[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18027-18029]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would point out to our colleagues, 
that we now have now received the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. 
It amounts to 5,544 pages, not including the dozens of side-
agreements--three times the book I know the Presiding Officer knows, 
the Bible. It is three times the length of the Bible and several times 
the length of ObamaCare. It has just been delivered to us with all 
kinds of promises for good things that might result from its 
affirmation.
  No American has the resources to ensure that his or her interests are 
being protected in this document. It is so long and the ramifications 
are so broad that Congress cannot do its job to ensure that the 
people's interests are safeguarded by such an agreement.
  We already have trade deals with all the major TPP countries, except 
Japan. So I will say with real confidence this is much more than trade. 
If it was, a bilateral agreement with Japan would fix it. We have 
agreements with Australia, Chile, Canada, and other countries.
  The TPP is about the goal of creating a new global regulatory 
structure--

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what I have called a Pacific Union--transferring power from individual 
Americans and Congress, eroding Congress, to an unaccountable, 
unelected, international bureaucratic committee.
  Because President Obama has been given fast-track powers by this 
Congress--unwisely I think--Congress cannot amend this deal, we cannot 
strike one offending provision, apply a filibuster to force a 
supermajority of 60 votes, as we have to have for most legislation, or 
to apply a two-thirds treaty vote. Additionally, the White House writes 
the implementing legislation, which, in turn, necessarily supersedes 
any existing American law. So this is what we mean by fast-track.
  Today I would like to share a few thoughts about one aspect of this 
agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission. There is a 
particular chapter in this mammoth agreement, chapter 27, titled--
innocuously enough--``Administrative and Institutional Provisions,'' 
which deals with the creation of a Trans-Pacific Partnership 
Commission.
  Section 27.1 outlines the creation of this Commission and who is a 
member. The agreement states that ``each party shall be responsible for 
the composition of its delegation.'' In other words, we are empowering 
the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries to create a new congress of 
sorts--a group with delegates that goes and meets and decides important 
issues that can impact everyday lives of Americans. The American 
representative in this Commission, which will operate in many ways like 
the U.N., will not be answerable to voters anywhere. How long will 
their terms be? How will they be chosen? Will there be any restrictions 
on lobbying, any requirements of transparency? Can they always meet in 
secret? Are there any ethics rules? The answer is, it will be whatever 
the TPP countries decide it will be.
  The fact that they negotiated this in secret for months--years, 
really--indicates that transparency is not a quality they value very 
highly. It is an entity untethered above and outside the Constitution 
of the United States. All our government agencies in the United States 
must answer to the Congress and the President, the Chief Executive. 
These institutions will not. So we need to be cautious.
  All I am saying is, why do we have to do this? Why do we have to 
create a Commission in which Vietnam or the Sultan of Brunei gets the 
same vote as the President of the United States?
  Section 27.2 lists several powers of the Commission which should be 
expected in any regulatory body. It is granted the power to oversee the 
implementation of the TPP and the power to supervise the work of 
relevant working groups under its jurisdiction. However, then the 
section states this: Under the rules, the Commission shall ``consider 
any proposal to amend or modify this Agreement,'' to change the 
agreement. They get to change the agreement. We can ratify this, but 
they get to change it whenever they deem appropriate. Also, the 
Commission shall ``seek the advice of non-governmental persons or 
groups on any matter falling within the Commission's functions'' and 
``take such other action as the Parties may agree,'' while considering 
``input from non-governmental persons or groups of the Parties.''
  It also says it will consider the findings of international fora to 
help advise them. I guess one of the fora they will not be considering 
is a group like the National Federation of Independent Business, small 
businesses.
  None of these terms are defined as to what constitutes a 
nongovernmental person or group. What is that?
  Remember, when the Founders of our country negotiated the 
Constitution, they worried about every word. They thought about what it 
would mean and could mean decades, centuries later. They talked about 
creating a new form of government on this entire continent. They 
actually believed that could be possible, and it certainly has become 
reality. Have we given that kind of thought to the power we are 
delegating to this Commission? How will the agreement be amended or 
modified?
  Just last week, the Secretary of State, Secretary Kerry, was in 
Kazakhstan. He told the television station in Kazakhstan that he is 
interested in seeing China and Russia be added to the TPP and that they 
would consider the Philippines a prime candidate to join in the future. 
That is an interesting thing to announce, particularly in Kazakhstan. 
Since it impacts the people of the United States, it might be nice for 
him to be talking more to the people of the United States.
  So this would create a situation in which new countries can be added, 
it appears, most any different way.
  The point is, this global governance authority is open-ended. The 
agreement states that ``the Commission and any subsidiary body 
established under this Agreement may establish rules of procedures for 
the conduct of its work.''
  It even covers climate regulation--a lot about climate regulation. 
The agreement states that ``the Parties acknowledge that transition to 
a low emissions economy requires collective action.'' Having been a 
proud cold warrior, I have never been happy with people who use the 
word ``collective.'' It makes me nervous.
  The TPP is a living agreement. According to the U.S. Trade 
Representative's own Web site, the living agreement provision is in the 
TPP: ``. . . to enable the updating of the agreement as appropriate to 
address trade issues that emerge in the future as well as new issues 
that arise with the expansion of the agreement to include new 
countries.'' It says it is to deal with trade issues and new issues. 
Are those issues nontrade? Are they environmental issues? Are they 
labor agreements or other kinds of things that are unrelated directly 
to trade? I think it is clear this would allow that to happen.
  Regardless, after the TPP is passed and Congress has blessed the 
union, the Senate will have no say in how the Commission is established 
or the rules by which it is governed. It is untethered to the Congress.
  Second, currency manipulation is a serious issue. It is impacting our 
ability to trade effectively today in a very large way.
  Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve during a time when he 
and President Reagan transformed the American economy from raging 
inflation and interest rates to a sound economy, said that currency 
manipulation could wipe out decades of trade negotiations in a matter 
of minutes. We have seen that happen.
  Currency is huge and impacts so many companies. If you read the 
financial pages, you will see that companies are worried about their 
bottom line in large part because it will be harder for them to compete 
with foreign competitors who devalue their currency deliberately in 
order to gain an advantage in trade. But there is no enforceable 
currency mechanism in this agreement, although it was fought for in 
both Houses of Congress and came close, but it is not in it.
  On November 5, the Wall Street Journal wrote: ``Mexico, Canada and 
other countries signaled they were open to the [currency] deal when 
they realized it wouldn't include binding currency rules that could 
lead to trade sanctions through the TPP.'' This caused Ford Motor 
Company to immediately reject the TPP the day it was released. Their 
spokesman argued that they could not support a deal in which currency 
rules ``fell outside of TPP and [failed to] include dispute settlement 
mechanisms to ensure global rules prohibiting currency manipulation are 
enforced.''
  This is a huge matter. Ford says that when they are selling an 
American-made automobile or truck in a foreign country, they are losing 
thousands of dollars as a result of currency manipulation by many of 
our trading partners. So it is hard to sell an automobile if our 
foreign competitors have, in effect, a comparative advantage on 
currency alone of several thousand dollars.
  The administration has zero interest in preventing foreign market 
manipulations and currency manipulations, and thus the TPP will cause 
massive job losses. It just will. We will be less able to compete.
  Let's be frank. I supported the Korean trade agreement. We have great

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allies in Japan and Korea and others in the Pacific, but they are tough 
trading partners--competitors, if you want to know the truth. They are 
competitors. They are mercantilists. They have a goal. Their goal is to 
sell as much as possible to foreign countries and particularly to the 
greatest market in the world, the market they lust to gain even more 
access to--our market. They want to sell to us. Through a whole lot of 
different mechanisms, they resist purchasing anything from us. Have we 
made any progress in lessening the trade deficit to Japan or Korea 
lately? It is not going to happen because these barriers are nontariff, 
currency being one of the most noteworthy.
  Foreign workers and governments under the TPP are not inhibited from 
illegally undercutting American workers through currency manipulation 
in order to export their unemployment to the United States.
  The way this happens is, if you have a business in a foreign country 
and the world market has slowed down and your exports are slowing down, 
if you devalue your currency, your product becomes cheaper and can be 
sold in the United States or other countries at a cheaper price, and 
you keep your people working and manufacturing those widgets, whereas 
the country that imported your product lays off its workers because it 
can't compete at that price--for the widgets. It is an artificial way 
to gain market advantage.
  In May of this year, I wrote the President and asked him simple 
questions. This is important, colleagues. I asked him to state whether 
the TPP would increase or decrease our trade deficit. He refused to 
answer. I asked him whether the TPP would increase or decrease the 
number of manufacturing jobs in the United States. He refused to 
answer. I asked him how the TPP would affect the average hourly wages 
of the American middle class. He refused to answer. He never wrote 
back. All that the proponents in the White House have said about this 
deal is that it would increase production and jobs in the export 
industries. But exporting is such a small part of American industry 
production. They don't mention how many jobs would be lost by the 
increased imports into our country.
  Dan DiMicco, the CEO emeritus of Nucor Steel, which operates steel 
plants all over the Nation, wrote in his recent book:

       The world says one thing about open markets and free trade 
     but does another. Whatever sharp cultural or political or 
     language differences may separate the Japanese from the 
     Chinese, or the Germans from the French, this much they all 
     have in common: they know how to advance and protect their 
     economic interests.

  Mr. President, has my time lapsed?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama, there is a 10-minute 
time limit.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes to 
wrap up.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. They know how to advance their interests, and we have 
not been effective in advancing ours.
  It is time to take TPP off the fast track, take this off the fast 
track and get busy defending the interests of the American people.
  DiMicco writes:

       In principle, any industrial policy would begin by saying 
     the business of creating, making, and building things must be 
     at the heart of any overreaching economic strategy.

  This agreement is not just about promoting trade; it is about 
creating a framework for a transnational union which supersedes the 
authority of Congress.
  Finally, if it were truly about opening markets to U.S. producers, 
the United States would simply have negotiated bilateral agreements 
with the countries we need to talk to.
  We are the world's greatest market for worldwide products that are 
made, and right now we give open access, incredibly, to foreign 
imports. Just look at those containerships on the Pacific coast stacked 
to the top. It is not working for jobs in America, it is not working 
for wages in America, and it is not working for manufacturing. We have 
to make things. Moving to a services economy would be failure.
  Of course we want trade. Of course we want to purchase items from 
abroad. I am not saying we shouldn't. What I am asking is, are we, in 
negotiating this trade agreement, giving even broader access to our 
markets without getting enough in return? That is the problem. America 
must make things. Consumption in America should be for Americans and 
for export. Our competitors want the opposite, and they have been 
winning, but they need us more than we need them; thus, we have great 
power to reverse this course.
  Figuratively speaking, some of our politicians will be pushing up 
daisies if they don't listen to what the American people are saying. 
They must listen to the sound, common sense of the people who hold the 
ultimate power. They expect us to make sure their interests are 
legitimately defended. I don't believe this trade agreement does that, 
and we will talk more about it as time goes by.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.

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