As the White House prepares for its final “all-out push” to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) during the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle are being made vulnerable due to growing opposition to the controversial, corporate-friendly trade deal.
“[I]n 2016,” the Guardian reported on Saturday, “America’s faltering faith in free trade has become the most sensitive controversy in D.C.”
Yet President Barack Obama “has refused to give up,” wrote Guardian journalists Dan Roberts and Ryan Felton, despite the fact that the 12-nation TPP “suddenly faces a wall of political opposition among lawmakers who had, not long ago, nearly set the giant deal in stone.”
The Huffington Post reported Thursday:
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Not only are “[v]ulnerable Senate Republicans are starting to side with Donald Trump (and Democrats) by opposing President Obama’s signature trade deal,” as the Washington Post reported Thursday, but once-supportive Dems are also poised to jump ship.
To that end, in a column this week, Campaign for America’s Future blogger Dave Johnson listed for readers “28 House Democrat targets…who—in spite of opposition from most Democrats and hundreds of labor, consumer, LGBT, health, human rights, faith, democracy and other civil organizations—voted for the ‘fast-track’ trade promotion authority (TPA) bill that ‘greased the skids’ for the TPP by setting up rigged rules that will help TPP pass.”
Of the list that includes Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), Jared Polis (Colo.), and Ron Kind (Wis.), Johnson wrote: “Let’s get them on the record before the election about whether they will vote for TPP after the election.”
Also on the list is Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), from whom the Communication Workers of America is reportedly withholding its endorsement due to his support for the TPP.
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