Sanders Condemns ‘Disastrous’ TPP as Ministers Seal Deal for Corporate Elite
After marathon negotiations in Atlanta, leaders from 12 nations cement pactwhich coalition of critics say will raise the price of essential drugs, drive industrial scale agribusiness, and threaten workers rights
Amid a last minute scramble, leaders from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries announced Monday that they had reached agreement on a sweeping trade deal, one that critics, including US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, say will slash standards and protections for both consumers and workers—with impacts to be felt across the globe.
The agreement, known as the Trans Pacific Partnership (or TPP), which would tie together as much as 40 percent of the world’s economy, has for nearly 8 years been negotiated in secret. Though details of the compromise were not yet revealed early Monday, critics said that—minutia aside—the global trade pact will certainly be a boon for corporate power. [read more]
Comments
What About TTIP?? – Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary, Executive Director of campaign group ‘War on Want’, said: “An assault on European and USA societies by transnational corporations.”
Since before TTIP negotiations began last February, the process has been secretive and undemocratic. This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests.
But worryingly, the covert nature of the talks may well be the least of our problems. Here are 6-other reasons why we should be scared of TTIP, very scared indeed:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
Thanks for sharing this issue, Cyril.
“Is there nothing we can do to stop [TPP] Trans-Pacific Partnership?” a reader inquires after Tuesday’s episode. “I thought we were supposed to be able to see what was in it before it was approved.”
The 5: In theory, we’ll see the text before Congress votes on it — although as we said, exactly when is, to say the least, murky.
“We have no reason to believe that the TPP has improved much at all from the last leaked version released in August, and we won’t know until the U.S. Trade Representative releases the text,” writes Maira Sutton from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “So as long as it contains a retroactive 20-year copyright term extension, bans on circumventing DRM [digital rights management], massively disproportionate punishments for copyright infringement and rules that criminalize investigative journalists and whistleblowers, we have to do everything we can to stop this agreement from getting signed, ratified and put into force.”
How to stop it ? This might be one of the few instances when calling your congressman is your only shot… and one of the fewer instances it might make a difference. When the House voted last summer to give the president “fast-track” authority to negotiate the agreement, it passed by only 10 votes.
Have a good weekend,
Dave Gonigam
The 5 Min. Forecast