Inside The White House’s War On The Left, Over Trade

Evan McMorris-Santoro
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Kate Nocera

WASHINGTON — Last Thursday at noon, Jeff Johnson, president of the Washington State Labor Council, sat waiting for a call from the White House. It would be his first such
call in 35 years of organizing. Johnson had been told by White House aides just 90 minutes before to expect the call. When the phone rang, on the other line were two administration officials: Yohannes Abraham, chief of staff in Valerie Jarrett’s Office of Public Engagement, and Luis Jimenez, former policy aide in Rahm Emanuel’s congressional office and an adviser to
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. After a cordial but terse conversation about the president’s trade agenda — which Johnson, like the national AFL-CIO, rejects as dangerous for American workers — the White House aides signed off with a warning that Johnson immediately wrote down on the pad he was using for notes during the call. “We can respect the integrity of your position, but as you lobby your congressional delegation, we would ask that you don’t tear the party apart or wound the party going forward,” Johnson was told.

The idea that his group’s efforts to convince Washington state’s elected leaders to vote against President Obama on trade could destroy the Democratic party itself was a surprise. “I found it pretty stunning,” Johnson said. And it was weird that the White House was going straight to him, he said. It was even weirder, he said, that the White House thought it could drive a wedge between organized labor in Washington state and organized labor in the nation’s capital. “Really, why would they do that? They either thought a call from the White House was sufficiently impressive — ‘Can I get you in line?’” Johnson said. “If that’s the case, they’re pretty naive.”

The story is just one of many from recent weeks as the White House executes an aggressive, furious, localized effort to break progressive opposition to one of its top priorities: President Obama’s trade agenda.  Unions, activists, and progressive lawmakers have united against the “fast track” authority Obama seeks to put back into place — a provision that would
allow the president to negotiate trade deals and give Congress a simple upordown vote. They also oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership, the Asian trade deal that the administration believes would become a cornerstone of Obama’s legacy. Another potential deal with the European Union has also rankled organized labor in the U.S. Most expected some level of progressive opposition, but not for the issue to turn into a coalition-building rallying cry, drawing in national labor and the high-profile activism of Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a united front. Last month, the AFL-CIO
suspended all political donations to focus all its financial resources on fighting the White House trade deals. This week, the group launched a “week of action” featuring a rally of union workers on Capitol Hill and events in every state publicly opposing trade deals. The message is clear: Democrats who cross labor on trade could be on the short end when it comes time for
labor to fire up its massive political money machine again. But progressives have used strong arm tactics in plenty of fights. On the trade fight, they say the White House is taking its pushback to a new level they haven’t seen. Hourlong calls to lawmakers, secret classified briefings on Capitol Hill, bully pulpit wrangling by “If that’s the case, they’re pretty naive.”

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