The debate on the progress of debating and voting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) shows a clear vulnerability of President Obama’s opponents. Several Democrats, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, voiced opposition by stating that the TPP would cost American jobs. (New York Times 5/9/2015)
It is absolutely true that any trade agreement that would decrease trade barriers could cost American manufacturing jobs, but that is one in a small part of the overall effects of any trade agreements in the first place.
The TPP is not merely economical but also political. Just like NAFTA, this agreement is an attempt by the US to create a free flowing economic zone to “counter” against a rising economic power. For NAFTA, the rising economic power was the European Union, and rising economic today is China (and India). Whether the upcoming transnational trade agreement would position the US at a long term geopolitical-economical advantage is still under debate.
Nevertheless, the TPP is also a trade agreement, and the main debate on the President’s fast track authority rests on the TPP’s impact on American jobs. The problem of focusing on the secrecy on the TPP negotiations and the TPP’s potential economic impact is that the agreement has not been fully hammered out by member nations. In fact, without providing a clear, smooth, and fast political means to accept or reject this proposal by all member states, there is no point in negotiating the fine details of the agreement, because the high cost of trade negotiations is not worth for any member states, given the current high uncertainty of the TPP’s future. If Congress does not give the President fast track authority, then TPP effectively is dead.
But if the debate focuses on protecting American jobs here in the actual territories of the USA, then the serious solution by Senator Warren and her supporters ought to focus on increasing trade barriers. One of the popular ways to criticize the TPP has been pointing out how NAFTA was a bad agreement for the average American workers due to American companies shipping most of their manufacturing capabilities abroad. Interestingly, most manufactured goods the average American sees in today's market is actually from China, which is not a member of NAFTA, but clearly there is a perception that a lot of our problems with the manufacturing jobs was caused by NAFTA.
Thus, the only logical solution for Senator Warren ought to focus not only on defeating the TPP but also withdrawing the US from pre existing trade agreements, and have the US enter into an age of trade isolationism. This would inevitably increase prices for almost everything for the American consumer, and economic growth would be severely impacted. But if trade agreements are causing the loss of American manufacturing jobs, then shouldn’t we simply increase trade barriers?
Of course, this is a straw man argument, but even a fair assessment on Senator Warren's position actually weakens her position even more. Defeating the TPP but supporting the status quo on trade agreements (as in, let the US keep the existing trade agreements but stay out of new ones) while criticizing those previous trade agreements implies that manufacturing jobs cannot be brought back from trade agreements. Then, somehow, supporting hypothetical trade agreements in which the US gets to protect its manufacturing jobs while allowing US companies to access untapped markets might be the next proposed step for Senator Warren and her supporters. Such hypothetical trade agreements could be achieved by tough trade negotiations and allow manufacturing jobs to stay home while selectively decreasing trade barriers to improve the US economy. Unfortunately, the competing interests in the global trade market guarantees that such hypothetical, grand trade agreement would never come to fruition as other countries are guaranteed to protect their own domestic markets. What does that leaves with us?
Ultimately, what Senator Warren and her supporters want is a seat at the negotiating table, where they can make sure that American manufacturing jobs and other domestic interests are protected from the trade agreement. The problem is that this will never happen. Trade agreements are time consuming to formulate, and there is no possibility that other countries would allow a US Senator a seat at the negotiating table. In the end, Senator Warren is trying to get direct influence of the TPP that she never will get, so she is attacking this unfinished agreement from outside the negotiating table to try to indirectly influence the TPP negotiations.
Perhaps, proposing increasing trade barriers under the banner of populism might be more effective than continuing her direct attack on the TPP.
