Secret things done in the dark

In an op-ed column published by the New York Times, David Brooks offers a full-throated defense of the Trans-Pacific Parternship deal. The Dems, in an uncharacteristic display of effectiveness, have managed block fast-track authority. The Powers-That-Be are now making a desperate attempt to keep the agreement alive, and Brooks is part of that effort.

He begins his full-throated defense of TPP with a full-throated defense of NAFTA.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, for example, probably didn’t affect the American economy too much. But the Mexican economy has taken off. With more opportunities, Mexican workers feel less need to sneak into the U.S.

The irony here is that Obama won the presidency in 2008 only because he posed as a strict opponent of NAFTA in certain key primaries. He lied his ass off, of course.

Brooks is now doing likewise. In both America and Mexico, more people disapprove of NAFTA than approve of it. According to this Public Citizen report (pdf),

The small U.S. trade surplus with Mexico pre-NAFTA turned into a massive new trade deficit. The pre-NAFTA U.S. trade deficit with Canada expanded greatly. Overall, the inflation-adjusted U.S. trade deficit with Canada of $29.1 billion and the $2.5 billion surplus with Mexico in 1993 (the year before NAFTA took effect) turned into a combined NAFTA trade deficit of $181 billion by 2012.1 The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) estimated that the NAFTA deficit had eliminated about one million net American jobs by 2004.2 Meanwhile, U.S. food processors moved to Mexico to take advantage of low wages and food imports soared. U.S beef imports from Mexico and Canada, for example, have risen 130 percent since NAFTA took effect, and today U.S. consumption of “NAFTA” beef tops $1.3 billion annually.3 The export of subsidized U.S. corn did increase, displacing over one million Mexican campesino farmers. Their desperate migration pushed down wages in Mexico’s border maquiladora factory zone and contributed to a doubling of Mexican immigration to the United States.

The U.S. public’s view of NAFTA has intensified from broad opposition to overwhelming opposition to NAFTA-style trade deals. According to a 2012 Angus Reid Public Opinion poll, 53 percent of Americans believe the United States should “do whatever is necessary” to “renegotiate” or “leave” NAFTA, while only 15 percent believe the United States should “continue to be a member of NAFTA.” Rejection of the trade deal is the predominant stance of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike.4 NAFTA has drawn the ire of Americans across stunningly diverse demographics.

Brooks says that NAFTA has reduced illegal immigration. If that's the case, then what prompted NPR to come up with a headline like "Wave Of Illegal Immigrants Gains Speed After NAFTA"?

We are barely three paragraphs into Brooks' defense of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the man has already demonstrated a formidable gift for mendacity. Refuting all of the other paragraphs would require a book-length argument.

For present purposes, we need only ask: How can Brooks assure us that the agreement is benign when the whole thing so bloody covert? If the TPP were in our best interests, then why is a trade agreement being treated with the kind of secrecy normally reserved for nuclear launch codes?

Jon Schwartz reports:

You probably know by now that no normal Americans are allowed to see the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. It’s classified. Even members of Congress can only read it by going to secure reading rooms in the basement of the Capitol.

But here’s what you might not know: you’re not even allowed to know who in Congress has bothered to do this.

It's the Patriot Act all over again. Congress is being asked to vote on the thing without studying it.

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration, said that his best estimation of how many members of Congress have read the TPP — which has been called the biggest trade deal in history — is “in the single digits.” (Reich himself called the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative recently to ask to see it, and was rebuffed.)

So I’d say it’s almost certain that most of the 219 representatives and 62 senators who’ve voted to “fast track” the TPP have never even looked at it.

If you want to know more about the TPP, take the time to watch the Young Turks segment embedded above. The videos below will also help. TPP has been wounded, but it ain't dead yet, so the fight continues.

Bottom line: If someone shuts the door, turns off the light, and warns you never to talk about what's going to happen -- there's a pretty good chance that you are going to find yourself bent over with your underwear around your knees.

(And yes, I know I'm very late to this fight. I've devoted perhaps too much of this blog to the issues of Syria and Ukraine.)