Open Trade Is Locked in No Protectionism

2ac TPA Open trade is locked in—no protectionism Kim 13 Soo Yeon Kim, of the National University of Singapore, associate professor of music at Nazareth College of Rochester, New York, Fellow of the Transatlantic Academy, based at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, The Monkey Cage, January 30, 2013, " Protectionism During Recessions: Is This Time Different?", http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2013/01/30/protectionism-during-recessions-is-this-time-different/ There is widespread agreement regarding the critical role of international institutions as “firewalls” against protectionism during this recession. Economic and non-economic international institutions have served as conveyors of information and mechanisms of commitment and socialization. Their informational function enhances the transparency and accountability of states’ trade policies, and they mitigate uncertainty when it is running high. Specialized international institutions devoted to trade, such as the WTO and preferential trade agreements ( PTAs ), also lock in commitments to liberal trade through legal obligations that make defections costly, thus creating accountability in the actions of its members. Equally important, international institutions are also arenas of socialization that help propagate important norms such as the commitment to the liberal trading system and cooperative economic behavior. In this connection, the degree to which a particular country was embedded in the global network of economic and non-economic international institutions has been found to be strongly correlated with fewer instances of protectionist trade measures.¶ Information provided to date by international institutions, with the exception of the GTA project, largely agree that states have not resorted to large-scale protectionism during this recession, in spite of the fact that the “great trade collapse” at the beginning of the current crisis was steeper and more sudden than that of its Great Depression predecessor. The WTO Secretariat, in addition to its regular individual reports on members’ trade policies under the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), has issued more than a dozen reports on member states’ trade policies during the crisis. At the request of the G-20 countries, which pledged not to adopt protectionist trade measures at the onset of the crisis in 2008, the WTO, the OECD, and UNCTAD have produced joint reports on the trade and investment measures of the world’s largest trading states. They, too, find that G-20 countries had largely adhered to their commitment not to raise trade and investment barriers. In the World Bank’s Temporary Trade Barriers (TTB) project, an important and unique data collection that includes information on pre-crisis and crisis trade policy behavior, Bown finds that temporary trade barriers such as safeguards, countervailing and antidumping duties saw only a slight increase of usage by developed countries, in the neighborhood of 4%. In contrast, emerging market economies were the heavy users of TTBs, whose usage rose by almost 40% between 2008 and 2009.¶ As scholarly insights accumulate on the current recession and its impact on protectionism (or lack thereof), two questions emerge for further research. First, to what extent have governments employed policy substitutes that have the same effect as trade protectionism? International institutions may appear to have been successful in preventing protectionism, but governments may well have looked elsewhere to defend national economies. This question can be seen in the broader context of the “open economy trilemma,” in which governments may achieve only two of three macroeconomic policy objectives: stable exchange rates, stable prices, and open trade. Irwin argues that governments that abandoned the gold standard during the Great Depression were less protectionist, and their economies also suffered less from the recession. Existing scholarship also indicates that governments are likely to employ policy substitutes , opting for monetary autonomy when facing trade policy constraints, for example, due to membership in a preferential trade agreement. Moreover, at the time of writing, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that it has dropped its objections to capital controls, albeit cautiously and only under certain conditions, thus potentially providing another policy alternative for governments to achieve economic stability during this crisis. Future research may further extend the application to policy substitutes that are deployed during economic downturns.¶ Finally, why did firms not push for more protection? Protectionist policies are not adopted by governments in a political vacuum. In order to adopt trade defense measures such as antidumping duties, governments first conduct investigations to assess the extent of injury. Such investigations are initiated when firms apply for them through the domestic political process. If indeed governments did not appeal extensively or unusually to protectionist trade policies, the explanation to a significant degree lies in firm behavior. A distinguished body of research exists in this area that is due for a revisit in the age of extensive international supply chains, from Schattschneider’s classic examination of the domestic pressures that led to the Smoot-Hawley Act to Helen Milner’s study of export-dependent firms that resisted protectionism during the crisis of the 1920s and the 1970s. Milner rightly pointed out that “firms are central,” and over the years the export- dependent, multinational firm has evolved in tandem with the increasing complexity of the international supply chain. Today’s firm is not only heavily export-dependent but equally import-dependent in its reliance on intermediate inputs, whether through intra-firm trade or from foreign firms. The extensive international supply chain thus often puts exporting and importing firms on the same side of the political debate, especially when they are members of large multinational firms. Moreover, the study of firm-level behavior must extend beyond the developed world to consider firms in emerging market economies, which have been the heavy users of trade defense measures during the current recession. How the internationalization of production, driven by investment and trade in intermediate goods, restrained multinational firms from pushing for more protection remains an important question for further research.

Won’t pass – PC fails and Obama not pushing Freeman 2/2/15 – International Principal at Forbes-Tate, LLC (Charles W, “Trade -- Can Obama get it done?,” http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trade-can-obama-get-it-done/article/2559487)

This is why other all America's trade partners are waiting anxiously for Obama to be granted trade promotion authority (TPA). Until he gets it, they will not give their final, best offers to the his negotiators. TPA would force an up-or-down vote on the deal the president sends to Congress. But who in Congress, Republican or Democrat, is eager to give the president a blank legislative check on any issue these days? Republicans, particularly those on the Right, are loath to provide him with powers the the Constitution otherwise reserves to Congress. Democrats, smarting from their election losses of 2014, which many ascribe to Obama’s unpopularity, aren’t keen on helping him burnish his legacy, particularly with an issue that splits his base. Talk of “steamrolling ” probably doesn’t do much to advance the cause. Supporters of trade and the TPP are hoping that the president’s alternatively vaunted and lampooned skills as a community organizer will be brought to bear and knit together this fractious community. Similar efforts by the Clinton and Bush administrations involved all hands on deck and late-night phone calls by the president to individual lawmakers. The pro-trade community is cheered by recent talk that Obama will create a whip group of cabinet officers chaired in the White House to rally support for first TPA and then TPP (and then, possibly, for a trans-Atlantic trade and investment partnership with Europe). But if the President is truly going to launch a campaign with the kind of retail politicking necessary to drive "yes" votes on trade , it would be a solitary outlier in the otherwise- aloof legislative strategy practiced by this White House. After all, the president’s signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, was notoriously passed with a White House legislative strategy that consisted primarily of cheering from the sidelines. If the legislative activity on trade is as buzzing as some in the administration suggest, it’s a little alarming that few if any of the key members and staffers on the Hill seem to have heard from anyone at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. purporting to be whip ping their votes. Froman has thus far been the frontman selling the trade agenda, but despite his strengths, he can’t deliver the votes to pass the agreements he is negotiating with other countries. Obama pushing D.C. legalization – triggers huge fight over pot Santos 2-3-15 (Maria, “Obama’s budget proposal would allow D.C. to finally legalize marijuana, after attempts by Congress to block them,” http://redalertpolitics.com/2015/02/03/obamas-budget-proposal-allow-d-c-finally-legalize-marijuana-attempts-congress-block/)

DC ’s marijuana legalization h as somehow become a budget item for Congress and the president to squabble over. The bickering began after several Republicans quietly snuck a provision into the “Cromnibus” spending bill forbid ding the city from using any funds to enact marijuana legislation, which passed in the district in the last election. Now President Obama has jumped into the fray with his budget proposal. His budget plan amends language in the spending bill so that it forbids only the use of federal funds, leaving city funds free for use towards implementing the new law. “[T]he president supports the principle of home rule and he believes that Congress should not interfere with local decisions by the citizens of the District of Columbia about how they should be governed,” the White House told Politico. Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) told Red Alert Politics that the problem ultimately lies with federal law. Marijuana is still a highly- controlled substance under federal law, rated as a Schedule 1 drug—the same level as heroin. “If you don’t like federal law, let’s change federal law,” Woodall said. “The president has taken us down this road so many times…instead of changing the law, he just ignores the law. That’s true on marijuana. It’s true on the delay of the Affordable Care Act.”

ISIS vote thumps – top of docket AP 2-6 Associated Press (AP), Andrew Taylor and Nedra Pickler, staff, “Despite Outrage Over IS Slayings, Lawmakers Expect Opposition to Granting Obama War Powers,” U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, 2—6—15, www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/02/06/lawmakers-expect-resistance-to-granting-obama-war- powers

Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress will face some resistance to a vote to authorize President Barack

Obama's war against Islamic State militants despite international outrage over video of militants beheading their captives and burning one alive. War

authorizations are among the most difficult issues to confront members of Congress. Several Democrats will be reluctant to approve new war powers unless there is a clear deadline or some way to pay for the military operation. Some Republicans, strong foes of the president, will object to giving Obama the authority. Obama is poised in coming days to

ask Congress for new authority to use U.S. military force against IS, the White House said Thursday. But the top House Republican warned it won't

be easy to pass the measure. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said it will be up to the president to rally

support from lawmakers and the public. "His actions are going to be an important part of trying for us to get the votes to actually pass an authorization," Boehner said Thursday. " This is not going to be an easy lift." In the U.S. battle against IS, Obama has been relying on congressional authorizations that President George W. Bush used to justify military action after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Critics say the White House's use of post-9/11 congressional authorizations is a legal stretch at best. Obama has insisted that he had the legal authority to send U.S. troops to train and assist Iraqi security forces, and to launch airstrikes since September against targets in Iraq and Syria. Now, the administration wants to get a new so-called Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, with bipartisan support from Congress. "The president believes it sends a very powerful signal to the American people, to our allies, and even to our enemies, that the United States of America is united behind this strategy to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. Republicans generally want a broader authorization of military action against the militants than Democrats have been willing to consider. Obama has said he does not intend to deploy U.S. combat troops, though many Republicans believe that option ought to be available. "I have always believed that when it comes to fighting a war that Congress should not tie the president's hands," Boehner said. Currently, there are 2,378 U.S. forces in Iraq conducting training, advising and assisting Iraqi forces at the brigade and headquarters levels and doing security. Earnest declined to discuss specific provisions being considered, such as how long the authorization will last, what geographical areas it will cover and whether it will allow for ground troops. He said details are still being worked out with lawmakers from both parties. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said talks with the administration are focusing on an authorization that would last three years, with other issues still being debated. Pelosi told journalists it will be a challenge for Democrats, the White House and Republicans to forge an agreement, but that she ultimately expects one to be reached. "I'm not saying anybody's come to an agreement on it," Pelosi said. "I think it's going to be a challenge, but we will have it." Pelosi said she hopes Congress will repeal the 2002 congressional authorization for the war in Iraq but retain the 2001 authorization for military action in Afghanistan. Earnest said the White House also supports repeal of the Iraq authorization replaced by the new authorization.

Fiat solves the link- the plan passes with the least resistance, doesn’t deal with the political ramifications of the plan

Massive Dem support for the AFF – best chance for sustaining veto power Sterling, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation president, 2014

(Eric, “Republican-Controlled House Backs Obama Rules Enabling Marijuana Banking”, 7-16, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-e-sterling/republican-controlled- hou_b_5593055.html, )

The Obama Administration, realizing that this increased the risk of robbery and undermined effective accounting practices, issued " guidance " on Feb. 14, 2014, to enable banks to start taking deposits of cash from marijuana businesses, even recreational marijuana businesses. The Treasury Department guidance can be found here. But the banks remained very leery of breaking federal law. U. S. Rep. John Fleming (R-Louisiana) was outraged by the Obama initiative. He offered an amendment that would block the Obama Administration's guidance to the banks. But on Wednesday afternoon, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to uphold the Obama Administration regulations to let marijuana growers and sellers deposit their revenue in federally regulated banks. The 186 Yes -- 236 NO vote defeated Fleming's amendment. This is HUGE . Even though most Republicans (179) voted yes with Dr. Fleming, the Republican leadership allowed this vote to support the Obama Administration. Obama, many Republicans (46) and the House Dem ocrats ( 190 out of 199 ) are united that where marijuana growers and sellers are legally operating under state medical marijuana and recreational marijuana laws, they can use the banking system they have been excluded from since 1986. In 1986, when I was counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, I played a major role in developing the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986. That law provided that anyone who engaged in a transaction like making a bank deposit of more than $10,000 from an illegal business, like a marijuana store, could go to prison for up to 10 years (Section 1352 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, P.L. 99-570, Oct. 27, 1986 (18 U.S.C. 1957)). That was then! Today's vote to allow marijuana businesses to use banks was by a bigger margin of victory than the June 30 vote barring the DEA from interfering with medical marijuana in states where it is legal, and this vote included recreational marijuana. The disads not intrinsic- a logical policy maker would just do both

Obama is angering both supporters and opponents of legalization now by towing the line—the plan resolves this. Hotakainen, the Olympian, 2014

(Rob, “Lawmakers rankled by Obama’s weed waffling”, 2-9, http://www.theolympian.com/2014/02/09/2974120_lawmakers-rankled-by-obamas-weed.html?rh=1, )

But while the Justice Department promotes the plan, the Obama team is making it clear that it has no interest in changing the federal law that sends many nonviolent drug offenders to prison in the first place: the one that outlaws marijuana. On Tuesday, the president’s deputy drug czar, Michael Botticelli, told the House Subcommittee on Government Operations that while the administration wants to help more marijuana offenders get treatment, it won’t move to legalize the drug. “This opposition is driven by medical science and research,” he said. For critics, it’s another example of the confusion that ’s passing for marijuana policy these days in Washington. It’s increasing pressure on Obama and his advisers to deliver a consistent message. Legalization opponents say the president should listen to his drug and science experts, who warn that marijuana is highly addictive and a threat to the developing brains of teenagers. Pro-pot backers want the president to cancel marijuana’s classification as a Schedule 1 narcotic – the same category as heroin and LSD. They note that 20 states and the District of Columbia have approved the use of marijuana as medicine and that many studies have shown that marijuana is far less addictive and unhealthy than other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. “It is ludicrous, absurd, crazy to have marijuana at the same level as heroin,” Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee told Botticelli. “Ask the late Philip Seymour Hoffman” — the actor who died of an apparent heroin overdose Sunday in New York — “if you could. Nobody dies from marijuana; people die from heroin.” Democrats and Republicans alike are getting impatient with the mixed messages. Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, the chairman of the subcommittee, complained that the president and his team are “going in different directions.” “Unfortunately, there’s chaos as it relates to where we’re going and what our policy is. … I call it a schizophrenic approach,” said Mica, who’d called the hearing. He said Congress wanted answers because 50 federal agencies administered 76 programs aimed at drug abuse and prevention.

And economic benefits insure support from both sides Sheets, International Business Times senior reporter, 2013

(Connor, “Marijuana Legalization 'Inevitable': But How & When Will Weed Become Hassle-Free?”, 4-19, http://www.ibtimes.com/marijuana-legalization-inevitable- how-when-will-weed-become-hassle-free-1187787, )

Attorney Luftman said he can imagine a coalition of far-left and far-right libertarian members of Congress coming together to form a coalition that could come together to back such a proposal , but the struggle would be to convince the moderates. One way to do that would be to bring up the economic benefits of legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana, rather than allowing it to thrive on the tax-free black market, driving profits to criminals and drug cartels instead of government coffers. “A lot of the groundswell of support is economic-driven, I think, because a lot of state and local governments look at it as a revenue- raiser in terms of their budgets , whereas a few years ago you didn’t have those budgetary concerns, so you wouldn’t need to look to marijuana for that,” attorney Smyth said, echoing a sentiment held by many who study the politics of marijuana legalization. And that economic impact is not a minor one, as new research reported on last month by Medical Marijuana Business Daily reveals that medical- marijuana sales are expected to reach $1.5 billion this year alone, and that annual revenue from cannabis sales could top $6 billion by 2018. Political capital’s irrelevant and winners win— Hirsch 2-7-13. Michael Hirsh “There’s No Such Thing as Political Capital.” chief correspondent for National Journal. He also contributes to 2012 Decoded. Hirsh previously served as the senior editor and national economics correspondent for Newsweek, based in its Washington bureau. [http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-such-thing-as-political-capital-20130207]

The point is not that “ political capital ” is a meaningless term. Often it is a synonym for “mandate” or “momentum” in the aftermath of a decisive election—and just about every politician ever elected has tried to claim more of a mandate than he actually has. Certainly, Obama can say that because he was elected and Romney wasn’t, he has a better claim on the country’s mood and direction. Many pundits still defend political capital as a useful metaphor at least. “It’s an unquantifiable but meaningful concept,” says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. “You can’t really look at a president and say he’s got 37 ounces of political capital. But the fact is, it’s a concept that matters, if you have popularity and some momentum on your side.” The real problem is that the idea of political capital—or mandates, or momentum—is so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong. “Presidents usually over-estimate it,” says George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. “The best kind of political capital—some sense of an electoral mandate to do something—is very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980.” For that reason, political capital is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It conveys the idea that we know more than we really do about the ever-elusive concept of political power, and it discounts the way

unforeseen events can suddenly change everything . Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as someone might have real investment capital—that a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given moment in history. Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in the economy—at the moment, still stuck— or some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger. But the abrupt emergence of the immigration and gun-control issues illustrates how suddenly shifts in mood can occur and how political interests can align in new ways just as suddenly. Indeed,

the pseudo-concept of political capital masks a larger truth about Washington that is kindergarten simple: You just don’t know what you can do until you try. Or as

Ornstein himself once wrote years ago, “Winning wins.” In theory, and in practice, depending on Obama’s handling of any particular issue, even in a polarized time, he could still deliver on a lot of his second-term goals, depending on his skill and the breaks. Unforeseen catalysts can appear, like Newtown. Epiphanies can dawn, such as when many Republican Party leaders suddenly woke up in panic to the huge disparity in the Hispanic vote. Some political scientists who study the elusive calculus of how to pass legislation and run successful presidencies say that political capital is , at best, an empty concept , and that almost nothing in the academic literature successfully quantifies or even defines it. “It can refer to a very abstract thing, like a president’s popularity, but there’s no mechanism there. That makes it kind of useless,” says Richard Bensel, a government professor at

Cornell University. Even Ornstein concedes that the calculus is far more complex than the term suggests. Winning on one issue often changes the calculation for the next issue; there is never any known amount of capital. “The idea here is, if an issue comes up where the conventional wisdom is that president is not going to get what he wants, and he gets it, then each time that happens, it changes the calculus of the other actors” Ornstein says. “ If they think he’s going to win, they may change positions to get on the winning side. It’s a bandwagon effect.”