We have a president, committed to an expansive regulatory agenda at home, who has proclaimed his intention to negotiate “the most progressive trade agreement in our nation’s history.”
Why Give Obama Authority to Negotiate ‘Most Progressive Trade Agreement’ in History?
By Heritage Foundation Terry Miller——Bio and Archives--June 18, 2015
The recent defeat of Congressional efforts to pass a package of trade legislation including Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) provides a great opportunity to rethink the kinds of trade agreements Americans need in 2015.
Opposition to the TPA/TAA deal came from both the left and the right, making it clear that the old consensus on trade cannot hold.
Context matters in such things, and we need to acknowledge that the context in which we think about trade has shifted. With past U.S. administrations, whether Republican or Democratic, unambiguously committed to the free market system and the expansion of economic freedom around the world, a congressional grant of negotiating authority provided maximum leverage to U.S. negotiators to craft deals that reduced tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and opened other countries’ markets and our own as well.
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