A GE Power and Water factory on the border between Rep. Paul Ryan’s district and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s district in Wisconsin is moving its manufacturing to Canada, costing hundreds of Americans in those districts their jobs.
The legislation passed the House last week, and now moves to President Obama’s desk for his signature.
Ahead of the Senate vote on Trade Adjustment Authority (TPA) Tuesday that would give President Obama fast-track authority to finalize his trade negotiations – mainly the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) – Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) is calling for the U.S. Trade Representative to release the current draft of Obama’s TPP in a public letter.
“I think there is an obvious question here – if this trade bill is going to create so many jobs and be so good for American workers, why are we setting aside billions of dollars to protect people that are going to lose all of these jobs that we’re supposed to create? I have not heard anyone address that,” Huckabee says.
House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) joined NPR Wednesday with Steve Inskeep to stress why he says it’s important for Congress to pass Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which grants President Obama fast-track trade authority. With TPA, Congress cannot issue any amendments to trade agreements and merely gets an up or down vote on a final trade deal.
According to Public Citizen, a non-profit organization, President Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) would drastically extend President Bill Clinton’s North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from 1994 – which has been widely criticized for costing millions of Americans their jobs.
Buck’s statement comes after Breitbart News reported on the way the controversial Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program is now being funded, using a tax hike on small businesses instead of Medicare cuts, as the Senate had proposed.
The House of Representatives is reportedly taking a vote on TAA on Tuesday since it failed to pass Friday, placing TPA on hold for the time being.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been arguing that Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – also referred to as fast-track trade authority – would give Congress more power over President Obama’s highly secretive trade agreements, including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). However, Summers argued in his op-ed that if Obama isn’t given fast track and his trade agreements aren’t passed, the president would actually lose power over international negotiations.
