Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas
NEW YORK – In his visit to London, President Obama openly urged Britain to remain in the European Union to benefit from Atlantic and Pacific multi-national free-trade deals he has championed.
While Obama was yet in London, Member of Parliament Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, UKIP, loudly objected to Obama’s stance and named Wall Street investment banking giant Goldman Sachs as the ultimate culprit behind the push for both free-trade deals.
The developments have rekindled the controversy over Sen. Ted Cruz’s advocacy along with House Speaker Paul Ryan of fast-track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal Goldman Sachs has championed, as well both Ted and Heidi Cruz’s extensive ties to Goldman Sachs.
In his comments at a joint news conference with Prime Minister David Cameron in London on Friday, Obama made clear the United States is pursuing a strategy of global multi-national trade deals, linking his enthusiasm for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, with his effort to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, through Congress.
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“Particularly because my understanding is that some of the folks on the other side have been ascribing to the United States certain actions we’ll take if the U.K. does leave the EU,” Obama posited. “So they say, for example, that, well, we’ll just cut our own trade deals with the United States.”
Obama made clear no bilateral trade deal with the U.K. was on the horizon.
“And on that matter, for example, I think it’s fair to say that maybe some point down the line, there might be a U.K.-U.S. trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon, because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done, and the U.K. is going to be in the back of the queue – not because we don’t have a special relationship, but because, given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries – rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely inefficient,” Obama said.
Obama mirrored the comments that U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made to reporters after a meeting with Japan’s Economics Minister Akira Amari in Tokyo on April 19.
“I think it’s absolutely clear that Britain has a greater voice at the trade table being part of the EU, being part of a larger economic entity,” Froman told Reuters in an interview, adding that EU membership gives Britain more leverage in negotiations.
“We’re not particularly in the market for FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) with individual countries. We’re building platforms … that other countries can join over time.”
Ted Cruz supports TPA
As WND reported last month, Cruz co-authored with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., then chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on April 22 that endorsed Trade Promotion Authority, typically known as “fast track,” to allow the White House to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership through Congress in an up-or-down vote with limited debate.
The Cruz campaign told WND that the senator supported Congress giving TPA to Obama.
But the campaign said Cruz always has opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and supports TPA only because he favors free trade generally.
In a “Note to Conservatives on Trade Agreements” posted on the Cruz campaign website, the question is asked, “Does Senator Ted Cruz Support TPP?”
The website states in response:
Senator Cruz has not taken a position either in favor or against TPP. He will wait until the agreement is finalized and he has a chance to study it carefully to ensure that the agreement will open more markets to American-made products, create jobs, and grow our economy. Senator Cruz has dedicated his professional career to defending U.S. sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution. He will not support any trade agreement that would diminish or undermine either. [Bold in original]
“When this was written, Sen. Cruz had not yet read TPP,” Brian Phillips, a spokesman for the Cruz campaign, told WND. “Now that he has read the agreement, Cruz made clear he did not support TPP and would not vote for TPP. I want to be clear that Sen. Cruz has never supported TPP, not even in this statement.”
Phillips said the distinction between TPA and TPP was critical to understanding Cruz’s position.
“The facts are that Cruz supports TPA because he believes it is required for Congress to pass effectively any trade bill,” Phillips clarified in conclusion. “But we do not want a bunch of insinuations to be published suggesting Sen. Cruz supports TPP. Cruz has never ever said anything to suggest he supports TPP. We want to make sure the facts are straight.”
A review of Texas newspaper coverage in 2015 makes clear it was widely perceived that Cruz also supported TPP.
Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau reporter Michael A. Lindenberger wrote April 9, 2015, that Cruz “told voters in Iowa in January that he favors the TPP and extending fast-track authority to the president.”
“I am a strong supporter for free trade,’ the Dallas paper quoted Cruz saying.
The Dallas Morning News covered Cruz joining with Ryan to co-author the Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.
“The duo [Cruz and Ryan] wrote in support of Trade Promotion Authority, or “fast track,” which waives Congress’ ability to amend trade deals before voting on them. Presidents from both parties have used it since the 1970s, and Obama is asking Congress to renew it for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal currently under negotiation,” noted reporter Sylvan Lane in a “Cruz Roundup” published April 22, 2015.
“While most Republicans and some Democrats support fast track, trade deal-wary liberals oppose it, along with conservatives who fear giving Obama too much power,” Lane continued. “But Ryan and Cruz insist fast track ‘makes it clear that Congress–and only Congress–can change U.S. law,’ even though trade deals are subject to Congressional approval with or without it.”
Heidi Cruz, Robert Zoellick and Nigel Farage
In the White House, Heidi Cruz began in 2003 as a deputy to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as director for the Western Hemisphere. Subsequently, she worked as a deputy to U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, the former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations.
After serving as international vice chairman at Goldman Sachs, Zoellick became the 11th president of the World Bank from July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2012.
On Jan. 12, 2014, Zoellick authored an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that was an unqualified endorsement of fast-track authority to pass both the TPP and the TTIP.
He argued the first step to Obama “opening markets and creating fair rules for free enterprise in a new international economy” was for Republicans in Congress to take a lead in getting TPA passed.
Hoping that Congress would approve TPP in 2014, Zoellick argued that next on the Obama free-trade agenda was to concluded the TTIP negotiations with the European Union.
“Together, TPP and TTIP could forge modern trade and investment rules with major economies of western and eastern Eurasia,” Zoellick wrote.
The UK Independence Party leader, Farage, has been a fierce opponent of free-trade agreements, including both the TPP and the TTIP.
In an editorial published by Breitbart.com April 22, Farage characterized the TTIP as “a corporatist stitch-up between the U.S. establishment and the European Union” that reduced to “a dream for big multinationals but a disaster for ordinary Brits.” He said the TTIP “represents once again, supra-national bodies going over the top of nation state democracies.”
In this recent criticism of TTIP, Farage once again named Goldman Sachs as a prime mover behind the multinational trade agreement.
“This is why the likes of President Obama and Goldman Sachs are so passionate in their insistence of the UK remaining in the EU,” Farage wrote in his editorial. “Rather than dealing with individual governments, they can deal with and lobby unelected EU Presidents and Commissioners directly. Unaccountable to the electorate, these people now have the power to push the TTIP agenda.”
‘Building a North America
In May 2005, the CFR Task Force on the Future of North America issued a report titled “Building a North America,” co-authored by the task force’s then vice chairman, the late Robert A. Pastor, who directed the Center for North American Studies at American University.
On the CFR website, Heidi Cruz is listed as one of 31 members of the Task Force on the Future of North America as “an energy investment banker with Merrill Lynch in Houston, Texas.”
“Heidi served as a term member at CFR,” Rick Tyler, then-Cruz for President national spokesman, confirmed to WND in an email, as WND reported in March 2015. “Her term expired in 2011. She was one of 31 members assigned to the task force that produced the Building a North American Community report.”
Tyler, in his email to WND, emphasized that Sen. Cruz has never been a member of CFR and noted Cruz harshly criticized the organization during his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign as a threat to U.S. sovereignty, even though his wife was a member at the time.
Tyler pointed out that at a campaign event in Tyler, Texas, in 2011, Cruz called CFR “a pernicious nest of snakes” that is “working to undermine our sovereignty.”
Tyler emphasized that Heidi Cruz’s contribution to the “Building a North American Community” report was “narrowly focused on economic issues.”
“She said as much in her dissenting view included in the report,” Tyler told WND.
On Feb. 23, a day before the Nevada Republican primary caucuses, Cruz asked for Tyler’s resignation from the campaign after Tyler distributed a video that falsely portrayed then-Republican presidential primary rival Sen. Marco Rubio dismissing the Bible.
Heidi Cruz, currently a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Houston, has taken an unpaid leave from her private wealth-management job to participate in her husband’s presidential campaign.
On Jan. 13, the New York Times revealed that in running for the U.S. Senate in Texas in 2012, Cruz and his wife obtained up to $1 million in low-interest loans without disclosing the transactions to the Federal Election Commission, as required by federal elections law.
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/obamas-u-k-trip-reopens-cruz-free-trade-support/
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