SENATE BILL: Trade Agreement Re-evaluation Commission (Law'd)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Sponsor: Marokai Blue

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Marokai you have 24 hours, or I might have to remove an arm or a leg, mack.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I see an opportunity to expand this bill to also facilitate the re-evaluation of our foreign aid disbursements. I'll let Marokai defend the bill in its current form... but if he's interested, I'd love to work with him re: Atlasian aid.

[Simfan34]

This bill strikes me as the sort of reactionary, xenophobic protectionist claptrap our economy does not need right now.

[Marokai Backbeat]

We've had a lot of trade agreements in the past, some with perfectly good countries, some with countries that raised eyebrows, but we passed them with the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't hurt to simply look into our present trade practices in general, and in certain parts of the world, well, put simply, things change. Giving our overall trade policy a quick re-evaluation is only responsible.

I see an opportunity to expand this bill to also facilitate the re-evaluation of our foreign aid disbursements. I'll let Marokai defend the bill in its current form... but if he's interested, I'd love to work with him re: Atlasian aid.

I would be happy to expand the responsibility of the trade commission to evaluating foreign aid as well. Why not? The same justification above applies.

This bill strikes me as the sort of reactionary, xenophobic protectionist claptrap our economy does not need right now.

I've never heard a commission ever be described as amusingly hyberbolic as that.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Simfan, what if the duties of the commission also included evaluating the potential for trade agreements with countries we've not yet partnered with?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I absolutely support this. In the past, we have gone far too quickly into free trade agreements that harm both American and foreign workers. I also intend to introduce tariff legislation in the near future.

[Simfan34]

I've never heard a commission ever be described as amusingly hyberbolic as that.

Senator, I can tell you right now that we simply do not need to "re-evaluate" our free trade agreements. As far as I am aware, this house came to those decisions with deliberation and judiciousness. What we don't need to do right is inject further uncertainty into the markets and our trade partners and leave them wondering whether we shall renege on our dealings with them. I don't know, even if this is an open-ended commission without any slant, if this is some populist concession designed to appeal to anti-free trade segments, say, in the Midwest.

Sen. Nix, you note that it allows "opportunities that we have until now been missing"; to me that sounds as if this might find new potential deals, which I don't think we need this commission to be able to do.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't see a problem with re-evaluating the agreements. I am a free trade kind of guy. I did vote to water down Marokai's "Buy Atlasian" provisions in his 2009 stimulus and for several FTAs. That said, I don't beleive in wild west style free trade. There needs to be some basic rules that both sides have to follow and when that doesn't happen there have to be sanctions. To the extent that this will acheive that end, I am open to considering it.

[Oakvale]

I'm as big a proponent of free trade as you're likely to find, and I don't share Senator Simfan's concerns about this - what's the harm in merely taking another look at our current situation and seeing if we can tweak some of our trade agreements? I don't think anyone's proposing sudden massive tariffs on imported goods or anything. I'm inclined to vote for this.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

If the concern is finding people to fill this commission, could we maybe consider reforming the National Security Committee to make it an External Affairs Committee? It would give the committee more to do, which might be a good idea considering how little debate went on there during the last senate.

Just a suggestion.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

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Technically, Hagrid, the NSC already has jurisdiction.

[Marokai Backbeat]

For what it's worth I'd very much enjoy being part of any sort of trade-aid commision, so you'd only have to find two others.

[Niemeyerite]

I'm leaning towards supporting this. It's necessary to re-evaluate the trade agreements we have with some countries. I don't think someone can be against that... But I share Nix concern:

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[Kaine for Senate '18]

For what it's worth I'd very much enjoy being part of any sort of trade-aid commision, so you'd only have to find two others.

Same.  Now y'all only need one more person.

[Oakvale]

Hell, I'd be interested in serving on the commission, too. But if it's just going to be a committee of three Senators, why farm out the appointments to the executive branch? Wouldn't a temporary Senate committee work just as well?

Agreed. I'd probably still vote for the bill in its present form but treating this in the same way as the other committees - albeit temporary - seems like a sensible idea.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Since trade agreements seem to fall under the jurisdiction of the NSC (thanks Ben!), are we now going to tack these specific duties onto that committee? Or are we going to disassociate these duties with the NSC and create a new one?

[Donerail]

My only real concern with this legislation is that we will have difficulty finding three people who are interested enough to staff this commission and make it work.

I'd do it (assuming it's not a Senate committee since it's appointed and just 'interested individuals').

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Should this really be a playable thing? or something the GM simulates?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Should this really be a playable thing? or something the GM simulates?

"Playable", yes. And the reason I wanted it to be Presidential appointment is just because that's how other sort of "study" committees have been in the past; the game reform committee I was on, for instance. I'd just prefer the most interested and informed people on the topic get the seats than have an election for it; some people here would just vote for candidates to the committee to sabotage it's work, I suspect.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I would wish to serve on this commission.

[Oakvale]

In light of some of the objections raised, I'd like to suggest the following text for an amendment-

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To be clear, I'd like to get some feedback before formally proposing this as amendment - for example, we might like a full Senate vote on membership instead of a committee vote.

I don't think there'll be a problem getting interested members - we already have SJoyce and Snow expressing an interest, I'm sure we can rustle up one more inside the Senate or out.

Thoughts?

[Simfan34]

I would prefer the bill as it is now.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think that is preferable because it atleast gives a role to the relevant committee in this process.

[Oakvale]

Okay, I'd like to propose this amendment then -

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