theDrahos

Having spent the entire weekend twisting arms, making phone calls, and “strategizing” to no avail, the Obama White House had to back off from their plan to hold a re-vote today on the trade-adjustment assistance bill (TAA), the prelude to fast track authorization for the noxious TPP. The best the flailing Obama administration could muster was a House vote of 236-189 Tuesday to go along with a plan to extend until July 30 the deadline for attempting to pass Obama’s bill somewhere down the line.

But don’t expect Obama and the British to let this go quietly. Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas said the delay would allow House Speaker John Boehner to bring up the issue for a vote at any time in the next six weeks, with no notice. He said Republicans are looking for the ideal time to muscle through a broken trade policy.

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, one of the leading opponents of Obama’s trade plans, was quoted by McClatchy News saying:

“This is one more attempt to play games with the future of hard-working families.”

The ins and outs of the parliamentary shenanigans, backed by backroom and under-the-table arrangements, have to overcome a 76 vote margin for the House to pass the trade-adjustment assistance measure, which is billed as support for people who lose their jobs because of the “trade” bills themselves. After the assistance measure was defeated by a combination of Democrats (who might otherwise support the measure) and Republicans, Boehner went ahead with a vote on fast-track itself, which passed 219-211. But the Senate version of the bill includes the TAA, and the votes don’t exist in the Senate to pass fast-track without the TAA.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was quoted yesterday by the Washington Post saying:

“I think the longer something like this sits out there, the harder it is to bring it back. I think before the summer’s out, you’ve got to have it done. And I think each week that it goes on may make it a little more difficult.”

In an op-ed in today’s USA Today, Rep. Nancy Pelosi wrote that the era of fast-tracking trade deals is probably coming to a close:

“The benefits of globalization have overwhelmingly flowed to the most affluent and powerful, while the costs have been shouldered by ordinary citizens in both developed and developing nations. I suggest a new global engagement on trade — an engagement that enables voices from all aspects of the world’s economies to be heard.”

She suggested going through the United Nations or “in a new conclave created to give voice to representatives of public, private and non-profit organizations.”

This question, posed in an editorial by Liliana Gorini, chairwoman of Movisol, LaRouche’s movement in Italy, has been picked up in the last four days by five Italian blogs and one online daily, Imola Oggi, which reprinted the editorial in full under the headline “Putin Offers Italy a Way Out Of the Economic Crisis: Cooperation with BRICS.” The editorial refers to the joint press conference by visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi last week at the Milan EXPO, where Putin said that Italy lost EU1 billion because of the sanctions policy against Russia, and that there are “other formats” than the G7, “a club we do not belong to, for example BRICS.”

The editorial proposes that both Greece and Italy leave the euro and join the BRICS instead, particularly since the Europe of the Troika has shown its true, inhuman face in closing the borders to Italy, starting with France, in order not to let any refugee in, and leaving Italy and Greece alone to face the emergency. So much for “egalitè et fraternité” and so much for Schiller’s “alle Menschen werden Brüder.”

The mood of the Italian population towards this Europe of the banks and of genocide is indicated by the fact that, for the first time since the new Movisol website started, the editorial on joining the BRICS has been viewed on Facebook by almost 60,000 people, shared by 1,000, and 20,000 on the website; and reprinted by five blogs and one daily.

A reader also wrote to one of the best known Italian talk shows on TV La7, “La Gabbia,” asking them to talk about the BRICS and its New Development Bank in their show. 

In a major development, Greek Reporter, citing Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, reported Tuesday that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsirpas will have a working meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 19. The Greek premier will be in St. Petersburg to attend the three-day (June 18-20) St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), and ostensibly the meeting will take place on the sidelines of the forum.

The meeting is of great significance, since the EU, on behalf of the creditors, has exerted the heaviest pressures on Greece to bankrupt and destroy itself. Tsipras had earlier received a formal invitation from the Russian government to join the BRICS New Development Bank, and it was reliably reported that this topic would be discussed during Tsipras’s visit to SPIEF. Now, it turns out he will be meeting with Putin, as well as other with Russian representatives.

Besides the urgent issues of the day, Greece and Russia are linked by long historical, cultural, and religious ties. According to the posting in the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs website today, “contacts between the two countries are frequent and include reciprocal visits of the ministerial and political leadership… There is a Joint Inter-ministerial Committee between the two countries on issues of economic, industrial, scientific and technological cooperation… There are also broad prospects for cooperation in the cultural sector, and by joint decision of the two sides, 2016 will be a Year of Greece in Russia and a Year of Russia in Greece.”

The prestigious St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has attracted thousands of important participants this year, despite the efforts of the Obama administration to isolate Russia internationally. Most recently U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Victoria Nuland’s errand boy, called on American corporations to not participate in SPIEF. India’s Modi government has announced that Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s State Minister for Commerce and Industry, will lead the Indian delegation. Her objective will be to increase India-Russia trade to advance the intent expressed in the Joint Statement issued by President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2014. China’s delegation to SPIEF will also be the largest ever.