You're listening to Taking Stock with Kathleen Hays and Pim Box on Bloomberg Radio. No TPP has been a popular slogan in chants and printed signs at the Democratic National Convention because of broad opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. It is heavily favored by President Barack Obama, but it is also heavily opposed by primary loser, Senator
Bernie Sanders. Here to tell us more, Irene Vanelle Hanigman, adjunct Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University, and she joins us now, Irene, thank you very much for being with us. UM. How is the Democratic Party going to reconcile the opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership inasmuch as President Obama is so heavily in favor of it, UM, I think this is going to be actually a major problem.
Having been in the Clinton administrations in the nineties nineties, I feel like we were living battles of NAFTA twenty three years later with a lot of residual bitterness. Perhaps we never paid attention to what the actual impact was of NAFTA on particularly a small and rural areas across America over these decades. The problem is that Hillary Clinton, in many ways is now caught in a bind because she originally called it the gold standard. A Secretary of State,
she promoted it. It is very much part of what Obama would like to see as his legacy. However, because of the Sanders campaign, and what to me is even very odd is this is a time where both Democrats on the left and Republicans have voiced very strong disapproval of this deal, so she now appears to be completely
against it. However, the question is how in fact will she be able to perhaps have to calibrate or recalibrate the biggest problem she faces if she cannot appear to be fudging on this issue, uh as she could risk totally losing the Sanders supporters that she does. She definitely needs um. I think the problem to me is that this is a code word, and it almost seems like t p P is not really understood for what it is.
A tremendously complex trade agreement which in fact as supposed to promote exports and help particularly small and medium businesses, but in fact has simply now been equated with losing American jobs. And this is sort of the cry on both the right and the left. UM not at all clear how she will proceed, but I certainly do not see this as a topic that's going to go away.
We just saw it explode and almost explode. Uh just two days ago when Terry mccauliff suddenly stated that she may want to rethink her position, and he was immediately put down by Camp Pine chair John poggested that will not be the case, so clearly ongoing problems. Well, I mean, you know, economists, the consensus view, of course is that trade is good for the economy, and I think that the more complicated question then is he yes, is it
good for big corporations who who benefit? Is it good for American workers who might lose their jobs because some of these jobs go to the countries, and that's what Donald Trump has been exploiting. It also seems that since um, Barack Obama now is going to go on the road apparently for the next three months and try to help Hillary and other Democrats running for office. This is something he pushed for on his watch. So it's very tough for Hillary now, I think, for to shift her position.
And where does that leave Barack Obama won't there be a lot of questions on the trail about this. Well, I am quite concerned about that. And the question is are they going to be able to deflect it uh and simply to turn it around to more mediate issues? And uh, you know, in a way, will Donald Trump continue giving them gifts of very strange, outrageous tweets Uh
that sort of distracts them? But at the end of the day, yes, she is finally going to have to explain much more clearly why she is now specifically against it, uh and in a way try to square that with the president's position. I'm not sure how she is going to manage to do this. Uh. The other problem, of course, is that both labor unions and environmental groups that are a core part of the Democratic constituency have come out very strongly against it. Uh. So this is going to
make the the issue even even more complex. As the co author of International Banking for a New Century, what does a Glass Stiegel Act for the twenty one century look like? Um? I was, you know, both amused of a little bit stunned when Senator Sanders made that claim that that should definitely be part of the platform. Again, I think there is an oversimplification, and this was in part one of the problems that Senator Senders had when he came to New York during the primaries and spoke
about breaking up big banks. Uh, it is very unclear whether you can go further than what is already now in place, which is the Vocal rule, like in the UK, the Vickers Rule, which clearly separates basic banking from trading functions in the most basic terms. Uh, is it now possible to actually bring American banks back to the type of structure and methodology they had in the nine nineties. I don't think so. I think there's too much interconnectivity
between US banks and foreign banks. Would this put US banks in a position of losing competitiveness? Where does this put foreign banks with major presence in the US. I'm gonna have to leave it there. Irene Vlhana would thank you so very much for joining us from Columbia University. This is Bloomberg