Elizabeth Warren raises concerns about "Free-Trade" pact with Asia

[NACBA]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday voiced new concerns over President Obama’s trade agenda as congressional Democrats ramp up efforts to slow the administration’s bid to finalize a major free-trade pact in Asia that the president has called a top priority.

The disagreement threatens to expose old divisions over international trade and hamper Democrats’ efforts to unify their party going into the 2016 elections.

Warren (D-Mass.), fresh off her break with the White House on the budget last week, said in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could erode U.S. financial safeguards designed to “prevent future financial crises.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-other-democrats-raise-concerns-about-free-trade-pact-with-asia/2014/12/17/19de1c48-8632-11e4-b9b7-b8632ae73d25_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage

[Natural Citizen]

We're going to start seeing some true colors come out as debate on this TPP thing evolves. Oh, yes. Indeedy....

[NACBA]

We're going to start seeing some true colors come out as debate on this TPP thing evolves. Oh, yes. Indeedy....

Yep--where does Rand Stand on TPP?

[Natural Citizen]

Yep--where does Rand Stand on TPP?


Don't know. The more relevant factor, I think, is where the rest of the competitive world stands on it. So, then, I look at their (meaning our representatives) position on foreign policy in a way that gives me better a idea of whether they support the act thereof more so than the intricates of the thing. Which we don't really even know.

Of course, when I say "their position on foreign policy", I mean the critical aspects of it. Not the standard talking points that are much about nothing at all that we see so much.


There is a lot happening at the moment that is relevant, almost dependent upon, the TPP. We're right in the middle of a cold war of sorts between the BRICS and the west and we don't hear anything about it in any foreign policy discussion from our representatives. But we do see knee jerk reactions to sanction nations. This leads me to flirt with the notion that support for the TPP does exist. And, of course, we want to pay attention to who is advising our representatives more than the representatives themselves. The representatives themselves are just going to roll with the we ask, you decide gag. And we're very selective in what we choose to ask.

[Natural Citizen]

I'll add a thought here just because your avatar reminded me of it. We just ran a bunch of people through some legal education as far as how to manage a good citizens initiative and I found that there were a great deal of people who were talking about Rand and Warren specifically. Mostly young people. Was interesting.

There is this illusion that we own the grassroots. That we dictate it's momentum. That it's parameters are limited to our stake in it. And so we fool ourselves into this idea that everyone else has to come to us. That we don't have to reach out. This is naive.