Tag: pacific
Battle Begins Over Details Of Obama’s Pacific Trade Deal

Battle Begins Over Details Of Obama’s Pacific Trade Deal

By Sean Cockerham and Franco Ordonez, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has revealed its trade pact with Pacific nations, a sweeping and controversial deal igniting fierce opposition from President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement published on Thursday has been a long-time coming, and with a brutal political fight on the horizon it could be longer still before states ever reap its touted benefits. From agriculture to intellectual property, the pact among the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan and eight other Pacific nations affects a huge array of commodities and concerns.

It promises new markets and millions of new consumers for, say, cotton from Texas, wine from California and pork from North Carolina as tariffs and trade barriers are lowered for nations around the Pacific Rim. And it offers assurances about jobs, labor protections and the environment.

Yet the agreement has to run a gauntlet of congressional skepticism and protectionist presidential politics going into the 2016 elections, as well as the sluggishness of a political system where personality and deep ideological division have been a legislative roadblock.

“It eliminates 18,000 taxes that various countries put on American goods,” Obama wrote in a blog post on Medium. “When it comes to Asia, one of the world’s fastest-growing regions, the rulebook is up for grabs. And if we don’t pass this agreement — if America doesn’t write those rules — then countries like China will.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership pits Obama against Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, who supported the negotiations as secretary of State but has since turned against the deal. Sanders asserts it would expose American workers to competition with low-wage foreign labor, saying in a tweet Thursday that “I will do everything I can to defeat the TPP. We need trade policies in this country that work for working families, not just CEOs.”

The deal puts congressional Republicans, who have supported the negotiations, in the position of voting to give a victory to a president they loathe or going against business allies who want a trade pact.

“I continue to reserve judgment on the path ahead,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a written statement. “But I remain hopeful that our negotiators reached an agreement that the House can support because a successful TPP would mean more good jobs for American workers and greater U.S. influence in the world.”

Obama has to wait 60 days before signing the agreement and sending it to Congress for a review, which would last another month at least. That pushes the contentious issue into a point next year where the presidential campaigns will be in full swing — Republican Donald Trump has joined Democrats Sanders and Clinton in expressing opposition to the Pacific trade deal.

It’s questionable whether Congress would act on the trade deal in such a hothouse election year, particularly with congressional campaigns ramping up. So the issue could be pushed off until the next president is in office. A Senate Republican who will be particularly influential in the debate, Orrin Hatch of Utah, is voicing skepticism about the final deal, a bad sign for Obama given the lack of enthusiasm among members of his own Democratic Party.

(Michael Doyle of the Washington Bureau contributed.)

©2015 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Map of the U.S. trade balance with TPP countries. Tribune News Service 2015

U.S., Japan In ‘Grabbing Distance’ Of Pact On Asia Trade Deal

U.S., Japan In ‘Grabbing Distance’ Of Pact On Asia Trade Deal

Washington (AFP) — The United States and Japan are within “grabbing distance” of resolving their differences on a much-awaited massive Pacific free-trade pact, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia said.

Assistant Secretary of State Danny Russel was speaking Monday, just days before Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is due to arrive on a historic visit to Washington, where he will hold talks with U.S. President Barack Obama and become the first Japanese premier to address a joint session of Congress.

One of the issues at the top of the agenda in his talks with U.S. officials from April 26 to May 3 will be the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an ambitious 12-nation free-trade agreement including Australia, Japan, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The trade deal would encompass 40 percent of the global economy and has been the subject of protracted negotiations. But it does not include China — the world’s second largest economy.

“TPP is making steady headway. We are within what I would call grabbing distance of an agreement with the Japanese and that’s really the lynchpin to closing” the whole deal, Russel told a New York think-tank.

“Every leader and every trade minister within the 12 is determined to close on this deal this year, and it’s really a very impressive deal, not only in trade terms but in environment and labor as well,” he added in his talk at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Abe told The Wall Street Journal he also believed that a deal was within reach.

“We think that an agreement between Japan and the U.S. is close, but we’re hoping that even more progress will be made,” Abe told the business daily.

U.S. and Japanese negotiators have been holding a marathon session in Tokyo as they bid to close the gaps, which have bogged down on issues including Japanese tariffs on agricultural imports and U.S. access to Japan’s auto market.

“It would be good if I could reach an agreement during my meeting with the president, but when you climb a mountain, the last step is always the hardest,” Abe told the Journal.

“Ultimately, what needs to happen is for both countries to make a political decision” to resolve the differences, he added.

Last week, senior U.S. lawmakers reached a deal to make it easier for Obama to negotiate the massive trade pact.

If Congress as a whole approves the bill, it would grant Obama “fast-track” authority, and give lawmakers the ability to vote to approve or reject the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.

But it would prevent them from introducing changes to the accord — described as the largest since the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Photo: ©afp.com / Yoshikazu Tsuno

On Docks, Workers Still Have Power

On Docks, Workers Still Have Power

By Chris Kirkham and Andrew Khouri, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

LOS ANGELES — More than 4,400 ships bring nearly $400 billion worth of goods through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach every year, a crucial link in the global supply chain of factories, warehouses, docks, highways and rail lines.

Wages for most blue-collar workers along the chain have fallen with the quick rise of global trade. But the longshoremen who move the goods the shortest distance, between ship and shore, have shrewdly protected pay that trumps that of many white-collar managers.

About half of West Coast union longshoremen make more than $100,000 a year — some much more, according to shipping industry data. More than half of foremen and managers earn more than $200,000. A few bosses make more than $300,000. All get free health care.

Longshoreman pay dwarfs that of almost all other transit employees, such as trucking, railroad or airline workers. At massive warehouse complexes in the Inland Empire, just an hour’s drive from the ports, goods for the nation’s largest retailers are shuttled around by temporary workers making as little as $10 or $11 an hour, with no benefits or job security.

The unique clout of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union came into sharp relief recently with the partial shutdown of 29 West Coast ports. The crisis passed with a contract deal a week ago, but it will take up to three months to clear the backlog of cargo on the docks and ships stranded offshore. Many businesses and workers won’t recover the money they lost because of port gridlock.

Union spokesman Craig Merrilees said the shipping companies’ pay figures fail to account for the more than 8,000 so-called casual workers — part-timers who don’t receive benefits and often work for years to become registered union members. The data, released by the Pacific Maritime Association, reflect 90 percent of the “registered” union members or more than 12,000 workers.

The association declined a Los Angeles Times request for similar pay data for casual workers and about 1,100 lower-tier union members.

“They don’t want to talk about the other workers,” Merrilees said. “I don’t think it’s responsible.”

How the Pacific longshoremen have weathered forces that have crippled many other unions is a tale of foresight, geography, and technology.

A deal cut by union leaders half a century ago allowed workers to share in the gains from innovations in efficiency, such as modern shipping containers. Another key move: organizing all West Coast ports in the 1930s under a single contract, which prevents shipping companies from pitting workers at neighboring ports against one another.

More recently, longshoremen benefited from the rise of U.S. trade with other Pacific Rim countries, positioning the ports as a strategic nexus, another key leverage point in wage talks.

“So many labor unions don’t have that power anymore,” said Ruth Milkman, a professor specializing in labor movements at City University of New York. “Here’s a place where globalization has benefited the union, whereas the opposite is true in manufacturing.”

Since 1980, container traffic through West Coast ports has grown more than sixfold, according to the most recent data from the American Association of Port Authorities. Pacific ports now handle 52 percent of U.S. cargo volume, compared with 41 percent at East Coast ports.

Unlike factories, ports can’t be moved to low-wage countries. The jobs are “impervious to outsourcing,” said John Ahlquist, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison who has studied port unions worldwide.

The longshoremen’s union has served as a gatekeeper for new entrants to the industry. There are more than 13,000 registered union longshoremen, clerks, and foremen, according to West Coast shipping industry data from 2013.

But the more than 8,000 casual workers compete daily for hours of dock work, hoping to snag leftover shifts after union members get first pick. Many toil for years in a part-time holding pattern, waiting for a new round of hiring.

Patience can pay off. Full-fledged union members are divided into three classes: longshoremen, clerks, and foremen/walking bosses.

The majority are longshoremen, about half of whom — 4,900 — made more than $100,000 in 2013, according to shipping company data; 1,400 longshoremen made more than $150,000 in 2013, according to the data.

More than half of the 600 foremen and walking bosses took home more than $200,000. At the top end, 85 of them earned more than $250,000.

Overtime, paid at higher rates, accounts for about a third of all hours worked, according to the shipping industry. Longshoremen also get bonuses for specific skills and night shifts.

Michael Dimon got his start on the docks in 1978, following his father and great-grandfather. He’s proud of the wages he earns and credits collective bargaining for allowing him to buy a home and save money for his two children to attend college. Dimon never finished high school.

Before 2013, he said, he never made more than $100,000 a year. That year he made $117,000, he said. Last year, he made more, as port traffic at Los Angeles and Long Beach surged to the third-busiest year on record. He declined to say how much.

“I would never pretend to be ashamed of the wages that we negotiate and fight for — absolutely not,” Dimon said. “What it allows me to do is live the American dream. And sadly to say, it’s dying here in America.”

The longshoreman’s dream was forged by a series of strategic decisions that have given the ILWU unparalleled strength.

In the 1930s, West Coast port union leaders succeeded in negotiating a single contract that linked ports from the Pacific Northwest to San Diego.

In 1960, the ILWU cut a deal that paved the way for a revolution in shipping. For centuries, longshoremen had used highly labor-intensive methods when loading and unloading ships — nets, metal hooks, and pallets. The union offered to embrace the use of containers in exchange for higher pay and benefits, along with richer pensions and buyouts for displaced workers.

The strategy continues to define the union’s approach. In 2002, contract negotiations broke down in part over computer systems intended to replace clerical workers who tracked cargo. The deal led to the elimination of hundreds of clerical jobs, but the union negotiated substantial increases in pension benefits and held on to free healthcare.

In the contract talks resolved last month, one of the main sticking points was over who should maintain and repair the trailers that truckers use to haul goods from the ports. Shipping lines recently outsourced the equipment to third-party companies, threatening the union’s maintenance jobs.

Merrilees, the union spokesman, said the union retained the right to do some inspections and repairs on the trailers. But trade experts said the presence of third-party companies could continue to complicate the issue.

Experts point out that the ILWU’s unique place in the supply chain has allowed it to benefit despite automation. But it’s unclear how long the union can prevent technology from eroding pay and job security.

The union may struggle to maintain high wages in a low-wage transportation network, said Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“The nail’s sticking up,” he said, “and people have hammers.”

Photo: John Morgan via Flickr

Naval Ships From U.S., India, and Japan To Start War Games

Naval Ships From U.S., India, and Japan To Start War Games

Tokyo (AFP) — The United States, India, and Japan are set to kick off week-long war games in the Pacific, beefing up naval ties as they warily eye an increasingly assertive China and its military buildup.

Warships from the three countries are to begin the joint exercises on Friday, after an official opening ceremony at the Sasebo Naval Base in southern Japan on Thursday.

Known as the Malabar Exercise, the annual event usually involves India and the United States, but Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) will take part this year, the third time since 2007.

The exercises off Japan’s southern coast come on the back of rising regional tensions as Delhi and Tokyo remain embroiled in territorial spats with Beijing.

China is also at loggerheads with some Southeast Asian nations over its claim to large swathes of the South China Sea.

Washington has been increasingly turning its focus to Asia as it looks to counter Beijing’s growing influence and a military buildup that has unnerved some of its regional neighbors.

“India, Japan, and the United States have a shared strategic interest,” said international relations expert Takehiko Yamamoto, professor emeritus at Tokyo’s Waseda University.

“The aim of this naval exercise is for (the three countries) to manage a vast sea area stretching from the western Pacific to the Indian Ocean.

“They need to make sure the lines of communication stay robust — this exercise has China in mind,” he added.

India is nervous about the so-called “string of pearls”, the concept of a network of ports around the Indian Ocean to which China’s navy would have access, Yamamoto said.

“For India, this is a great threat,” he said.

– Growing ties –

The manoeuvres also reflect growing ties between India and Japan, on both the military and economic fronts, with Japanese Prime Minister making an official visit to Delhi in January — when the two nations agreed to “further strengthen” their defense cooperation and conduct regular naval exercises.

The July 25-30 exercises will include three Indian ships, a frigate, a destroyer, and a supply ship, along with 700-800 personnel, Indian navy spokesman DK Sharma told AFP.

Sharma said the exercises would include anti-piracy, anti-terrorism, humanitarian assistance, and helicopter drills.

“We just concluded… our naval drills with Russia, and since we have already travelled thousands of miles to that side, it’s only natural that Japan will participate in the Malabar Exercise,” he said.

The US Seventh Fleet, which covers the western Pacific and Indian Ocean, will take part in the war games while Japan is dispatching two escort ships, one US-2 search-and-rescue amphibious plane and one P3C patrol plane, said an MSDF spokesman.

He said several hundred Japanese personnel would take part.

“The purpose of Japan’s participation is to improve the strategic capabilities of the MSDF and to strengthen the cooperation among the three militaries,” he added.

China has lashed out at Abe after his cabinet formally endorsed a reinterpretation of Japan’s pacifist constitution banning the use of armed force except in very narrowly-defined circumstances.

Beijing argued that it could open the door to remilitarisation of a country it considers insufficiently penitent for its actions in World War II.

AFP Photo

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