Next week in Chicago, the Administration kicks off the eighth round of Trans-Pacific free trade agreement talks with multiple Asian nations. The nine-day negotiation includes talks with Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Peru and Chile, but whatever comes out of the talks is intended to be a “docking agreement” to which larger nations in Asia and South America can sign up. That would include Japan, India and Taiwan; heck, it could include mainland China. This has been in the works for many years, and the Obama Administration has been negotiating since late 2009. The soft deadline for a Trans-Pacific FTA is November, just two months from now.

While there is a rhetorical pivot to jobs, jobs, jobs , what the White House is proposing is not even close to the most they could do. What we have here is actually a poverty of imagination. There are plenty of things that the executive branch can do – power they’ve had since they came into office – to boost jobs. They have $80-$100 billion in unused TARP funds that could be put to productive use, including at least $40 billion dedicated for housing. They could use Fannie and Freddie much more aggressively than this renting idea, creating a kind of modern-day HOLC to buy up homes.

The President’s address fell mainly in line with what he’s been saying over the past several weeks: with the debt limit deal, a “manufactured crisis” in his words, put to bed, now the good and wise and responsible members of Congress can get to work on a jobs package to put America back to work. This is the big pivot, the time when all the focus shifts to jobs. Isn’t it exciting?

I thought Mitch McConnell was just grousing about trade adjustment assistance being included in the three trade deals that the President sent to Congress. What I didn’t know is that the White House negotiated directly with House Republicans on the deal, and didn’t really consult the Senate minority. So they’re making mischief out of a real opposition, not to put on a show. This means that these trade deals may not go through at all.

The Obama Administration intends to meet Congressional demands to move all three pending NAFTA-style “free trade” agreements with Colombia, Korea, and Panama by an arbitrary deadline of July 1

The South Korea deal could cost 159,000 jobs in the first eight years, and the Colombia deal 60,000 jobs.

One of the tradeoffs made by the US administrations to gain support for entering into Free Trade Agreements is that these agreements impose certain standards on the parties – to protect the environment, human rights and union rights.

So what will the Obama administration do when the terms of one of those agreements are blatantly violated?

The White House has given the go-ahead to a third trade agreement since December, this one with Panama. US Trade Representative Ron Kirk hinted that the Panama deal was coming soon in a conference call earlier this month announcing the Colombia trade deal. The NAFTA-style trade deal with Korea was announced in December.

As of tonight, there is still no word on AngryArabiya’s father, brother-in-law and husband –or her uncle who was arrested three weeks ago. She wrote last night: This will b one of the most difficult nights of my life, wat condition is my wonderful & kind husband in. I close my eyes & I see [...]

Earlier today, the Washington Post reported that Republicans would tie a trade adjustment assistance bill valued by Democrats to the finalization of free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

Sure enough, when Democrats tried to pass this bill today in the Senate, Republicans blocked it. They tried to call up the bill by unanimous consent and Republicans objected. In case you didn’t notice, then, Republicans just broke the gentlemen’s agreement on getting bills to the floor to try and force the President to sign off on some corporate-written trade bills with countries that kill their workers for trying to unionize.