The Trans-Pacific Partnership

[luke viia]

if you haven't heard of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, please watch this now:

 

 

The transcript, if you want to follow along:

 

 

 

 

Lori, welcome back to Democracy Now! Just explain what the TPP is.

LORI WALLACH: Well, one of the most important things to understand is it’s not really mainly about trade. I guess the way to think about it is as a corporate Trojan horse. The agreement has 29 chapters, and only five of them have to do with trade. The other 24 chapters either handcuff our domestic governments, limiting food safety, environmental standards, financial regulation, energy and climate policy, or establishing new powers for corporations.

For instance, there are the same investor privileges that promote job offshoring to lower-wage countries. There is a ban on Buy Local procurement, so that corporations have a right to do sourcing, basically taking our tax dollars, and instead of investing them in our local economy, sending them offshore. There are new rights to, for instance, have freedom to enter other countries and take natural resources, a right for mining, a right for oil, gas, without approval.

And then there’s a whole set of very worrisome issues relating to Internet freedom. Through sort of the backdoor of the copyright chapter of TPP is a whole chunk of SOPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act, that activism around the country successfully derailed a year ago. Think about all the things that would be really hard to get into effect as a corporation in public, a lot of them rejected here and in the other 11 countries, and that is what’s bundled in to the TPP. And every country would be required to change its laws domestically to meet these rules. The binding provision is, each country shall ensure the conformity of domestic laws, regulations and procedures.

Now, the only reason I know that level of detail is because a few texts have leaked, and I have been following the negotiations and grilling negotiators from other countries to try and find between the lines what the hell is going on; otherwise, totally secret.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Lori, about that secrecy, even members of Congress have been severely limited in what they can learn, and that’s only after the revelations about the total secrecy that this whole process began with. Could you talk about what members of Congress are allowed to know and how?

LORI WALLACH: Well, what’s really important for people to know—and this gets to what you started out with about Fast Track. Congress has exclusive constitutional authority over trade. It’s kind of like the Boston Tea Party hangover. After having a king just impose tariffs, in that case on tea, the founders said, "We need to put all things about trade, international commerce, in the hands of Congress, the most diffuse part of the elected representation, not the executive, the king." So Congress has all this authority. They’re supposed to be exclusively in control. But until this June, they were not even allowed to see the draft text.

And it was only after a big, great fuss was kicked up by a lot of members—150 of them wrote last year—that finally members of Congress, upon request for the particular chapter, can have a government administration official bring them a chapter. Their staff is thrown out of the room. They can’t take detailed notes. They’re not supposed to talk about what they saw. And they can, without staff to help them figure out what the technical language is, look at a chapter. This is in contrast to, say, even what the Bush administration did. The last time we had one of these mega-NAFTAexpansion attempts was the Free Trade Area of the Americas. And in that instance, in 2001, that whole draft text was released to the public by the U.S. government on the official government websites. So, this is extraordinary secrecy, and members of Congress aren’t supposed to tell anyone what they’ve read. So, for instance, you know, Alan Grayson, who was one of the guys who helped to get the text released, Alan Grayson said, "I can tell you it’s very bad for the future of America. I just can’t tell you why." That’s obscene.

This would rewrite wide swaths of our laws. And again, it’s mainly not about trade. So, if we have this agreement in effect, for instance, it would be a big push for fracking. Now you would say, "Why fracking?" Because it doesn’t allow us to have bans on liquid natural gas exports. Or, if this were in effect, we couldn’t ensure the safety of the food we feed our families. We have to import, for instance, fish and shrimp that we know, from the limited inspection that’s done, is extremely dangerous from certain kinds of growing ponds that are contaminated, etc., in some of the TPPcountries. Or, for instance, some of the financial reforms where the banksters were finally regulated would be rolled back. All of this, and it would be privately enforceable by certain foreign corporations.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about a bill that didn’t make it through Congress, but the question is, is it incorporated into TPP? And that’s SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. First explain what it is, and talk about where it fits in here.

LORI WALLACH: So, the Stop Online Piracy Act was a vehicle basically to take away some of our rights on the Internet. It would have criminalized what they call inadvertent, small-scale, non-commercial copying. And the example would be, for instance, Juan, I had you over to dinner. You liked the recipe I had. I happened to have taken it for $2 I paid for it off of a paid website. And you said, "Lori, can you send me that recipe?" And, of course, I said, "Yeah," and I sent it to you. That is officially a copyright violation. I should say, "You have to go pay $2 and get it yourself, Juan." But, in fact, it’s small-scale. I didn’t sell it. It’s not commercial. I didn’t send it to a lot of people.

That kind of activity, under SOPA, as well as any number of things we do all the time—making a copy, or like a buffer copy that our computer would make to look at a video, or breaking a digital lock—for instance, if we bought software, but we wanted to run it on Linux—all of those things would be considered criminal activities. We’d face huge fines, and our carriers—Google, etc.—would have to take us off of service, to black us out. So, a huge limit on Internet freedom.

That whole mess was defeated in Congress in a wonderful citizen uprising. A chunk of that is now stuck in the copyright chapter of SOPA—of TPP. So, they call TPP "son of SOPA." In a lot of countries around the TPP region, citizens have fought to have good laws that actually provide them access and don’t allow that kind of control. So, that is a chunk. To give you an idea of how varied the problems are, that’s a chunk of what is in there.

Now, the thing about that Fast Track you mentioned, Fast Track is not in effect. Fast Track is an extraordinary delegation of Congress’s authority. So if we don’t want unsafe food, offshore jobs,SOPA, SOPA, SOPA, limits on Internet freedom, the banksters gettings rolled back into deregulation, we have to make sure that Congress actually maintains its constitutional authority to make sure that before this agreement can be signed, it actually works for us. Fast Track is a delegation of authority. President Obama has asked for it, but it only happens if Congress gives it to him.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lori, what’s been the Obama administration’s position on these negotiations in terms of tobacco? Could you talk about that specifically?

LORI WALLACH: Well, the whole approach of the Obama administration has really been, I don’t know, some combination of heartbreaking and infuriating, because when he was a candidate, President Obama promised he would replace the NAFTA model, and instead they’ve doubled down.

So the tobacco issue is one of those that’s the most gruesome. So, the TPP includes the very controversial investor-state system, which empowers individual corporations to directly sue governments—not in our courts, but in extrajudicial tribunals where three corporate attorneys act as "judges," and these guys rotate between being the judge and being the guys suing the government for the corporation. They’re empowered to give unlimited cash damages from us, the taxpayers, to these corporations for any government action—a regulatory issue, environment, health, safety—that undermines the investor’s expected future profits. Under that system, big tobacco companies have been attacking health regulations. And famously—infamously—these kinds of investor-state cases have extracted billions of dollars and undermined important laws. So, Philip Morris has used this to attack Australia, one of the TPP country’s plain-packaging-of-cigarette laws. So, a lot of the TPPcountries are very worried that they would be basically handcuffed from being able to regulate for health around tobacco. So, the U.S. originally was going to offer an exception. Big tobacco came in and basically won the day. The U.S. pulled away what was a medium exception, put in something that’s really worse than nothing, and then Malaysia came in and actually offered a real exception, which the U.S. is opposing—just like the U.S. is opposing an exception to maintain financial regulations for prudential reasons, just like the U.S. is opposing a real exception to those investor tribunals with respect to health and the environment. It’s incredibly depressing.

The only good news is a bunch of the other countries have basically said, "Basta! We are not going to roll back these things." So the reason there isn’t a deal is because a lot of the other countries are standing up to the worst of these U.S. corporate-inspired demands. You can see the whole lay of this at ExposeTheTPP, www.exposethetpp. There are fact sheets on each of the ways, each aspect of your life the TPP could affect. And if you want to get down into the weeds and have long papers explaining and/or information from other countries, you can go to tradewatch.org. That’stradewatch.org. Between those two sets of information, you’ll see there’s almost no part of your life or the things you care about that this agreement couldn’t undermine. And again, trade is the least of it.

AMY GOODMAN: Lori Wallach, we want to thank you very much for being with us. Lori Wallach is director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. When we come back, President Obama is about to hit a new milestone: two million people deported under his administration. We’ll talk about it. Stay with us.

 

 

 

(here's the Democracy Now! article about it with the transcript: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/4/a_corporate_trojan_horse_obama_pushes)

 

if this still isn't bothering you, please go here.

 

some more information about this "free trade agreement":

 

http://www.citizen.org/TPP

 

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

 

http://reason.com/archives/2013/11/16/the-tpp-obamas-dangerous-international-d

 

http://www.exposethetpp.org/index.html

 

http://stoptpp.org/

 

 

If you're in the US and you are bothered by this at all (I really hope you are, if not, wtf?), please for the love of Glob contact your representatives. You can do so easily here.

 

----

 

Disclaimer: Since, in the past, I've posted links and been entered into debates as if I wrote every word on those links myself, I'll just go ahead and say now: if you find something to disagree w/ on the websites I've linked, knock yourself out explaining your position, but know that those sites do not necessarily represent my views. As such, I probably won't be getting into debates about whether the US is "evil" or not or any other similar tangents; the purpose of this thread is simply to raise awareness since I haven't seen any watmm talk about this at all.

 

 

[eugene]

where's the actual text of this proposed partnership ? you have a tendancy to start such threads with a bunch of reddit inspired noise and scare.

[luke viia]

The text isn't available for anyone to read in full, not even congress. That's part of the problem. I'd hoped you'd watch the video.

[eugene]

then what's the source of all of those assumptions ? something did leak, didn't it ?

[goDel]

The text isn't available for anyone to read in full, not even congress. That's part of the problem. I'd hoped you'd watch the video.

 

How can the text not be available when in the clip it says lots of people have access?

 

Just leak the damn thing, and give me a call when it's available.

[luke viia]

eugene - the only information anyone has about this agreement has come through leaks and through private investigation from folks like Lori Wallach. If you're questioning the validity of her claims or others, see my disclaimer in the OP.

 

goDel - the text is available to 600 corporate representatives working with the USTR (US Trade Representatives Office). If you're going to sit around assuming leaks are coming, that's nice. Obama wants to sign this agreement by the end of this calendar year, by bypassing Congressional input through a tactic known as "Fast-track authority." I don't think we'll see a full leak w/ public and professional commentary elucidating the whole thing for us if he gets his wish.

[andihow]

https://wikileaks.org/tpp/#start

[eugene]

https://wikileaks.org/tpp/#start

assuming this is legit, are there websites/articles that point you to the text and say this means this and that and here's why. because this legal speak is incomprehensible to normal humans. the stuff luke linked are just regurgitations of predictable arguments of anti-globalists/internet freedom fighters.

[luke viia]

because this legal speak is incomprehensible to normal humans.

 

I'll ignore the snide comment afterwards and just focus on this - you're exactly right, that shit is incomprehensible. Now get this - from the first video interview I posted:

 

 

They [Congress] are supposed to be exclusively in control. But until this June, [members of Congress] were not even allowed to see the draft text.

And it was only after a big, great fuss was kicked up by a lot of members—150 of them wrote last year—that finally members of Congress, upon request for the particular chapter, can have a government administration official bring them a chapter. Their staff is thrown out of the room. They can’t take detailed notes. They’re not supposed to talk about what they saw. And they can, without staff to help them figure out what the technical language is, look at a chapter. This is in contrast to, say, even what the Bush administration did. The last time we had one of these mega-NAFTAexpansion attempts was the Free Trade Area of the Americas. And in that instance, in 2001, that whole draft text was released to the public by the U.S. government on the official government websites. So, this is extraordinary secrecy, and members of Congress aren’t supposed to tell anyone what they’ve read. So, for instance, you know, Alan Grayson, who was one of the guys who helped to get the text released, Alan Grayson said, "I can tell you it’s very bad for the future of America. I just can’t tell you why." That’s obscene.

 

I hope it's clear why I and many others find that to be seriously alarming.

[eugene]

 

because this legal speak is incomprehensible to normal humans.

 

I'll ignore the snide comment afterwards and just focus on this - you're exactly right, that shit is incomprehensible.

 

so it means it's bad ? are there no lawyers amongst the ranks of freedom fighters that can make an effort and simplify it ?

[luke viia]

Please take some time to read about this yourself. I gave you a great head start, but google is always there for you if you don't like my links. Be resourceful please.

[lumpenprol]

attention...span...dwindling

 

bitcoin is beating them to the punch anyway lol

[Guest]

Eh wow..

 

Honestly, I'm not surprised. It's too bad for the American people that this is happening. I just hope that such extremes won't happen here in The Netherlands, though I fear that it just might...

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

OPP

[luke viia]

Here are a few more videos if anyone's interested. I'm kinda bummed that this doesn't piss more people off, or that people aren't interested in hearing about it - this FTA goes against some core beliefs of mine and I've been riled up for days thinking about it. The only thing that gives me hope is that FTAs like this have been squished in the past (not all of them, of course, which is why this is being referred to in a lot of places as "NAFTA on steroids")... but if Congress grants this Fast-Track shit to Obama, they won't be able to change a single word of the agreement and will just have to take a simple yes/no vote w/o extensive debate. That is terrifying, seriously. I don't wanna live on this planet anymore if this passes. Corporations will literally be able to sue governments for unlimited taxpayer money for compensation against their "future expected profits" - and the case will be taken to a private, extra-national court, where private sector lawyers will review the case. Goodbye, environmental standards...

 

Despite the focus of this first video, losing substantial internet rights is in no way the worst of this deal.. though the IP provisions have been the focus of a lot of TPP criticism (Internet freedom fighters are, you know, on the internet a lot...). The other videos touch on the broader impact, which is what concerns me.

 

http://youtu.be/HEO0faMuZoY

 

http://youtu.be/MqFuch9ym3g

 

http://youtu.be/LBpXlI4Oxkw

 

 

Most of these videos re-iterate each others' points, but the last one is particularly informative imo so if you have a bit of time, please watch it.

 

Out of curiosity: Those of you who have read but not replied - have you just already done your thinking about this topic in the past? Or do you genuinely not find this worth thinking about? (honest questions, I promise)

[chenGOD]

I really don't have much time to get into this right now as I have too much work for school. But please keep in mind that this is still a draft resolution. And China wants to get on board with this, and they will throw their economic weight around.

Not all the other countries are going to simply accede to the wishes of the US, so I imagine this treaty will see many more revisions before it is finalized and ratified.

[luke viia]

Yeah, I sure hope the other countries continue to put up a fight to relax some of the more harmful parts (as some of them have). So now I'm wondering, because I can't seem to find a good straight answer to this: if Congress grants Obama fast-track authority and he signs this FTA by the end of the year - as is his stated goal - will the other member nations still have a way of changing the text? And if so, what is the US's role in those changes if it has already signed the agreement? Is Congress doubly without a voice?

[lumpenprol]

although the democracy now people kind of grate on me, that (lawyer?) chick has a way of explaining things clearly and concisely. With the dark roots in her hair she looks like the replicant Sean Young bolted on Cybil Shepard's mouth and hair extensions

[goDel]

Corporations will literally be able to sue governments for unlimited taxpayer money for compensation against their "future expected profits" - and the case will be taken to a private, extra-national court, where private sector lawyers will review the case. Goodbye, environmental standards...

 

Despite the focus of this first video, losing substantial internet rights is in no way the worst of this deal.. though the IP provisions have been the focus of a lot of TPP criticism (Internet freedom fighters are, you know, on the internet a lot...). The other videos touch on the broader impact, which is what concerns me.

 

Out of curiosity: Those of you who have read but not replied - have you just already done your thinking about this topic in the past? Or do you genuinely not find this worth thinking about? (honest questions, I promise)

I really don't have much time to get into this right now as I have too much work for school. But please keep in mind that this is still a draft resolution. And China wants to get on board with this, and they will throw their economic weight around. Not all the other countries are going to simply accede to the wishes of the US, so I imagine this treaty will see many more revisions before it is finalized and ratified.

I really don't have the time for this as well, tbh.

 

At this point all i can really say is that i can understand the concerns.

 

With regards to the "corporations sueing governments": what really matters here are the conditions. When could a corporation sue a government? Does this have anything to do with handling piracy? Is this a way to force governments to respect international copyright? Without any specific info, i can only speculate. And i'm not the one for conspiracy theories, so i can't help you here.

 

Also, it's not really that obvious that this agreement is about us' wishes, right? It might as well be china with a lot of wishes. As far as i can tell the reason this treaty is being called nafta on steroids, is because a lot more countries are involved. Apart from that...again not enough specifics and a whole bunch of speculation.

 

Again, i understand the concerns, but there's at least one thing this bill can't do. And that is to take away our basic rights.

[chenGOD]

Yeah, I sure hope the other countries continue to put up a fight to relax some of the more harmful parts (as some of them have). So now I'm wondering, because I can't seem to find a good straight answer to this: if Congress grants Obama fast-track authority and he signs this FTA by the end of the year - as is his stated goal - will the other member nations still have a way of changing the text? And if so, what is the US's role in those changes if it has already signed the agreement? Is Congress doubly without a voice?

Think about how negotiations work..now obviously the US has a lot of ability to influence matters due to their sheer economic weight (everybody wants a piece of the US market) but other countries will also have their own interest groups and constituents to take care of. So yes of course other nations can try to change the text of the treaty through negotiation.

 

goDel: China is not yet a part of the TPP but they might desire to become part of it as there is a common view among the ruling party there to see the TPP as a means to encircle China economically.

The rules for China joining are not simple and would require some flexibility on their part, but if they do join you can be sure they would throw around their own economic muscle.

[goDel]

I do think it's odd congress is without a voice. And especially in the current climate, any mud that could be thrown at obama, gets thrown at obama tenfold. ( my half bro...) i've not had the time to actually follow the news, but i don't get the impression congress is making a lot of noise. Possible reasons:

They are informed, but in secret

Or, this is not yet the time but shit will hit the fan later on when laws will be signed. Like chen says, its only negotiations at this point.

 

 

And again, ive probably missed a lot of info. But at this point, there just isnt a lot of info, besides a whole lot of speculation. And tbh, im not that interested in speculation of the usual talking heads.

[Plarkreluke Banloboh]

 

 

Most of these videos re-iterate each others' points, but the last one is particularly informative imo so if you have a bit of time, please watch it.

 

 

Thank-you for posting this, that was very informative indeed. The part with the graphs about wages was particularly shocking. I'd seen something similar around the time of the Occupy protests showing employee wages as a percentage of total corporate profits over the last 50 years. I'm simplifying but it went:

 

1960's: below 50%

1970's: below 40%

1980's: below 30%

1990's: below 20%

2000's: below 10%

 

So in an attempt to keep this trend going it seems the TPP is a way of fracking humanity. But what is below 10% minus another 10%? You can't get blood out of a stone.

[luke viia]

Glad that video was helpful, wabby. And yeah, "don't try to squeeze blood from a stone" seems to more or less sum it up...

 

 

Yeah, I sure hope the other countries continue to put up a fight to relax some of the more harmful parts (as some of them have). So now I'm wondering, because I can't seem to find a good straight answer to this: if Congress grants Obama fast-track authority and he signs this FTA by the end of the year - as is his stated goal - will the other member nations still have a way of changing the text? And if so, what is the US's role in those changes if it has already signed the agreement? Is Congress doubly without a voice?

Think about how negotiations work..now obviously the US has a lot of ability to influence matters due to their sheer economic weight (everybody wants a piece of the US market) but other countries will also have their own interest groups and constituents to take care of. So yes of course other nations can try to change the text of the treaty through negotiation.

 

Hah yeah I think it's pretty clear that in negotiations, once a negotiating member signs a contract or agreement, that agreement can no longer be altered (I'd be really cautious about signing papers with anyone who believes differently). So I'm still not sure if my question made sense: If the Obama administration gets what they're hoping for (as they've said on record) and can complete the negotiations w/ the other countries by the end of this year, and get fast-track authority to sign the thing from Congress... then is that it? Is the TPP set in stone at that point? Because that's really close. I don't think they'll get what they want, but it's still a serious and possible outcome. Does anybody know how long the negotiation phase usually lasts for FTAs? (I don't, but I'm guessing a few years on average maybe?)

 

I really don't have the time for this as well, tbh.

At this point all i can really say is that i can understand the concerns.

With regards to the "corporations sueing governments": what really matters here are the conditions. When could a corporation sue a government? Does this have anything to do with handling piracy? Is this a way to force governments to respect international copyright? Without any specific info, i can only speculate. And i'm not the one for conspiracy theories, so i can't help you here.

Also, it's not really that obvious that this agreement is about us' wishes, right? It might as well be china with a lot of wishes. As far as i can tell the reason this treaty is being called nafta on steroids, is because a lot more countries are involved. Apart from that...again not enough specifics and a whole bunch of speculation.

Again, i understand the concerns, but there's at least one thing this bill can't do. And that is to take away our basic rights.

 

 

You seem to have zoned in to the copyright part of this. That's fine, but that's not what concerns me regarding the corporate ability to sue nations and be heard in a private tribunal.

 

This thing is incredibly harmful. In the same breath you've said you just don't want to deal with "conspiracy theories" and that you have no time for this, and that you know nothing about it, but then you switch and say you know it can't take away basic rights? Sorry to burst your bubble, but this certainly takes away individual rights. It limits access to medicine (right to health). It limits the rights of the environment by allowing natural resource exploitation for profit to be above the laws of a given nation. It severely limits your consumer freedom regarding copyright, and millions of people may even be legitimately kicked off the internet (!) for minor IP infractions. All of this is known because of leaks. We can't read the full thing but that doesn't mean we have to sit and take it. I'm not sure why you want to put this on par with a conspiracy theory. There is information out there, and it's a royal pain in the ass that the drafts aren't more available to us, but that is not a fault of the people opposing it.

 

I do think it's odd congress is without a voice. And especially in the current climate, any mud that could be thrown at obama, gets thrown at obama tenfold. ( my half bro...) i've not had the time to actually follow the news, but i don't get the impression congress is making a lot of noise. Possible reasons:
They are informed, but in secret
Or, this is not yet the time but shit will hit the fan later on when laws will be signed. Like chen says, its only negotiations at this point.


And again, ive probably missed a lot of info. But at this point, there just isnt a lot of info, besides a whole lot of speculation. And tbh, im not that interested in speculation of the usual talking heads.

 

Congress has been making a ruckus about this for at least a year... that's what the DeLauro-Miller fast-track letter to Obama, signed by 150 congress members, was about (opposing the fast-track).

[chenGOD]

Glad that video was helpful, wabby. And yeah, "don't try to squeeze blood from a stone" seems to more or less sum it up...

 

 

Yeah, I sure hope the other countries continue to put up a fight to relax some of the more harmful parts (as some of them have). So now I'm wondering, because I can't seem to find a good straight answer to this: if Congress grants Obama fast-track authority and he signs this FTA by the end of the year - as is his stated goal - will the other member nations still have a way of changing the text? And if so, what is the US's role in those changes if it has already signed the agreement? Is Congress doubly without a voice?

Think about how negotiations work..now obviously the US has a lot of ability to influence matters due to their sheer economic weight (everybody wants a piece of the US market) but other countries will also have their own interest groups and constituents to take care of. So yes of course other nations can try to change the text of the treaty through negotiation.

 

Hah yeah I think it's pretty clear that in negotiations, once a negotiating member signs a contract or agreement, that agreement can no longer be altered (I'd be really cautious about signing papers with anyone who believes differently). So I'm still not sure if my question made sense: If the Obama administration gets what they're hoping for (as they've said on record) and can complete the negotiations w/ the other countries by the end of this year, and get fast-track authority to sign the thing from Congress... then is that it? Is the TPP set in stone at that point? Because that's really close. I don't think they'll get what they want, but it's still a serious and possible outcome. Does anybody know how long the negotiation phase usually lasts for FTAs? (I don't, but I'm guessing a few years on average maybe?)

 

 

FTA's can take a long time. The TPP has been in the works since 2009. I don't think this will be ratified by the end of the year. The KORUS FTA took 7 years to be ratified i think.

 

By the way, I do agree that there should be more transparency, at least members of the respective bodies of government should be able to see the text of negotiations.

[luke viia]

Word. So are you not alarmed at what the Obama administration is trying to do here? (Fast-track authority.) I guess that's ultimately what is really pissing me off: negotiating in secret, then demanding that congress waive its constitutional authority on trade for no good reason and have no chance of amending the text, reviewing proposals, or having any sort of meaningful debate. That's so shady I've had to read a number of articles on this shit just to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.

 

Unfortunately, the balance seems to be tipping in favor of finishing the TPP in time for Christmas. In a November 5 editorial, the New York Times came out in favor of the secret surrender of sovereignty, describing the agreement as “a trade agreement … that could help all of our economies and strengthen relations between the United States and several important Asian allies.” Leading opponent of the TPP, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), senses a couple of sinister explanations for the Old Gray Lady’s support of the secret attempt at economic integration of a dozen economies. EFF’s Maira Sutton writes: "That raises two distressing possibilities: either in an act of extraordinary subservience, the Times has endorsed an agreement that neither the public nor its editors have the ability to read. Or, in an act of extraordinary cowardice, it has obtained a copy of the secret text and hasn’t fulfilled its duty to the public interest to publish it."

 

Regardless, President Obama is determined to get approval from Congress to fast-track the TPP negotiations. Not surprisingly, senators from both major parties are ready to make it a Merry Christmas for the president.

 

http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/16929-trans-pacific-partnership-ready-for-christmas-delivery

 

 

The process has been shockingly secretive. In 2010 TPP countries agreed not to release negotiating texts until four years after a deal was done or abandoned. Even the World Trade Organization, hardly a paragon of transparency, releases draft negotiating texts. This means that although the TPP could rewrite vast swaths of domestic policy affecting every aspect of our lives, the public, press and Congress are locked out.

Astoundingly, Senator Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate committee with official jurisdiction over TPP, has been denied access even to US proposals to the negotiations. But 600 corporate representatives serving as official US trade advisers have full access to TPP texts and a special role in negotiations. When challenged about the conflict with the Obama administration’s touted commitment to transparency, Trade Representative Kirk noted that after the release of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) text in 2001, that deal could not be completed. In other words, the official in charge of the TPP says the only way to complete the deal is to keep it secret from the people who would have to live with the results.

The goal was to complete the TPP this year. Thankfully, opposition by some countries to the most extreme corporate demands has slowed negotiations. Australia has announced it will not submit to the parallel corporate court system, and it and New Zealand have rejected a US proposal to allow pharmaceutical companies to challenge their government medicine formularies’ pricing decisions, which have managed to keep their drug costs much lower than in the United States. Every country has rejected the US proposal to extend drug patent monopolies. This text was leaked, allowing government health officials and activists in all the countries to fight back. Many countries have also rejected a US proposal that would forbid countries from using capital controls, taxes or other macro-prudential measures to limit the destructive power of financial speculators.

However, we face a race against time—much of the TPP text has been agreed on. Will the banksters, Big Pharma, Big Oil, agribusiness, tobacco multinationals and the other usual suspects get away with this massive assault on democracy? Will the public wake up to this threat and fight back, demanding either a fair deal or no deal?

 

http://www.thenation.com/article/168627/nafta-steroids#

 

(Sorry for all the quotes, they're helpful though.)