Report: Obama Has the Votes to Pass TPP

Would President Barack Obama “poison the well” on a key issue if Donald Trump wins the election on Tuesday?

A new report suggests that on the issue of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that’s exactly what he plans to do. According to Breitbart News, not only does the president “have the votes” to get the trade deal—which Trump opposes—ratified, but he’ll likely have the help of Republican “leaders” in Congress to see it through in a “lame duck” session after the election.

According to the report:

Indeed, during a recent CNBC interview, Bill Clinton said that the case for approving the TPP is “clear.” Similarly, just last week, Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, seemed to leave the door open to the possibility that a Hillary Clinton administration would pass an Asian trade deal similar to the TPP, declaring “you never close the door” on passing this type of multinational trade deal.

The Washington Post has reported that Clinton’s agenda on foreign trade would likely be advanced by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. Like Clinton, Ryan has been an enthusiastic advocate for globalist trade policies. In 2015, Ryan was President Obama’s “partner” in their effort to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In a 2015 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Ryan described the TPP as an “historic” agreement which “would mean greater access to a billion customers for American manufacturers, farmers and ranchers.”

However, like Clinton, Ryan was forced to rhetorically distance himself from his prior support for TPP when faced with a primary challenge this past summer.

“After spending more than a year praising the TPP, and pushing through the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) package needed to grease the skids for it last year, Ryan” backed away slightly from his former position as a result of his contentious primary battle in Wisconsin’s first Congressional district, Breitbart reported earlier this year. “I have my own problems with TPP. It is not ready,” Ryan said of the 12-nation trade pact in August, indicating that he’d be open to enacting a tweaked version of the agreement at a later date. While campaigning, Ryan told his Wisconsin constituents that he wouldn’t bring the deal up for a vote during the lame-duck session of Congress “as long as we don’t have the votes.”

An overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the “free trade” deal.