Lawmakers in the United States Senate have thrown a wrench in a plan that would have given President Barack Obama “fast track” authority to advance a 12-nation trade deal between the US and Pacific Ring partners. How did your Senator vote? See the Roll Call here.
For almost ten years now, the North Carolina NAACP has been building an anti-poverty, anti-racism, pro-labor moral people’s movement. The strength of our movement is based on a simple truth--we provide a platform to give voice to thousands of working families who have been shut out of the corridors of power.
Republicans in both chambers are increasingly confident that they have the votes to pass the linchpin legislation President Barack Obama needs to enact his trade agenda.
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." —Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
'It is absurd that a trade agreement of such enormous consequence has had so little transparency,' says Sen. Bernie Sanders. With members of Congress set to debate Fast Track authority this week, hundreds of environmentalists, consumer advocates, nurses, labor leaders, and elected officials stood shoulder-to-shoulder at a Washington, D.C. rally on Monday, pleading with lawmakers: 'Don't Trade Away Our Future!
The “Progressive Coalition For American Jobs,” run by former Obama campaign staffers, purports to represent the progressive left on the trade deal that the progressive left hates.
With legislation to speed up congressional approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership and other corporate-friendly trade deals on the verge of being introduced in Congress, a coalition of elected officials, labor unions, and environmental groups gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to voice their vehement opposition to such a bill.
About 20 million working people in this country need good jobs and an economy to rebuild the middle class. A threat to that growth and stability for many Americans is what is before Congress right now: fast track negotiating authority for trade agreements.
In the 1976 film “Network,” a news anchor, played by the late actor Peter Finch, urges his television audience to open their windows and shout the infamous phrase, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
Below please find helpful questions and answers on investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) that pertain directly to incorrect claims being made by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). For a more detailed unpacking of USTR’s common claims about the ISDS system, please visit this detailed fact sheet.
The “Progressive Coalition For American Jobs,” run by former Obama campaign staffers, purports to represent the progressive left on the trade deal that the progressive left hates.
Obama campaign alumni Mitch Stewart, the Battleground States Director for Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, and Lydia Tran, the former National Press Secretary for Organizing for America, just launched a new astroturf campaign to promote the fast-track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Their efforts will focus on Oregon and Washington at first because they are both export-heavy states--and because Ron Wyden (D-OR) is the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said this week that it is unlikely that a Fast Track trade bill will come before lawmakers for consideration before April. According to Reuters, "Hatch said talks on the trade bill, seen as key to finalizing the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), were 'stuck' over Democratic demands to allow unsatisfactory deals to be taken off the fast track."