Saturday, November 17, 2018

USMCA---A TPP REDUX? by Christian Gomez

            "Heralded as a "big win" for President Trump, the newly negotiated NAFTA replacement, the United States--Mexico--Canada Agreement (USMCA) appears to have all the earmarks of Obama--era trade agreements, with former Obama officials seeing stark similarities.
            "'Throughout the campaign I promised to renegotiate NAFTA, and today we have kept that promise,"  Trump said from the Rose Garden on October 1, 2018, as he spoke about the 'incredible new U.S.--Mexico-Canada agreement called USMCA.'
            Unbeknownst to most of Trump's base and strongest supporters is that much of the USMCA's text is virtually identical to that of President Obama's Trans--Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a 'free trade' agreement negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim nations (Aistralia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam) and at the time representing 40 percent of the world's GDP.
            During the 2016 presidential elections, Trump staunchly opposed TPP, making it the centerpiece of his belief in 'Americanism, not globalism.'  Yet now, much in the same manner that NAFTA was a beach-head for globalism, the USMA does not disappoint globalists.,
            . . . .  Trump's lead NAFT/USMCA negotiator was U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer, who's been a longtime member of the globalist, one-world-government-building Council on Foreign Relations, and who previously applauded the 'Obama administration's TPP agreement.  In addition to Lighthizer, another of Trump's negotiators was his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has had business ties with the D eep State, including Goldman Sachs and George Soros.
          In addition to Lighthizer and Kushner, many of the negotiators working within both the State Department and USTR office are career diplomats and employees, having also worked in the Obama administration.
           According to the online Huffington Post, 'At least half of the men and wo;men standing behind Trump during his Rose Garden ceremony praising the new deal were the same career service staff who negotiated nearly identical provisions in TPP, which Trump had railed against.'
           Trevor Kincaid, the USTR spokesman for the Obama administration, told the Post that it' the same USTR team that worked under OBAMA.  'Ironically, he called them horrible negotiators when running for office.' Kincaid said, later adding, 'It's basically the '22 Jump Street' of trade deals.'
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          Let us take globalist CFR President Richard Haass at his word when he describes the USMCA as NAFTA plus the TPP, with an additional 10 to 20 percent, and let's stay out of it."

Yes, Kenneth Stepp agrees with Christian Gomez, "Let's stay out of it." 

Tuesday, November 06, 2018

Thank you for following.

T.  Great campaigns result in a great government.  Perhaps not many of us were meant to be great Congressmen nor great statesmen, nor great politicians.  We've got to keep on keeping on.  I hope to return to this blog later tonight.  Thank you for following this blogspot.
Kenneth Stepp.