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Paul Ryan on trade vote: Obama must sway Democrats to salvage deal Ryan and Sanders trade remarks on defeat of TPP legislation
(about 3 hours later)
A leading House supporter of trade legislation that Democrats drove to defeat this week said on Sunday President Barack Obama must sway his own party to save the measure. Related: Defeat for Obama on trade as Democrats vote against him
Republican representative Paul Ryan – the House ways and means committee chairman – said Democrats were making Obama “a very lame-duck president”, and told Fox News Sunday the legislation could be salvaged. Obama, he said, “has work to do with his party”. Two days after Barack Obama suffered a damaging defeat at the hands of his own party on trade, Paul Ryan, a leading House supporter of the controversial legislation that Democrats drove to defeat, said on Sunday the president must sway his own party to save the measure.
Ryan was Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick in the 2012 election. A contender for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, however, remained defiant. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called Obama’s trade policy “a disaster, that … must be defeated”.
At issue in the trade legislation is a worker assistance programme – part of a package that includes special trade negotiating power for the president. Another vote could come this week, but it would take a major shift among Democrats after Friday’s defeat to allow it to pass. Ryan, Mitt Romney’s Republican vice-presidential pick in the 2012 election and the chairman of the House ways and means committee, said Democrats were making Obama “a very lame-duck president”, and told Fox News Sunday the legislation could be salvaged. Obama, he said, “has work to do with his party”.
Obama’s labor secretary Thomas Perez told ABC, meanwhile, that the US must set the rules for global trade. He said: “The world is watching us now.” At issue in the trade legislation is a worker assistance programme – part of a package that includes special trade negotiating power for the president. Another vote could come this week, but it would take a major shift among Democrats to allow it to pass.
“The Democrats abandoned their president,” Ryan said, “the leader of their party, in droves, on a bill and programme that they demanded as part of this, that they previously voted for unanimously. That they asked as a part of this process. So, to me, it was stunning that they would do this to the leader of their party, the president.”
On Friday, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, spoke against the president’s agenda before the vote on trade adjustment assistance.
Sanders, a self-described “democratic socialist” who sits in the Senate as an independent and spent the weekend campaigning in Iowa, heralded the congressional defeat of the legislation supported by Obama.
Appearing on CBS, he said: “Here is the fact. Since 2001 in this country we’ve lost almost 60,000 factories and millions of good-paying jobs. I’m not saying trade is the only reason but it is a significant reason why Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and why we have seen our jobs go to China and other lower wage countries.
“Finally what you’re seeing in Congress are Democrats and some Republicans beginning to stand up and say, ‘You know what? Maybe we should have a trade policy that represents the working families of this country, that rebuilds our manufacturing base, rather than just representing the CEOs of large multinational corporations.”
Sanders pointed to a political difficulty currently facing the Democratic frontrunner, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who has largely avoided the issue while campaigning.
“Let me say this,” Sanders said. “Corporate America and Wall Street are going to bring that bill back to the House next week.
“I would hope very much that Secretary Clinton will side with every union in this country, virtually every environmental group and many religious groups and say this TPP policy is a disaster, that it must be defeated and that we need to regroup and come up with a trade policy which demands that corporate America starts investing in this country rather than in countries all over the world. I look forward to working with the secretary on this issue.”
Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, also appeared on CBS. He defended Clinton against ridicule from Republicans, including Ryan, for her lack of a position on trade, saying: “Hillary has not been on the sidelines … there will be no tougher fighter at the negotiating table for everyday Americans when these trade things are being negotiated, so American families can trust her to fight hard for them.”
Among the partisan arguing, Obama’s labor secretary Thomas Perez appeared on ABC to say the US should set the rules for global trade. Perez said: “The world is watching us now.”