The elitist "free trade" clique's official representative in the United States Senate wants to "fix" President Trump's new trade deal with Mexico and Canada. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) isn't even trying to hide the disdain he has for the nationalist voters who elected Trump because they value American workers over multinational corporate profits.
Toomey was the lead signatory on a letter sent by 12 Republican senators to Trump urging him to seek passage of new NAFTA replacement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) before a new Congress convenes in January with Democrats running the House.
These Republicans hope to push poisonous free-trade additions into the deal and fear Democrats may actually pursue a more protectionist tack if the pact is left to the next Congress.
Defiant Rejects
The usual Republican establishment creatures are to be found signing alongside Toomey. Their political position has been thoroughly discredited among the American people, yet Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) are unsurprisingly among those eager to hijack Trump's trade deal. Remarkably – considering the fact that the president just saved his Senate seat – Ted Cruz (R-TX) is on board too, showing the quality of character that has made him perhaps the least-respected politician in America today.
In an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal on November 20, Toomey misleadingly asserted that Democrats have been the real opposition to worry about when it comes to ratifying USMCA, and not GOP establishment free-market fetishists like himself.
"Entrusting House Democrats with passing the USMCA is a dicey proposition, at best," he wrote. "Many of the newly elected Democrats ran on opposition to all things Trump, and the next House speaker will not prioritize passage of President Trump's signature trade achievement."
But this loving concern for getting the trade deal passed is merely a charade to suggest Trump must cave to Toomey's brand of economic globalism. In another op-ed in the Journal in May, Toomey showed his true colors on USMCA. He belligerently wrote:
"Rather than trying to coerce free-trade Republicans into voting for an agreement that weakens trade and the economy, the administration can accept the advice from many members of Congress and others to modernize Nafta in ways that expand trade opportunities without curtailing American consumers’ freedom."
Toomey then went on to warn Trump what the consequences would be if he tried to scrap NAFTA upon USMCA being rejected by Congress. He uses this same language in his less antagonizing Nov. 20 op-ed, saying a unilateral withdrawal from NAFTA by Trump would be "disastrous for the American economy and would kick off a constitutional battle between the branches over trade power."
So basically we have a free-trade fanatic Republican senator demanding that USMCA be tweaked to his specifications or he will not only oppose it but trigger a constitutional war over Trump pulling out of NAFTA after Toomey and his ilk kill USMCA in Congress. Yet Democrats are supposed to be the real enemy to the president's trade agenda!
Club Man
Toomey's stance is 100% in keeping with his deep standing in the elitist multinational free trade crowd that ran roughshod over the Republican Party for some 30-odd years before Trump triumphed in 2016. Toomey was president of the free market advocacy Club For Growth from 2005 to 2009. Upon being elected to the Senate in 2010, he promptly became the globalist group's man in Washington. The club poured a cool $5 million into Toomey's tight re-election race in 2016 just for moments such as this.
Current club president David McIntosh co-authored an opinion piece for Investor's Business Daily as early as Nov. 28, 2016 (only 20 days after the election) warning Trump not to water down NAFTA. McIntosh and co-author Scott Lincicome used the same menacing language as Toomey, warning of "a situation with dire economic and constitutional implications" if Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the trade agreement.
This bitter hostility in defense of a treaty that is wildly unpopular with most Americans shows that when it comes to protecting the American worker, the Republican elite is just as determined an enemy as the open-borders-supporting Democrats.
... when it comes to protecting the American worker, the Republican elite is just as determined an enemy as the open-borders-supporting Democrats.
But are they really as essential as they think they are? While Democrats certainly are irrational in their blind hatred for Trump, there is a real reason to hope that they can work with the president to get USMCA through. After all, there is much for their traditional base to like in the deal. Unions especially should be excited about provisions on wages and North American sourcing of car-part components that will protect workers from having their labor undercut abroad. Even liberal publication Vox ran an article touting the new deal as a boon for both Mexican and American workers.
If dealmaker Trump can work with Democrats to get his NAFTA-torching trade deal through, then why not? There is no reason whatsoever to pretend that elitist Republican politicians carrying water for their big industry donors are allies in the fight to make America great again.
