By Patrick Martin
20 December 2019
One day after the US House of
Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against President Trump,
the House passed Trump’s top policy priority for 2019, the US-Mexico-Canada
trade agreement, by a massive bipartisan margin.
The vote was 385-41, with 193
Democrats and 192 Republicans supporting it. The USMCA, assuming it passes the
Senate next year, would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which took effect under the administration of Democrat Bill Clinton 25
years ago.
The purpose of the measure is
to tighten the coordination of economic and trade policy between the United
States and its northern and southern neighbors, so as to constitute a stronger
trade bloc directed against China in particular, as well as other capitalist
rivals like Japan and the European Union.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
announced an agreement on the USMCA last week after months of talks with US
Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, in which the Democrats pushed to make
the bill more protectionist and more directed against China.
In a further display of the
collaboration of the Democrats with the Trump administration, the Senate took
up and passed, by wide bipartisan margins, the two budget bills approved by the
House on Tuesday. The vote on the first bill, appropriating $632 billion in
domestic social spending, was 71-23. The vote on the second bill, appropriating
$738 billion in military and national-security spending, was 81-11.
The military spending bill was
opposed by a handful of liberal Democrats, adopting an antiwar posture that is
thoroughly insincere, since there was no chance the bill would be defeated. The
domestic spending bill was opposed mainly by Republicans opposed to maintaining
even the abysmal current levels of support for healthcare, education, housing
and other social programs. Four senators who are campaigning for the Democratic
presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and
Cory Booker, did not attend the session and did not vote.
The passage of the trade and
budget bills, by huge bipartisan majorities, confirms that on issues related to
the basic class interests of the US financial aristocracy there is no
difference between the two parties. Wall Street demanded passage of a full-year
budget, rather than a series of continuing resolutions or a recurrence of last
year’s partial federal shutdown, to avoid any shock to financial markets from
the federal government failing to make debt payments on time.
The trade bill also has the
near-unanimous backing of the Chamber of Commerce, the big banks, and the main
transnational corporations, all of whom want a stable framework for conducting
production operations that are integrated throughout North America, as well as
support against their corporate rivals in China and Europe.
Neil Bradley, executive vice president
and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told CBS News that
USMCA is “going to provide certainty for this trading relationship,” adding,
“Canada and Mexico are our two largest trading partners.”
The overwhelming bipartisan
passage of USMCA is in sharp contrast to the narrow vote to approve NAFTA 26
years ago, when the House passed the agreement by 234-200. This reflects the
growing consensus within the US ruling elite on pulling out all the stops to
form an anti-China trade bloc in the western hemisphere.
In pursuit of that goal, some
sectional interests were sacrificed. The pharmaceutical industry, for example,
lost a 10-year protection period for a class of drugs called “biologics.” As a
result, the drug companies switched their position and lobbied for the defeat
of the bill, to no avail. The auto industry also balked, leading the United
Auto Workers union to oppose the bill, even though the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and
Steelworkers supported it.
As for the gargantuan military
budget, the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act on Tuesday,
while the House appropriated the funds the same day. Then the Senate
rubber-stamped the appropriations bill Thursday with only token opposition.
Both parties support the use of military force all over the world to defend the
global interests of American imperialism.
The military appropriations
bill, like the NDAA, allows $1.375 billion in spending on Trump’s border wall
and removes any restriction on Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional shifting of
Pentagon funds to border wall construction.
The differences that have led
to impeachment revolve around one key area of foreign policy—confronting Russia
in the Middle East, Ukraine and eastern Europe—where the military-intelligence
apparatus, working through its front men (and women) in the Democratic Party,
is opposing any shift from the hardline anti-Russia policy adopted during the
second term of Barack Obama.
After the passage of the trade
bill, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced that there would be no more votes
in the House until January 7, 2020. In effect, the Democratic leadership has
postponed submission of the articles of impeachment to the Senate, and thus the
Senate trial, for three weeks.
Under the Senate rules,
impeachment must be taken up by the Senate within 24 hours after the articles
of impeachment are submitted, and the Senate must conduct the trial six days a
week until its conclusion.
By delaying the submission,
Pelosi was allowing time for the Senate to take up and pass the USMCA, although
it was not clear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would do so.
There is significant opposition to the USMCA among Senate Republicans who claim
Trump’s chief trade negotiators, Lighthizer and Treasury Security Steven
Mnuchin, made too many concessions to win the support of the Democrats and the
AFL-CIO union federation.
The delay in submitting
articles of impeachment is also an effort to put pressure on McConnell in the
negotiations with Senate Democrats over the rules that will govern the trial of
President Trump when it begins in January. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
has demanded four top administration officials give testimony, including acting
White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Trump has countered with demands for testimony from former vice president Joe
Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and the CIA “whistleblower” whose internal
complaint set the impeachment process in motion.
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