Sen. Elizabeth Warren late Wednesday reinforced the war on President Obama’s secret trade agenda, slapping the president for refusing to reveal the details and declaring that it “is not a trade deal that we can trust.”
On a conference call with progressives who failed to convince her to run for president, Warren said that foes of “free trade” have to double down as the House nears a Friday vote to give the president and his successor approval to speech through trade treaties.
MoveOn.org and Democracy for America delivered nearly 400,000 petition signatures urging Warren to run, but she said that she will stay in the Senate to fight trade, Wall Street and corporations. The groups said that they will turn their efforts to supporting her anti-trade agenda.
Warren said her top and immediate target is killing Obama’s Trade Promotion Authority. She urged progressives to call House members and tell them to “vote no on fast track tell them you want to see the deal.”
A DFA executive noted that progressives agree with some conservatives and Tea Party officials on the concerns and can be an “ally” in the fight against the trade plan.
Warren echoed conservative Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions who has warned that the secret deal kept under lock and key and kept from the nation harbors bad impacts for the nation.
On the call, Warren bashed the Clinton-era NAFTA deal with Canada and Central and South America as a jobs killer that also kept wages stagnant for 20 years.
“President Obama says this time it will be different,” said Warren. “But he won’t let you see the deal. It’s classified. Journalists, policy experts, the media, individual citizens like you don’t have any access at all. And even people like me, senators, and other government officials, we can see it but legally can’t even talk about it. That is fundamentally wrong.”
Worse, she added, while the deal is secret from the public, it isn’t secret from corporate lobbyists and executives.
“You know who does get to see the drafts of the trade deal? The big corporate interests,” she said. “That’s not a trade deal that we can trust,” said Warren.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
