(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Looks Like Obama Aide’s Conceding a Major TPP Argument

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AIIB, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China, exports, free trade agreements, Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, GDP, imports, Michael Froman, Obama, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, TPP, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S. Trade Representative, USTR, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Compelling evidence just appeared that the Obama administration is conceding that many critics are right to call its Pacific Rim trade deal is a nothing-burger economically – at best. It came in the form of U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman’s official comment on the new, Congressionally mandated U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) projection of the deal’s economic effects.

The USITC did a good enough job pouring cold water on the notion that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be a major boon for the American economy. As has been widely reported, the Commission forecasts that the impact on the nation’s growth and real incomes is statistically insignificant.

These findings logically challenge critics’ descriptions of the deal as disastrous. But at the same time, the USITC assumes full compliance with the TPP’s terms by the eleven non-U.S. signatories. As I’ve explained, even if Washington performed a dramatic about-face and treated trade monitoring and enforcement as a priority, logistical and political barriers mock the belief that the United States can hold its TPP partners’ feet to the fire.

Indeed partly because its methodology can’t adequately take such problems into account, the USITC has a long and sorry track record of greatly understating the net harm to the American economy from new trade agreements.

But Ambassador Froman’s strategy for handling the USITC report strongly indicates that President Obama has decided to gloss over the claim that his aides did a great job at the TPP talks. For the U.S. Trade Representative evidently has decided to change the subject.

Froman did make some token stabs at portraying the TPP’s terms as economic winners for Americans. For example, he took the time-honored official Washington tack of touting export projections while ignoring predictions for imports (which globally would be greater according to the USITC) and thus the net economic impact of trade flows.

Yet Froman quickly exited this specifics-oriented economic debate and pointedly contended that “What cannot be quantified in this study or any other is the cost to American leadership if we fail to pass TPP and allow China to carve up the Asia-Pacific through their own trade agreement.”  

Unfortunately for him and the president, this position puts them on no stronger ground. On the one hand, after all, Froman is implicitly conceding that any set of TPP provisions to which the United States agrees is better than none because simply signing the treaty creates an American seat at the Asia-Pacific rule-writing table. On the other hand, as I’ve repeatedly noted, expectations that such American participation will create even longer-term benefits is laughable for at least four main reasons.

First, most of America’s main regional allies – and most major TPP signatories – are already taking part in those Chinese initiatives that Froman describes as so hostile to American interests. These initiatives include not only China’s new Asia infrastructure bank, but its Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership – its explicit counterpart trade agreement.

Second, the United States itself has given its blessing to another Chinese-backed regional trade scheme – a proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.

Third, these Chinese measures have attracted such regional support largely because so many East Asian countries in particular (as opposed to TPP’s Western Hemisphere members) pursue the kinds of Chinese-style trade and broader economic policies that the administration has long noted have undercut U.S. Domestic economic interests. Regardless of the piece of paper they have signed, the last thing these neo-mercantilist powers want to see is an enforceable set of “rules for trade” that reflect America’s more free-market-oriented values and practices.

Fourth, because U.S. and Asian definitions of acceptable and unacceptable economic behavior contrast so strikingly, even sitting at the TPP table can’t possibly guarantee pro-American results – unless the TPP’s dispute-resolution mechanism breaks with all recent precedents and awards outsized authority to the United States, as opposed to operating on consensual, or one-country, one-vote, principles.

Not that Froman or the rest of the administration are running out of arguments yet. They could refocus the debate on the national security claim that TPP is essential for preserving and/or strengthening America’s geopolitical position in the Asia-Pacific region, especially as China’s power and influence surge (even though this administration has done little at most to stem the flow of defense-related technology and valuable economic wherewithal to that same China). They could also warn that President Obama’s international credibility will be undercut if TPP is rejected (even though his presidency is nearly over).

Wouldn’t it be much better if Mr. Obama and his aides just threw in the towel, admitted that despite decades of experience, neither Democratic nor Republican administration’s have figured out how to negotiate trade agreements that work for America on net, and if the next president spent time and resources developing a learning curve instead?

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Big Business Still Favors A TPP Fast Track – for Everyone Else

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Business Roundtable, Congress, fast track, Michael Froman, National Foreign Trade Council, Obama, offshoring lobby, Orrin Hatch, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, TPA, TPP. Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, {What's Left of) Our Economy

A funny thing has happened to the Offshoring Lobby groups that pushed so hard (and successfully) for Congress to give President Obama fast track trade negotiating authority. Now that they’ve seen the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal whose passage they’ve also urged, several have decided they don’t like the core provision of fast track trade negotiating authority.

Central to the case for fast track – now officially known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) – is that preventing Congress from monkeying around with the final text of trade agreements negotiated by presidents and their aides is vital to persuading America’s interlocutors to negotiate seriously. If American lawmakers could amend the deal at will, why would foreign leaders put forward their best offers, especially if they might anger powerful domestic constituencies?

That’s what U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has made unmistakably clear. In a late-2014 article in Foreign Affairs, Mr. Obama’s chief trade diplomat wrote, “By ensuring that Congress will consider trade agreements as they have been negotiated by the executive branch, TPA gives U.S. trading partners the necessary confidence to put their best and final offers on the table.”

The Republican leaders who have supported the president’s trade agenda agreed as well. According to Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch of Utah, TPA “allows for trade deals to be submitted to Congress for an up-or-down vote, an incentive for negotiating nations to put their best offer forward for any deal.” And before he was elected Speaker and chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan contended (in an article co-authored with Texas Republican Senator and current presidential candidate Ted Cruz, “By establishing TPA, Congress will send a signal to the world. America’s trading partners will know that the U.S. is trustworthy and then put their best offers on the table. America’s rivals will know that the U.S. is serious and won’t abandon the field.”

When Congress was considering fast track, moreover, leading business groups strongly echoed this line. As specified in a statement from the Trade Benefits America coalition that spearheaded the pro-fast track lobbying campaign, fast track historically ”has provided our trade negotiating partners with a degree of comfort that the United States is committed to the international trade negotiating process and the trade agreements we negotiate.”

One of the coalition’s major members, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), was even more explicit: “Without U.S. trade negotiating authority, other countries will be unwilling to negotiate with the United States for fear that U.S. commitments and concessions would not hold weight.  In particular, they would be unwilling to put important politically sensitive concessions on the table.”

Last week, however, some of these organizations were changing their tune. In a statement calling for Congress to pass the TPP, the Business Roundtable declared that it also wanted to administration “to quickly address the remaining issues that impact certain business sectors in order to ensure the broadest possible benefits to all sectors of U.S. business, which will enable the broadest support possible for the TPP.” Huh? It’s true that Congress can attempt to clear up purported ambiguities in the text when it writes implementing legislation, but as for changing the text itself? Sorry, but that’s a no-no under TPA. Unless the Roundtable wants to reopen the entire negotiation?

Similarly, the NFTC reported that it is “encouraged by discussions that are underway between Congress and the Administration to address provisions in the agreement in order to further improve trade and investment liberalization, and strengthen the system of international trade and investment disciplines and procedures, including dispute settlement, for all of American business. Early resolution of areas for improvement identified by the business community will speed approval by Congress in 2016.”

With due respect, what on earth are they talking about other than the aforementioned clarifications and interpretations that unfortunately are entirely unilateral, and have no standing under the new TPP regime?

It seems that when the Offshoring Lobby touted the importance of banning Congressional amendments to TPP, it meant all amendments except its own. You can’t blame its organizations for seeking such blatant favoritism; it’s their job. Now we’ll see if Congress believes that enforcing the principle of equality under the law is its job.

Those Stubborn Facts: No Art to This Obama WTO Tech Trade Deal

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China, Information Technology Agreement, ITA, Michael Froman, Obama, tariffs, technology, Those Stubborn Facts, Trade, U.S. Trade Representative, USTR, World Trade Organization, WTO

“Last night, we reached a breakthrough in our ongoing efforts to expand the Information Technology Agreement [ITA]. This is a WTO agreement that eliminates tariffs on high-tech products among 54 economies, including the U.S. and China….it shows that the U.S. and China work together to both advance our bilateral economic agenda, but also to support the multilateral trading system.”

–U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, November, 2014

“ITA’s completion is a major win for American technology exporters and a step forward for President Obama’s Middle Class Economics trade agenda.”

–Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, July, 2015

“Nearly five months after 54 WTO member economies agreed to expand the scope of duty-free products under the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), China has not pared down the number of products that it wants to keep tariffs on for an extended period of five to seven years.”

—South China Morning Post, December 11, 2015

(Sources: “What They’re Saying: Breakthrough in Negotiations of the WTO Information Technology Agreement,” Tradewinds: The Official Blog of the United States Trade Representative, Press Office, Office of the United States Trade Representative, November, 2014, https://ustr.gov/tradewinds/2014/November/What-Theyre-Saying-Breakthrough-in-Negotiations-of-WTO-Information-Technology-Agreement; “U.S. Lead WTO Partners in Clinching Landmark Expansion of Information Technology Agreement,” Press Release, Press Office, Office of the United States Trade Representative, July, 2015, https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2015/july/us-leads-wto-partners-clinching#; and “China ‘has not budged an inch’: Beijing urged to make changes to global tariff-cut deal on ICT products ahead of WTO meet,” by Bien Perez, South China Morning Post, December 11, 2015, http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1889830/china-has-not-budged-inch-beijing-urged-make-changes-global-tariff)

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Media Coverage of Trade and Jobs Issues Again Fails the Nation

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Alana Semuels, CNBC, currency manipulation, free trade agreements, GDP, Gerald F. Seib, gross domestic product, Korea, KORUS, Mainstream Media, manufacturing, manufacturing jobs, manufacturing trade deficit, Michael Froman, Obama, Phil LeBeau, The Atlantic, TPP, trade policy, Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S. Trade Representative, wages, Wall Street Journal, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Silly me. Here we are in an election season practically defined by boiling working class economic anger at America’s political leaders. So I thought improved press coverage might be in store of the trade policy failings behind so much blue collar job loss and (at best) wage stagnation. Yet the last week alone has once again indicated that such hopes are in vain.

Example one was the October 20 Wall Street Journal post from Gerald F. Seib detailing the Obama administration’s efforts to sell Congress on the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal by touting its supposed benefits to individual states. Although that’s become a standard practice for such campaigns, Seib was right to report on the latest iteration.

But what Seib should have also reported on was all the evidence belying the sales pitch being made by U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. As usual, Froman’s case for the TPP relied exclusively on state-level exports. Apparently Seib forgot that trade flows also consist of imports, and thus their net effects can’t be determined without identifying trade balances and how they’ve changed.

Even worse, Seib was not only reminded of this potential half-truth, but actually given the data exposing the administration line as fraudulent. This came the following day, when I sent him an email pointing him to the government figures showing that in recent years, the great majority of states have seen their merchandise trade balances worsen, meaning that trade flows on balance have weakened their growth – and surely employment. The email also noted that the administration used its 2012 Korea trade agreement (KORUS) as the TPP’s model – and that since under this previous agreement, America’s bilateral trade shortfall has exploded, similarly dismal results seemed likeliest for TPP.

I’m still waiting for the courtesy of a reply.  More important, Seib has still failed to correct the record. So the odds have just improved that the Obama administration succeeds in hoodwinking the nation and its elected representatives.

Example two concerns the conventional wisdom that it’s completely naive to believe that American politicians can do anything to bring significant numbers of manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and that those that do return generally won’t pay like their predecessors. The Atlantic‘s Alana Semuels (in a post yesterday) and CNBC’s Phil LeBeau (in a tweet today), have been the latest to repeat this contention.

There’s no doubt that, largely because of the sector’s impressive (though apparently slowing) productivity gains, domestic manufacturing’s job-creation potential isn’t what it used to be, and that’s ultimately good for the economy, all else equal. But there’s also no doubt that for decades, a major manufacturing job (and wage) killer has been the mammoth trade deficit run by the sector – a gap that owes at least in part to the long string of offshoring-friendly trade deals signed and trade policy decisions (e.g., long-time acquiescence in China’s currency manipulation) made since the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Although it’s not explicitly reported in the U.S. government’s monthly trade reports, the dimensions of the shortfall have become truly jaw-dropping. Last year it hit $734 billion. This year, (as of August) it’s running nearly 16 percent ahead of that rate. Which means that a trillion dollar annual shortfall is within sight. According to the standard methodology for measuring the economy’s size and growth, the more than $850 billion trade deficit that could be registered this year translates directly into lost output. In fact, the 2014 manufacturing trade deficit represented 4.23 percent of gross domestic product in current dollar terms. Even simply narrowing the gap would boost production, and therefore employment and wages, dramatically.

Further, much of the current manufacturing trade deficit has nothing to do with the labor-intensive goods in which high income countries like the United States genuinely and naturally struggle to compete. Nearly $116 billion is in the automotive sector. Nearly $42.5 billion is in communications equipment. More than $33 billion is in pharmaceutical and medicines. More than $15 billion is in iron, steel, and similar metals. More than $5.9 billion is in machine tools and other metalworking machinery. More than $4.2 billion is in industrial heating and cooling equipment. Nearly $2.9 billion is in navigational, electro-medical, and other advanced instruments. Dig deeper into the numbers and you’ll see big deficits in construction equipment, relays and industrial controls, ball bearings, and the like. Can even most of these results be explained simply by market forces?

It’s understandable that many politicians would swallow easily debunked falsehoods or excessively defeatist memes about U.S. trade policy and its economic effects. That’s to be expected from a system that fosters corruption and rewards inertia and simple laziness. Why, however, has it become so common to see the same behavior from journalists?

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Is Obama’s Trade Agenda Based on Currency Lies?

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(What's Left of) the Economy, currency manipulation, easing, fast track, G20, Jack Lew, Michael Froman, monetary policy, Obama, TPA, TPP, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Treasury Department, U.S. Trade Representative

If President Obama’s request for fast track trade negotiating authority and his proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deals are indeed in trouble in Congress over currency manipulation, he should blame his own administration’s deserved lack of credibility on this critical issue. In recent weeks, overwhelming evidence for two major falsehoods has emerged.

First, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew recently stated that the administration is “working with [Congress] to figure out if there is something that can be accomplished in the context of our trade agreements that is consistent with our overall strategy of bilateral and multilateral engagement.” Yet the president himself reportedly told a January gathering of House Democrats that “adding currency rules into the TPP would be too complicated and could sink the talks, which are nearing completion.”

Second, the Treasury’s own role in handling currency manipulation seems to have been badly misrepresented. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has often told Congress – and most recently in late January – that Lew “had the lead in currency issues ‘at this point’ and was raising them bilaterally and in international groups such as the Group of Seven and the International Monetary Fund.”

But the Treasury Secretary had his latest chance in international groups and clearly punted. Despite Lew’s participation, last week’s meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs in Turkey wound up issuing a communique that repeated a pledge to “stick to our previous exchange rate commitments and will resist protectionism” but that also strongly endorsed the kinds of recent monetary easing policies that inevitably have depreciated currencies.

In fact, on the eve of the G20 meeting, a “senior Treasury official” told the Financial Times that “The fact that the European Central Bank, and others around the world, have moved aggressively to loosen monetary policy was broadly positive, even if it helped fuel renewed concerns over “’currency misalignments.’”

Before another step is taken by any U.S. official or legislator on trade deals or trade promotion authority, these glaring inconsistencies need to be cleared up – under oath. If they’re not, some formal perjury investigations should be able to get the job done.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Obama’s New China Trade Case Barely Qualifies as Tokenism

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China, fast track, free trade agreements, Michael Froman, Obama, subsidies, TPA, TPP, Trade, trade enforcement, Trade Promotion Authority, USTR, {What's Left of) Our Economy

According to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, the Obama administration’s decision to file a World Trade Organization challenge to certain Chinese export subsidies once again demonstrates the president’s commitment to ensuring “a level playing field” for American producers in international trade. That’s an important message to convey as Congress takes up the trade deals Mr. Obama is pursuing, as well as a renewal of fast track negotiating authority. It’s also completely misleading.

Froman acknowledges that “Due to China’s lack of transparency, it is difficult to assess the exact extent of the subsidies” his agency is challenging. The only specifics his office provides: “…evidence that certain Demonstration Base enterprises have received at least $635,000 worth of benefits annually.  In addition, China has given almost $1 billion over a three-year period to Common Service Platform suppliers that agree to provide discounted or free services to Chinese companies.”

Here, however, is a sense of the kinds of Chinese trade-related subsidies Obama’s level playing field campaign has continually missed:

In October, 2010, China’s State Council announced plans to support development of seven “strategic emerging industries” between 2011 and this year. Estimated price tag? $1.5 trillion.

In addition, in 2012, Simon Evenett of Switzerland’s St. Gallen University reported that China’s Value-Added Tax system has served as a subsidy for some $1.1 trillion worth of Chinese exports every year. That’s seven percent of total global exports.  

And no one should forget the cheap-currency subsidy that China has long handed out.  That affects all of its exports – including those turned out by the offshoring multinational companies that so strongly support fast track, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the rest of the administration’s trade agenda.  

Clearly, the real lesson taught by this latest U.S. announcement is that, as with its predecessors, the Obama administration’s trade enforcement approach is so piecemeal and reactive that the most accurate label is not “strategy” but “tokenism.” And even that seems awfully charitable.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Hatch Joins Obama in Looking Like a Currency-Related TPP Phony

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Barack Obama, currency manipulation, fast track, House Ways and Means Committee, Michael Froman, Orrin Hatch, Paul Ryan, Senate Finance Committee, TPA, TPP, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S. Trade Representative, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The politics of currency manipulation, which are strongly influencing Congress’ views of President Obama’s prospective Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, just keeps getting more and more interesting.  So do policy moves surrounding the issue. The bottom line:  Both new Senate Finance Committee chair Orrin Hatch and the Obama administration seem to be stepping up efforts to snooker Congress and the public on measures to safeguard American businesses and their employees against this exchange-rate protectionism.

Hatch is drafting new Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation along with his House Ways and Means counterpart Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, and both will have major says over whether the Pacific trade deal and the negotiating authority critical to its approval will pass Congress. And he’s definitely trying to pose as a public servant completely alert to currency threats.

Just look at the widely reported speech the Utah Republican gave on trade at the end of last month. He blasted President Obama for “pretending these [currency] concerns don’t exist” and proudly declared that “we included within our TPA bill, for the first time, a new principal negotiating objective addressing currency manipulation.”

But upon closer inspection, it’s clear that Hatch’s definition of “meaningful” is a low bar. So far he has simply stated, “We need to see commitments from our partners in ongoing trade negotiations to avoid manipulating exchange rates to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other parties to the agreement, a standard reflecting commitments parties have made in the International Monetary Fund.” In other words, Hatch appears to be pushing language in this fast track legislation that merely urges the president’s trade negotiators to try their best to deal with the issue. Worse, it sounds like he would be satisfied with promises from other TPP signatories that they already have often broken whenever they have believed their interests dictate.

In fact, Hatch made no reference in his address to inserting enforceable disciplines against currency manipulation in the TPP. Given the likelihood that the agreement will include a dispute-resolution process giving a major role to countries with a demonstrable fondness for manipulation, such rules are shaky bets at best to safeguard American businesses and their employees against exchange-rate protectionism. But it’s revealing that Hatch seems unwilling even to support this inadequate measure.

At the same time, Hatch’s apparent double-talk on currency manipulation shouldn’t be a surprise. Back in 2005, when the Senate was considering a bill to enable Washington better respond to currency manipulation unilaterally by using U.S. Trade law mechanisms, Hatch supported the legislation – on a vote that was wholly procedural. The bill’s own sponsors eventually withdrew it following (eventually broken) administration promises to increase pressure on China. In 2011, when the Senate took up a similar bill in final form, Hatch flip-flopped and voted “Nay.”

Not that Hatch is looking like Washington’s only currency manipulation phony. President Obama reportedly has told House Democrats that adding the issue to the TPP would be “complicated.” Yet he has also staunchly opposed dealing with foreign currency protectionists unilaterally – in the form of the aforementioned 2011 bill. Moreover, although U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has been testifying under oath to Congress that currency issues are the Treasury Department’s province and that Secretary Jack Lew is raising these matters in international fora like the Group of 7 major economies and the International Monetary Fund, journalists keep reporting the opposite.

In October, according to a New York Times piece, Lew and the rest of the administration, along with the Federal Reserve, had decided to accept the lower currency values that inevitably followed foreign central bank monetary easing moves because they were needed to stoke growth overseas. Just yesterday, the Financial Times reported that this enabling of foreign currency manipulation has continued.

The Hatch, Obama, and Froman hokum at least clarify one point. Supporters of U.S. trade policy still don’t think they can steer new agreements through Congress by telling the truth.

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Could More Critics Start Making the Smart Arguments Against Obama’s Trade Deals?

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fast track, free trade agreements, Michael Froman, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, offshoring, TPP, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership, transparency, USTR, {What's Left of) Our Economy

As with other policy issues, there are smart and..uh…not-so-smart arguments that can be made against the trade deals being pursued by President Obama. A new NBC News interview of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi makes painfully clear that, during the run-up to the debate Congress is sure to have about these deals plus fast track negotiating authority, too many trade policy critics have been infatuated with the latter kind.

The evidence? Pelosi’s remarks, presented here, that fast track approval is possible “if there’s transparency; if we know what is in this bill, if there’s consultation.”

Pelosi of course is referring to the widespread complaints that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in particular has been negotiated in secret. Allegedly only the lobbyists for offshoring interests have been privy to the Obama administration’s strategy and tactics– and thus have been able to shape them – and representatives of the rest of America’s economy and society have been left in the dark.

As anyone who knows my work realizes, I’m no fan of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman (not that he seems any worse than any of his predecessors over the last forty years). But he has stated that “any Member of Congress can review the negotiating text and has the opportunity to receive detailed briefings,” and I have yet to hear any lawmaker claim that such a request has been rejected. Although the USTR office’s trade policy advisory system is indeed heavily and inexcusably weighted in favor of the offshoring lobby, enough Members of Congress are trade policy skeptics to ensure that the concerns of trade deal opponents are relayed in full to negotiators.

As for complaints that the actual trade talks are secret and that the public isn’t kept adequately informed: Please. That’s standard and vitally necessary operating procedure for all such negotiations, where governments always need to float ideas both serious and cynical, to test out possibilities and tradeoffs, and to smoke out their interlocutors’ real intentions and bottom lines.

Moreover, once the deals are concluded, the texts will be made public, so the secrecy arguments will be null and void, and critics will have to debate substance. There’s no shortage of major economic objections to the deals. But the fact that at this late date, the House Democratic leader seems so unaware of them, or so uninterested, strongly indicates that most critics have given short shrift to the – overriding – economic case.

It’s true that the TPP is far from being finished, and that the President has just made a new request to Congress for fast track authority. It’s also true that Pelosi made some (brief and – transparently – silly) comments about trade critics’ need to demonstrate good faith to the president in order to safeguard worker interests. But the ground should have been paved much more effectively over the last few years about what’s really wrong with these agreements and the predecessors on which they’re modeled.

Now the critics will need to win the equivalent of a relatively short and very intense firefight. Given the tide of money and armies lobbying manpower that can be quickly mobilized by the trade cheerleaders, they may well rue the opportunity they’ve wasted.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Hail Mary for the TPP Trade Deal?

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fast track, Michael Froman, Obama, TPP, Trade, TTIP, U.S. Trade Representative, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I’m trying to decide which is the more interesting question: why Foreign Affairs, organ of the foreign policy establishment, decided to publish U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman’s brief for the new trade deals President Obama supports, or why Froman decided to write and market the article in the first place.

Little could be clearer by now than the president’s growing detachment from either the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) or the fast track legislation that’s crucial to its passage by Congress – unless it’s the opposition to the Pacific and Europe-focused agreements that’s emerged in many of the other prospective signatories.

And although Froman’s piece ostensibly focused on “The Strategic Logic of Trade” – raising the prospect that, once again, Washington is about to throw American workers and domestic producers under the bus in order to make nice with free-riding allies – he quickly retreated back to the (currently) standard argument that new trade deals “first and foremost” have to stand on their economic merits.

Still, it’s pretty revealing that, although Froman did proceed to try linking the strategic case for these agreements to U.S. interests in some of the world’s leading crises, he wound up showing how flimsy the connections really are.

Take Froman’s claim that “Over time, the habits of cooperation shaped through trade can reduce misperceptions, build trust, and increase cooperation between states on other issues — creating ‘an atmosphere congenial to the preservation of peace,’ as U.S. President Harry Truman put it in 1947….”

Do the “recent developments in Asia and Europe” mentioned by Froman in the very next paragraph even come close to bearing this out? East Asia, for example, is the world’s champion trading region, and the offshoring of U.S., European, and Japanese corporate supply chains means that trade within its bounds has exploded along with its trade with other regions. Yet despite the superabundance of trade, misperceptions among China, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and others seem to be on the rise. Mounting geopolitical tensions have even spilled over into economic relations – notably between Japan and China, and between Vietnam and China.

It’s true that open conflict has so far been avoided, and a fear of rocking an economic boat that’s so far been prosperity-enhancing has undeniably played a major role. But it’s even likelier that the military presence of the United States and the alliance system it undergirds has been the truly decisive peacekeeper so far.

Stranger still is the article’s argument that “finalizing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) would send an unmistakable signal to the world about the strength of the U.S.-European bond — a timely reminder, as the crisis in Ukraine has triggered deep unease across the continent.”

I can’t speak with much confidence about how “the world” would interpret the TTIP strategically. I do feel confident in stating that the force threatening Europe’s “ease” – Russia’s Vladimir Putin – is paying much more attention to how the United States and its allies respond to his ever bolder provocations near NATO airspace, and whether they’ll impose stronger sanctions on the Russian economy, than to whether Washington and Brussels can expand their aleady enormous and generally successful trading and investment arrangements.

A Republican party generally favoring these trade deals looks likely to win the Senate in tomorrow’s midterm elections, and boost Mr. Obama’s chances of winning Congressional approval if they’re ever finalized. Perhaps this prospect convinced either Froman or Foreign Affairs or both that a seemingly weighty journal article could provide lawmakers with valuable political cover.

But with the White House admitting that not even a summit with Asian leaders later this month seems capable of creating new TPP momentum, the odds of the new treaties, and the crucial fast track legislation, coming before Congress before mid-2015 look slim. And the further into next year a Congressional trade debate is postponed, the closer these unpopular initiatives approach the next presidential cycle – that all-too-brief quadrennial stretch when even the most dedicated trade cheerleader has to take public opinion seriously.