President Obama is facing a major revolt among liberal Democrats over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal involving 12 Pacific Rim nations that is likely to reach Congress for ratification this spring.
Lawmakers say part of the reason is the White House’s secrecy: The administration has made it impossible for them to learn the trade deal’s details so they will know what they’re voting on beforehand.
The White House counters that it does allow lawmakers to view a draft version of TPP, but few of them bother to ask. The process comes with numerous restrictions that, as far as lawmakers are concerned, are designed to frustrate them.
“It was like being in nursery school. You cannot have staff with you that does not have certification to handle classified documents. You cannot take notes. You cannot take papers out of the room,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., during a Jan. 8 rally against TPP. Several others at the rally also denounced the administration, saying it was not being open.
The administration’s secrecy has helped rally trade skeptics, primarily Democrats but also a few Republicans, as well as help shift the congressional debate from whether international trade is beneficial to the White House’s respect for Congress.
The TPP trade deal would lower tariffs as well as create common standards for intellectual property, labor and state-owned enterprises for the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Peru. It would cover a region comprising 40 percent of the global GDP.
It also would offer legal protections for people investing in those countries, creating common standards for applying an individual nation’s trade rules.
Finding out exactly what those rules would be is another matter.
A source at the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said the process was simple: If a lawmaker asks to see a draft version of the deal, they schedule a briefing. They will even bring the full text to the lawmaker’s office if they want and provide an administration staff member to answer questions. The source also disputed DeLauro’s claim that lawmakers were not allowed to take notes.
Nevertheless, the process is tightly controlled, with only the lawmakers and staffers with special clearance being allowed to see the documents, to prevent the details from leaking out.
The source said most of the lawmakers complaining about a lack of transparency had never bothered to ask for a briefing in the first place. When asked how many lawmakers had been briefed, the source said “several dozen,” but said they were not authorized to give an exact number or to identify who had made the requests.
One lawmaker who did get briefed was Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who is concerned about how the deal would affect clothing manufacturers in her district. A staffer said it took several weeks to schedule the meeting. A top legislative aide was barred from attending because he lacked the proper security clearance. When Slaughter finally looked at the document, what she saw was “spreadsheet after spreadsheet” with no context.
“They brought a gigantic book over to my office. A young girl showed me row after row of things on short jackets and long jackets,” Slaughter said at the Jan. 8 event. “I said, ‘I need to know what you are expecting regarding wool tariffs.’ She said, ‘I have no idea.'”
That was in 2013, Slaughter hasn’t requested a briefing since then, a staffer said, convinced it would be a waste of time.
Bryan Riley, senior policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, notes that a certain level of secrecy is necessary to negotiate these deals. “It is not practical to have it all on CSPAN,” he said. Nevertheless, an administration has to work closely with Congress to ensure lawmakers “buy in” to the deal.
“It cannot be like Obamacare, where you have to pass it to find out what is in it,” Riley said. The Heritage Foundation favors free trade, but has not taken a position on TPP yet.
Obama, who promised a “new era of openness” on his first day in office, has been widely criticized as not fulfilling that promise. The Society of Professional Journalists wrote to Obama last year demanding that he end his administration’s “restraint on communication in federal agencies.”
Another problem for lawmakers who are briefed is that what they are seeing is not necessarily accurate or up-to-date: It is a draft version of the U.S. position. They aren’t allowed to see the competing proposals from other countries, any one of which may get adopted as part of the final deal.
An administration source explained that they are authorized to show only what the U.S. is proposing. Congress’ job, as the administration sees it, is to advise the U.S. on its position.
A foreign country’s position, on the other hand, is considered its secret, even though it is potentially part of the final deal. Letting such details leak out could undermine the talks.
TPP is tied to another part of the administration’s international agenda: Trade Promotion Authority. Also known as “fast track,” it is legislation that would prevent Congress from being able to amend any trade deals, allowing only up or down votes.
The White House says it needs the authority to be able to negotiate trade deals. It will lose leverage if they cannot assure foreign leaders the terms of any deal will remain intact. So before it brings TPP to Congress for approval, it wants Congress to pass fast track.
But frustrations over TPP have soured Democratic support for further limiting Congress’ ability to influence trade policy. In a 2013 letter to the White House, 151 House Democrats announced their opposition to both TPP and fast track. Several Senate Democrats, led by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have been sharply critical as well.
When Obama called on Congress to pass fast track in his State of the Union address last year, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., shot the idea down the very next day.
This year could be different. Most of the opposition to TPP and fast track comes from liberals who are inclined to oppose free trade generally. Trade is one of the rare issues where the White House is aligned with the Republicans, who now have the majority in Congress. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, D-Wis., said on Jan. 13 that free trade would be a top item on his agenda for 2015.
But there is some opposition from conservatives as well. Twenty-one Republicans signed a letter in 2013 opposing fast track. Of them, 16 remain in Congress.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., signed a 2012 letter with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., slamming the trade representative’s office for not laying out its position on intellectual property rights. “The American people deserve to know what the administration is purportedly seeking on its behalf,” they wrote.
Issa, then-chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, became so frustrated that he posted the entire TPP chapter on intellectual property online that year “so that the public can provide input to those negotiating this agreement.”
Some Tea Party-aligned conservative groups are urging opposition to fast track as well, arguing the White House is engaging in a power grab.
“At a time when the president has, for all intents and purposes, declared war on the constitutional separation of powers, it makes zero sense for Congress to voluntarily weaken its treaty-ratification prerogatives,” Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, said last week.
Free-trade critics are counting on that sentiment spreading among rank-and-file Republicans. A White House that has fought Congress on disclosure on almost every turn may be their best ally.
