So says William M. Daley (one of the Chicago Daleys). Daley starts out by saying:
IN 1993, President Bill Clinton tapped me as special counsel to lead the fight to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement. As a new trade debate rages in Washington, I’ve thought a lot about that effort. The mistake we made in the 1990s was overestimating the potential of Nafta’s positive impact. Today, we are making the mistake of underestimating what defeat of the Asia-Pacific deal would mean economically, globally and politically.
He goes on to make excuses for the failures of NAFTA -- failing Mexocam peso, baldly stating that the "departure of millions of jobs from American workers never materialized, either ...', um, you see ...
When the manufacturing decline began in earnest in 2001, the main culprits were the offshoring of jobs to China, with which we have no trade deal, and automation.
Daley claims that if we sign onto TPP, we will be setting down the rules of commerce.
But, who will be writing those rules?
Further considerations of Bill Daley -- and Third Way -- below:
As Daley mentions in his article:
In the 17 trade deals the United States has concluded since 2000, our balance of trade in the blue-collar-goods sector went from minus $3 billion to plus $31 billion, according to an analysis of government data by the centrist policy institute Third Way, on whose board I sit.
Bill Daley ... Third Way (centrist policy institute), too, too ominous.
Bill Daley's Third Way:
Bill Daley’s Third Way Promotes Limiting Lawsuits for Foreclosure Fraud Victims ...
It wasn’t so long ago that Third Way, which has gained renewed confidence and influence on Capitol Hill in recent weeks, opposed any moratorium on foreclosure operations, sticking their head in the sand and denying the existence of the growing foreclosure fraud crisis beyond a few “technical errors.” The fact that Third Way’s Board of Trustees mostly works in finance, for some of the top banks in America, all of whom are exposed by this crisis, was pretty obvious from their recommendation.
Why Daley has a post on Third Way because:
Daley is well-positioned to increase the prominence of Third Way as Midwest Chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co and board member of Boeing Corporation, Abbott Laboratories and Northwestern University.
Democratic Underground discusses TW extensively.
And, a sweet diss from Naked Capitalism:
Third Way is an influential think tank whose board is composed of a special Wall Street-type – the Rubin Democrat. These people sit at the nexus of politics and finance, and are conduits for big bank friendly information flow into the administration and Congress. The President of the think tank, Jonathan Cowan, was the Chief of Staff for Andrew Cuomo at HUD in the 1990s, and Third Way is well known in policy circles for delivering ‘politically safe’ and well-packaged conventional wisdom. Oh, and one more thing – the new White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who just left the most senior operating committee of JP Morgan, was on their Board of Directors.
Ya know? Dailey is right. Free Trade is not our enemy.
Bill Daley and Third Way are.