiating power — and, quite likely, his chance to secure a legacy-defining trade accord spanning the Pacific Ocean.

In a remarkable rejection of a president they have resolutely backed, House Democrats voted to kill assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades. By doing so, they brought down legislation granting the president trade promotion authority — the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress — before it could even come to a final vote.

“We want a better deal for America’s workers,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader who has guided the president’s agenda for two terms and was personally lobbied by Mr. Obama until the last minute.

But as Zerohedge noted, the house may still go back to the TPP at a later date. The House struggled to agree on the TAA, or the Trade Adjustment Assistance. Without passing that, they cannot fast track the TPP. Thus, they are now going to have to go back to the drawing board.

Still, it is a small victory of sorts for opponents of the highly secretive trade bill. Even though it hasn’t been sunk, this gives activists more time to spread the word over this treacherous legislation, which many Americans are still ignorant of. Hopefully, between now and the next vote, one of our representatives will work up the courage to leak the remaining contents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

It’s safe to assume that if the American public understood the true depths of this bill, there’s a chance that no politician would want their names associated with it. Why else would it be such a tight lipped secret? The more time this bill sits in our dysfunctional political system, the more vulnerable it becomes. So here’s to keeping this corporate rag in legal limbo for as long as we can.