Trump, Fiorina and Huckabee Get Fast-Track Right

I was just about to write a column about Donald Trump being the only potential Republican candidate I knew of to forcefully come out against fast-track, and then I read this article. Carly Fiorina has now come out against it, as has Mike Huckabee. Fiorina and Huckabee are already declared candidates and Trump seems nearly certain to declare next month. According to the linked article Bobby Jindal has spoken out against fast-track as well, and for this he deserves praise, but I won’t deal with Jindal here because he is much less certain to be a candidate.

Trump has a long record of skepticism toward trade deals going back to at least 2000 when he flirted with running for the Reform Party nomination. His opposition is therefore not surprising, and his entrance into the race will be a welcome and much needed voice in the debates.

Huckabee has made statements in the past that indicate he is not an orthodox free-trader. This is one reason that certain conservative organizations and a segment of conservative activists got so disproportionately exercised when Huckabee started to perform well in 2008. Oddly, Huckabee’s website does not mention his opposition to fast-track, which seems unwise since it is an issue that plays well with the GOP base. This is why I wasn’t going to include him as someone who has spoken out “forcefully” against fast-track, but he came out guns blazing on his first day on the campaign trail. His voice will also be a welcome addition to the debate.

Carly Fiorina is that most surprising of the three. Trump and Huckabee both have a history of hitting populist notes, but Fiorina had an offshoring controversy during her tenure at Hewlett-Packard which came up as an issue in her 2010 Senate race in California, and as far as I know has not struck a particularly populist pose in the past.

Fiorina cites not trusting China to live up to any deal it signs as one reason for her opposition. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the two people in the race with real life business experience oppose fast-track and the TPP. They are in the best position to realize that ideological theories about trade don’t always align with reality.

Notable in their absence from this list are Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, both of whom are attempting to portray themselves as outsiders battling the Establishment, and both of whom have enthusiastically endorsed fast-track and TPP.

While Fiorina, Trump and Huckabee all appear to oppose fast-track and the TPP, while Cruz and Paul support both, it is important to separate the two issues. One could potentially support free-trade in theory (as did Rand’s father) or the TPP in particular, without supporting fast-track. This is why Paul and Cruz have no excuse for their perfidy.

Fast-track is a deliberate subversion of the normal legislative process and is arguably unconstitutional. It is a means to get to a particular end by not playing by the rules. No patriot or anyone who claims to revere the Constitution should support it. According to the Constitution, regulating trade is one of the few things that Congress actually has authority to do. The power to regulate trade is “vested” in Congress, and they have no rightful authority to hand off that constitutionally delegated role. No conservative would dream of supporting a similar arrangement for tax or spending policy, which are also specifically the domain of Congress.

Paul and Cruz are trying to sell us on their anti-Establishment bona fides but yet they support legislative gimmickry so globalist, corporatist fat cats can get their managed (not free) trade deal. This is highly unfortunate and something genuine anti-Establishment voters should carefully consider when deciding whom to cast a vote for in the 2016 primaries.

If I have missed any other Republican candidates who are publicly against fats-track, let me know in the comments.

meta: 

Comments

that's astounding

The queen of offshore outsourcing Fiorina? I don't believe it for a second and that's she must have simply read the polling data.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <b> <blockquote> <br> <caption> <center> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr> <i> <img> <li> <ol> <strong> <sub> <sup> <u> <ul>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Fiorina

I seriously doubt that Fiorina will attempt to run as a populist, but I think she may be telling the truth about not trusting China.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <b> <blockquote> <br> <caption> <center> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr> <i> <img> <li> <ol> <strong> <sub> <sup> <u> <ul>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Dan E. Phillips, MD

Fiorina

Yeah, I am having a hard time squaring this with Carly's outsourcing at HP as well.

As far as other Republican opposition the list appears to be growing. While not presidential candidates, Alabama's Senators Sessions and Shelby have come out strongly against, as has the grand poobah of right wing radio Limbaugh. Sessions has been particularly vocal about the problems with the TPP and TPA. he also claims to have read the secret documents and didn't like what he saw.

All appear to support free trade in theory, they express the concerns about its constitutionality and special interests. With Limbaugh its quite simply if Obama's for it, it can't be good.

Obama and Paul Ryan are crafting a deal right now to ram this thing thru congress, by stripping out the human trafficking enforcement out of it - thus allowing flagrant human rights violator Malaysia into the deal

If I am not mistaken, Rand Paul voted against TPA

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <b> <blockquote> <br> <caption> <center> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr> <i> <img> <li> <ol> <strong> <sub> <sup> <u> <ul>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Carly Fiorina can't be trusted

If she were still the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she would definitely support TPP (HP is currently on the list of coalition members who support all these trade agreements.)
http://tradebenefitsamerica.org/about-coalition

"Fiorina cites not trusting China to live up to any deal it signs as one reason for her opposition."

Reuters -- May 21, 2015) "HP sells $2.3 billion China unit stake to forge partnership with Tsinghua Unigroup -- Western tech companies have struggled for customers in China after former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's revelations of cyberspying program involving U.S. firms. Many of these Western companies are now seeking local partners or selling off assets altogether to Chinese buyers."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/22/us-hp-m-a-tsinghuaunigroup-idU...

And why are the TPP negotiators meeting face-to-face on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (Guam)? Can’t they have a teleconference? Or are the talks SO SECRET that they are afraid that the NSA (or someone else) will eavesdrop on them?”
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/05/24/business/intellectual-proper...

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <b> <blockquote> <br> <caption> <center> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr> <i> <img> <li> <ol> <strong> <sub> <sup> <u> <ul>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.