Why You Shouldn’t Be Down With The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)
The Trans Pacific Partnership is a raw deal for working Americans - here’s why.posted on
At this point, you’ve probably heard about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Whoa, whoa, not so fast with that thumbs up. Let’s get a little background on this.
The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal being negotiated between the United States and 8 other countries
The deal would cover the US, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
The partnership was designed, according to the administration, for “creating jobs and promoting growth, providing opportunity for our citizens and contributing to regional integration and the strengthening of the multilateral trading system.”
Unfortunately, the TPP has a lot of problems - and it’s being negotiated behind closed doors.
The Trans Pacific Partnership is a highly secretive negotiation being steered by lobbyists and corporations.
Most of the few details we do know are from leaks, and a little bit from US trade spokesman Michael Froman.
And the details? They’re pretty frightening.
The TPP is designed to attract foreign trade, but history shows us it’s unlikely.
Studies have shown there’s no connection between TPP-style trade deals and increases in foreign trade.
More important, one of the reasons why U.S. workers are having such a hard time with wage stagnation and income inequality is because of our country’s current trade policy - a policy the TPP would expand. The trade deficit created by deals like the TPP are responsible for more than 90% of the rise in income inequality since 1995. Deals like the TPP have also made it more profitable for companies to outsource jobs, rather than hire U.S. workers.
The graph above shows a growing trade imbalance from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal so similar to the TPP that many have called the Trans Pacific Partnership “NAFTA on Steroids.”
The TPP doesn’t address currency manipulation, despite the demands of 230 representatives and 60 senators.
citizen.typepad.com / Via Public Citizen
The deal will make our current trade deficit even worse.
Despite claims that our exports have increased, in truth, U.S. exports did not grow at all last year under free trade pacts - and the year before, they grew by only 2%. If the current rate of exports continues, we will not reach Obama’s export goal until 2054.
US exports did increase - but, ironically, not with free trade agreement partners.
The TPP will make our prescription medicines more expensive.
In fact, the TPP will make it easier than ever for Big Pharma to monopolize the drug market. The deal will allow drug companies to “evergreen” patents on drugs, or allow drug companies to extend medical patents past current restrictions from the World Trade Organization. By extending these patents, other drug companies will be barred from making generics of those drugs. With no competition, drug companies can then charge high prices for life saving drugs, keeping thousands of patients from accessing the medicine they need.
The TPP doesn’t protect workers.
Froman promised that “In TPP we’re seeking to include disciplines requiring adherence to fundamental labor rights, including the right to organize and to collectively bargain, protections from child and forced labor and employment discrimination.”
But the deal can’t do that. The TPP includes Vietnam, a country recently red-listed by the Department of Labor for their use of both child labor and forced labor in clothing manufacturing. Vietnam also bans the formation of independent unions.
Corporations can skirt environmental laws under the TPP - and force US taxpayers to pay fines issued for skirting those laws.
The TPP does have provisions that require enforcement of domestic environmental laws. But the deal also allows foreign companies to challenge environmental laws if those laws threaten their profits - examples include laws preventing fracking, or requiring corporations to clean up their own industrial toxins. Through these challenges, companies have forced communities to clean up after them as they reap massive profits.
The TPP has some serious problems with freedom of speech and intellectual property on the Internet.
In a leak of TPP drafts this past November, the negotiations on intellectual property had language similar to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) - an act that failed because it threatened free speech for Internet users. And while other partner nations agreed to limit Internet service providers’ liability, the United States has not. Imagine no Google, no Wikipedia, no Craigslist, and no access to hundreds of other pages.
The worst part? The negotiators aren’t giving Congress the information they need to make an informed decision when they vote on the TPP.
For three years of negotiations, members of Congress were barred from reading the negotiations. Now, Congress is allowed to read the text - but no technical staff is allowed, the members are forbidden from taking notes or keeping a copy of the text.
At the same time, negotiators & supporters of the TPP are asking Congress to vote on the treaty as written, with no changes - a process called “fast tracking.”
The negotiators are corporations and people who would benefit from the TPP.
citizen.typepad.com / Via Public Citizen
The negotiators, according to Froman, “…include representatives from the private sector… [but] they [also] include representatives from every major labor union, public health groups…environmental groups…as well as development NGOs…”
Truth is, most of the advisers represent the wealthiest corporations in the country, with only a small percentage of the negotiators representing unions, consumer organizations, or public health organizations.
Even more troubling, that small minority are limited in their negotiating power - the industry representatives meet 3 times more often than the union/consumer/health groups, and the union group is limited to serving on 2 of the 28 advisory committees to the partnership.
Basically, the companies that would benefit from this raw deal are the ones negotiating it, with little to no legislative input from elected officials.
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
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