The Rocky Road from Iolsationism to Globalization:
Scott Wong writes: In the US, swing-state Democrats are sounding the alarm that Obama’s free trade proposals, backed by their GOP opponents, would ship U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas and lead to greater unemployment at home.
Democrat Jason Kander, who is challenging Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), blasted the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a “bad deal for Missouri.”
A progressive group led by former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), who is polling ahead of GOP Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, called the TPP “ruinous for our middle class.”
Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) said trade policy would be one of the “major defining issues” in his race against GOP Sen. Rob Portman, who served as the top trade official under former President George W. Bush.
Portman voted for the fast-track bill in committee but says he still wants to see language barring Chinese currency manipulation before he supports it on the Senate floor. Portman hit back at Strickland, accusing the former governor of impeding the growth of the Buckeye State’s export industry.
The trade fight has made for unusual alliances in the Senate, where McConnell on Tuesday praised Obama’s efforts to win Democratic support for the bill.
In Pennsylvania, Sen. Pat Toomey (R), the former head of the free-market, free trade Club for Growth, voted for fast-track authority in the Finance Committee. But one Democratic challenger, Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, said he’d fight the Pacific trade deal to protect jobs in the Keystone State.
Kander, Missouri’s 34-year-old Democratic secretary of State, blasted Obama administration for negotiating the Pacific trade deal “in secret.” He argued that Missouri’s auto industry has been doing fine without a new trade pact, adding about 20,000 auto manufacturing or related jobs in the past five years.
Kander also cited other statistics from American Automotive Policy Council — a jab at Blunt, whose son, former Gov. Matt Blunt, serves as president and the top lobbyist for the auto group.
Blunt made clear he has no plans to run from the tricky trade issue. Opening up new trade with Pacific markets will boost Missouri exports of corn, soybeans, rice, livestock and other products, he said, and mean more construction jobs as demand for ports and processing plants increase.
