Sen. Elizabeth Warren is ridiculing the secrecy surrounding a sweeping international trade deal being negotiated by the Obama administration, and she is demanding to know why the deal's terms are being kept from the American people when it is their livelihoods at stake,
The Hill reports.
The Massachusetts Democrat and Wall Street critic wrote on Twitter on Wednesday:
Earlier, President Barack Obama
criticized Warren for opposing the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact.
"I love Elizabeth. We're allies on a whole host of issues. But she's wrong on this," Obama said in an interview on MSNBC Tuesday with "Hardball" host Chris Matthews.
Obama is lobbying Congress to let him negotiate global trade deals that lawmakers can either accept or reject in whole but never modify with amendments. A Senate committee on Wednesday approved a bill granting the White House the so-called "fast-track" authority it wants for deals including TPP.
The full Senate has yet to vote on the measure, and fast-track trade promotion authority faces an uncertain future in the House, where Democrats including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi want to rewrite provisions to give Congress more leverage,
The Hill reports.
Pelosi broke her silence on the bill Thursday, telling reporters the Senate version "is not a bump in the road, it's more like a pothole."
Obama told Matthews, "I would not be doing this trade deal if I did not think it was good for the middle class. And when you hear folks make a lot of suggestions about how bad this trade deal is, when you dig into the facts, they are wrong."
But opponents on Capitol Hill including Warren say that based on what little public information there is about TPP, it is likely to favor big business at the expense of workers, and they are questioning the administration's line that secrecy is necessary for such delicate, high-stakes negotiations.
"Here's the real answer people have given me: 'We can't make this deal public because if the American people saw what was in it, they would be opposed to it,' " Warren wrote on her blog Wednesday.
"They say the deal is nearly done," she continued in her blog post, "and they are making a lot of promises about how the deal will affect workers, the environment, and human rights. Promises — but people like you can't see the actual deal."
Trade is already becoming an issue in the 2016 presidential race, with Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton — under pressure from her party's liberal wing — avoiding taking a position on TPP, which she endorsed as secretary of state.
"Any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security," Clinton said this week.
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