Brian Pomper Quoted by POLITICO on Trans-Pacific Partnership and Obama Administration
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POLITICO has quoted Akin Gump public law and policy partner Brian Pomper for its article “Obama’s big trade moment” on the president’s chances to get the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal signed before the 2016 presidential campaign kicks into gear.
The article discusses what is characterized as President Obama’s lack of engagement with Congress on legislative initiatives, in this case, the TPP, which Pomper noted is the opposite of the Clinton administration’s approach on NAFTA and other major trade deals.
Pomper said that the Clinton White House mobilized the entire Cabinet and entered a “constant-messaging mode,” adding that, “During NAFTA, he invited business leaders from select districts, where they were trying to get members of Congress to support NAFTA. He would invite those business people to meet with the president in the Oval Office, get them all ginned up and then unleash them out on the Congress. And he did that repeatedly, week after week after week. I can’t imagine President Obama doing anything close to something like that.”
Pomper also noted that, in the Obama White House, “[A] lot of digital clocks are going along [showing] this is how many days we have left in office; what can we get done?...But wanting it and getting it done, that’s two different things.”
