“By carving out tobacco from the TPP, the Obama administration is discriminating against an entire agricultural commodity, setting a dangerous precedent for future trade agreements,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican. “If any carve-out is ultimately included in the TPP, I will work hard to help defeat its ratification.”
 
Mr. Tillis is one of many GOP lawmakers who voted last summer to give Mr. Obama “fast-track” trade-promotion authority to guarantee an up-or-down vote in Congress on TPP, assuring the other trading partners that Congress wouldn’t alter the final agreement.
 
“Congress granted the president trade-promotion authority with the mutual understanding his administration would negotiate trade deals in good faith,” Mr. Tillis said in a statement. “It did not vote to give the administration the freedom to indiscriminately choose when fairness should be applied and when it should be ignored. Trade agreements should not be laboratories for setting partisan policies and picking winners and losers.”

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