Currency Manipulation Nowhere in TPP Negotiations

In a new report, the Economic Policy Institute said Japanese currency practices have cost the United States as many as 900,000 jobs.

But ask U.S. Trade Rep. Michael Froman how his team is handling notorious currency manipulators in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations and he couldn't dance away fast enough from the question.

Don't ask me; currency is the responsibility of the Treasury Department, Froman began to say to Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week.

Froman came to Capitol Hill last week to urge lawmakers to grant the administration Fast Track authority for the trade deals it wants to negotiate. Fast Track supersedes the normal Congressional process and speeds everything up by not permitting amendments and requiring only a majority vote in the Senate instead of the usual supermajority of 60-plus votes.

But some lawmakers insisted that Froman address currency manipulation. Becerra quickly rejected Froman's usual parry that Treasury handles currency.

"You've been talking about intellectual property," he said. "That's usually handled by the World Intellectual Property Organization. You've talked about issues of labor. That's usually handled by the International Labor Organization. So I'm hoping you're willing to talk about currency manipulation, which is one of the severest forms of imbalanced and unfair trade that a country can engage in."

Rules on currency manipulation won't be part of the massive TPP deal, the administration has told lawmakers. The massive and secret deal, specifically designed to guarantee and protect future profits for multinational corporations, makes it easier to offshore manufacturing and service industry jobs. Firms can sue a country over laws raising the minimum wage or protecting public health if it affects profits. "Buy American" laws suddenly become illegal.

Trading partners hold down the values of their currencies to make American-made goods more expensive and their goods less expensive. This leads to the U.S. importing more than it exports.

American trade negotiators, beholden to corporations that are the behind-the-scene drivers of American trade policies, are not burdened by such concerns. Corporations are willing to destroy whole industries and sectors of the U.S. economy for profits to be derived from the holy grail of cheap labor in countries like Vietnam and Brunei.