Delaware Dems: Clinton won’t sway Senate on TPP

NEW CASTLE, DEL. — Hillary Clinton’s opposition to an expansive trans-Pacific agreement isn’t likely to sway the views of anyone in the Senate, a pair of pro-trade Democratic senators said Friday.

Delaware Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons — who each supported fast-track authority for President Obama this summer — said the Democratic front-runner’s decision this week to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) won’t factor into their final stance.  

“Not that we don’t respect her opinion, but I don’t know that her views on this issue are going to sway a lot of us in the Senate,” Carper told reporters during a tour of a lighting manufacture that specializes in optimizing output.

Carper said that Clinton supported the Iran nuclear agreement from start to finish and yet that didn’t move anyone in the Senate to change their stance on the deal.  

Coons argued that every senator must read the deal and base their decision to support or oppose the TPP on how it will affect the economies in their home states and the nation as a whole before casting “a vote that reflects their own analysis.”

“While it’s important to know the views of different candidates, Republican and Democrat, on different issues, I don’t think that’s going to influence my review of the agreement and my vote. My hunch is that’s the case with most senators,” Coons said.

While Coons was more cautious about where he stands on the TPP, Carper took a more aggressive stance saying that he is inclined to support it but still has to review the massive agreement before making a final decision.

Both senators said their primary focus is to protect the state’s poultry industry and manufacturing base.

Coons — who has supported trade deals during his five years in the Senate, except for the 2011 deal with Colombia — said he is still waiting for the text to be released before taking a position.

“I need to review it. I’ve got a number of areas of concern and a number of areas where I think this is a very strong agreement but I haven’t read it,” he said.

The text of the TPP is expected to be released within the next few weeks.

“This is a very large, very complex trade deal,” Coons said, adding that “the administration has set very high [standards] in terms of labor and environmental and intellectual property protections.”

“I look forward to seeing what’s in the actual agreement. I don’t think any member should be saying ‘Oh, I’m definitely against it or I’m definitely for it with no idea what’s actually in it’ ” he said.

Besides Clinton, the agreement is already facing some headwinds among congressional Democrats and Republicans, including some who are concerned about they treatment of tobacco and high-end medicines in the deal.

The senators spent the afternoon touring area businesses with U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who is making his first public sales pitch since the United States and 11 other nations completed the TPP on Monday in Atlanta.
                             
Froman stressed that the deal will eliminate 18,000 different taxes imposed on American imports to the Asia-Pacific while vastly raising labor and environmental standards.  

“Delaware is a great example of a state that is very internationally focused. It’s got a strong manufacturing sector, a strong agriculture sector, a strong services sector,” Froman told reporters after a tour of WhiteOptics.

He countered labor union criticism that the TPP will lead to job losses, arguing that the agreement requires countries such as Vietnam to bring their system into international compliance and extend globally recognized labor rights to more than 500 million people.

“This agreement has the strongest labor obligations and provisions of any trade agreement in history, and they’re fully enforceable,” he said.