Gallagher: Gridlock Good for Obama
Kevin Gallagher, Associate Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, said that a plan to delay votes on far-reaching trade partnerships could be a blessing in disguise for the embattled Obama administration.
Gallagher made his case in a March 4 op-ed in the American Prospect entitled “Saving Obama From a Bad Trade Deal.”
In the op-ed, Gallagher says:
“These deals would eclipse some of Obama’s very real remarkable achievements, including rescuing the country from a depression, passing comprehensive health reform, and taking climate change seriously. The deals would increase corporate power and increase inequality.
“History will be more kind to this President than what a bad dose of Fox News would suggest—unless Obama trades his accomplishments away to a Republican-dominated Congress and the group of private interests that have hijacked U.S. trade policy.”
You can read the entire article here.
Gallagher is an associate professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where he co-directs the Global Economic Governance Initiative and the Global Development Policy Program.
Kevin P. Gallagher is the author or co-author of five books: Ruling Capital: Emerging Markets and the Reregulation of Cross-Border Finance; The Clash of Globalizations: Essays on Trade and Development Policy; The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization (with Roberto Porzecanski); The Enclave Economy: Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico’s Silicon Valley (with Lyuba Zarsky); and Free Trade and the Environment: Mexico, NAFTA, and Beyond.