Rep. Tom Reed’s May 26 Big Flats Town Hall Meeting discussed his “Defense of Property Rights Act” and “Social Security Disability funding” which were the subjects in earlier New NY 23rd articles. A third topic that took a good portion of the almost two hour meeting 
was “The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trade Performance Authority (TTA)”.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a “Free Trade Agreement” among 11 countries: United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Rep. Reed calls the TPP the “trade agreement and the trade agenda for America’s future”. Although he at times belittled those who oppose the proposed Trade Agreement by exaggerating their views, Rep. Reed tried to presents a decent simplified description of the complex Multinational Trade Agreement. Like all good politicians, Rep. Reed only tells us what he wants us to think. He pointed out:
- 95% of the world’s consumers are outside America’s borders, and “there is going to have to be access to those markets in order to make our good here to sell them there. And that’s what the trade agenda is all about.”
- TPA “sets in motion the mechanism upon which we consider trade agreements.”
- The TPA required Transparency
- that “we (members of congress) can participate in the process”. Then members of congress can actually go to the negotiating rounds
- before we can take a vote on the trade agreement, that agreement has to be public for 60 days.(The Public can comment on the proposed agreement).
- TPA includes minimum standards for for future trade agreements on150 topics, including: intellectual property rights, human rights, currency manipulation, unfair trade practices, sanitary standards. The minimum standards must be considered before the TPP would be debated in Congress.
The 95 percent comment may be a bit confusing. The TPP does not open up 95 percent of the world’s markets, but multinational agreements in general would open up the foreign markets. I could not find a listing of the 150 points that Rep. Reed referred to in the last comment, but found articles that referred to them. One was from the Congressional Research Service. The topic starts on page eight.
Hear the questions and Rep. Reed’s comments about TPA in the following video:
After Rep. Reed summarized why he supports Fast Tracking he explained why it was necessary for congress NOT to be able to proposed amendments to the TPP and to only be able to have an up or down vote: Consider the negotiating nightmare it would be if the United States and the 10 other nations had the power to change the document that the official negotiators had agreed on–then return to the tables and re-negoatited those terms. Then that cycle continues.
At that point, Victor Tiffany, questioned the constitutionality of Fast Tracking. (If you listened to the first video you may have heard Reed’s District Director Joe Sempolinski mention Victor’s name when he read the questions–and that Victor called Fast Track unconstitutional.) Tiffany’s reasons to categorize it as illegal is (1) the Executive Branch is negotiating the agreement, not the Legislative Branch as it is suppose according to in the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and (2) if the agreement is a “treaty”, it should be ratified by the Senate with a 2/3 majority and the House would have nothing to do with it. Reed dismisses the second item by saying, “I would see at it as an enhancement to make sure the House is weighing in and approving the agreement.”
Tiffany responded: “The framers (of the constitution) laid down the course here. Now if you want to say “Screw the framers we want to do it our way” if you want to make that case—fine.” Rep. Reed was lost for words.
The following five-minute video includes the full exchange between Reed and Tiffany.
Rep. Reed, responding to a Donald Trump comment about China, explains that TPP he would love to have China at the TPP negotiation table. The conversation would have gone longer, but another audience member seems bored with this topic and interrupts the questioner and changes the topic. This shows Rep. Reed’s inability to control his audience.
Finally, another audience member, “Steve” who is an union member, told of his concern that multinational corporations from TPP member countries can sue the United States if our laws hinder the corporations to realize as much profit as possible. Rep. Reed states that this has never happened before with other trade agreements. Steve responds that our laws have not been changed by these lawsuits, but fines have been paid. Rep. Reed doesn’t disagree.
See the discussion in this short video clip.
Please realize that the the idea that American jobs would be lost to the other TPP countries didn’t come up for discussion. I’m sure that is the major reason that Labor is against this proposal. In Viet Nam, $0.60 an hour is a good wage. The Trans-Pacific-Partnership and the Trade Performance Authority is complex and controversial. The New NY 23rd has had other articles with many comments on those issues. Follow the links to read the articles:
TPP and Fast Track (Written by Cath Kestler)
Rep. Capuano (D-MA) on Trade Rep. Reed: “America’s Law has to be Primary”, but…
The Trans-Pacific-Partnership is not just a “Trade” Pact. (Written by Victor Tiffany)
Negotiations: Iran and Trans-Pacific-Partnership
Trans-Pacific-Partnership, Part 1 (Written by Deb Meeker)
Trans-Pacific-Partnership, Part 2 (Written by Deb Meeker)
New NY 23rd 
Reed and the other corporate hacks in Congress are opposed to all “one world” government ideas, like the UN. They scream and yell and rant about USA independence from foreign influence. Unless those “one world” policies put money into the pockets of their bosses. How can anyone take anything this guy says seriously?
When Reed says that no foreign corporations from other nations have EVER sued the US under free trade agreements he is, once again, telling an “untruth”. The US government has been sued at least 11 times by foreign companies under the free trade agreements. Canada has been sued over 20 times. (Canada has had to pay $170,000,000 in damages; Mexico has had to pay $204,000,000).
You can be sure more and more lawsuits will follow challenging any environmental or worker protection laws , which CAN be overridden by the free trade agreements.
How can you tell if Reed is lying?….(You know the rest).
LikeLike
Reed didn’t say we have not been sued. His lack of denying being sued is an admission of it has happened.
He only said, “Just so were clear, its never happened in any prior trade agreement that have been able to find where there’s been an overturning of a United States law by some independent body.”
When Steve agreed and said, “They don’t overturn it, but they can be compensated.”
Victor Tiffany called it a protection racket. “If you want to protect your air you are going to have to pay.”
Reed knows the words to repeat, and when to “not hear” his constituents.
LikeLike
I find it interesting that a lot of the left and the far right are united on being against TPP. The Left because if the lost of jobs and the right because of the seemingly unconstitutionality of the process. Of course Rep. Reed who sees $$$ in his eyes in the form of corporate donations to his next election, is for opening the labor of Viet Nam being paid 60¢ an hour.
LikeLike
Some disparage TPP as Obamatrade even though the GOP leadership as well as Tom Reed favor it, and it couldn’t possibly be accepted without substantial GOP support.
LikeLike
Town halls have started to be a little more work for Tom Reed. Gone are the days he could waltz into a small meeting of a handful of constituents, and just expound on his views without consideration of theirs. This is good news.
LikeLike