Tag Archives: Obama

Answering the TPA Critics Head-On

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(6/17/2015) In recent op-eds and blog-posts I have argued that prospective trade agreements like the TPP (the Trans Pacific Partnership) would be economically beneficial for reasons similar to past trade agreements and that they would have geopolitical benefits too. I have also opposed adding currency manipulation to the trade negotiations.

I am far from alone. Support for giving the White House Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) is shared by most economists, including 14 former chairs of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.  But we supporters have not sufficiently responded to the most common arguments of the critics of the TPA process:  a perceived abandonment of democracy and transparency. read more

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New Improved Trade Agreements

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(5/11/2015)  In marketing the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), President Obama has been emphasizing some of the features that distinguish it from earlier free trade agreements such as NAFTA.  They include commitments by Pacific countries on the environment and expansion of enforceable labor rights.  Also new is the geopolitical argument for the much-discussed “pivot to Asia.”  (Detractors, for their part, focus on some partly new features as well, such as investor protection, which is said to benefit only big corporations.) read more

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Why Has the US Economy Picked Up? Congressional Republicans

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(Jan. 22, 2015) What a difference two months make. As recently as November, when Republicans scored strong gains in the US congressional elections, the universally accepted explanation was economic performance that was perceived as disappointingly weak. (As always, “it is the economy, stupid.”) A substantial share of the American public thought that economic conditions were actually deteriorating last year; many held President Barack Obama responsible and voted against the incumbent party.

Now suddenly everybody has discovered that the US economy is doing well after all. So much so that Republican leader Mitch McConnell, newly elevated to Senate Majority Leader, has switched from a position that the economy is bad and Obama is to blame, to a position that the economy is good and the Republicans should get the credit. read more

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