Tags
Global corporate power, Leaked TPP documents, Regional trade block, TPP, TPP participating countries, Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or Fast Track, Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)
TPP – Stop Corporate Power Grab
Photo Credit: Expose the TPP
Have you heard or read about the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?
This proposed free trade area of the Pacific Rim grew out of an initiative launched by the governments of Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore back in 2006. They were soon joined at the negotiating table by the United States (Feb 2008), Australia (Nov 2008), Peru (Nov 2008), Vietnam (Nov 2008), Malaysia (Oct 2010), Mexico (Jun 2012), Canada (Jun 2012), and Japan (Mar 2013).
Together, these twelve nations represent nearly 40 percent of global GDP and about one-third of all global trade, larger than the European Union (EU) as a regional trade block.
Do you live in one of these twelve countries? Is your country considering joining the TPP negotiations? Does your country trade or do any business with any of these countries? If so, you may have cause for concern.
After 19 rounds of negotiations, each member nation must now vote the terms of the TPP Agreement into law. On 9 January 2014, the US Senate Committee on Finance (see their latest release) presented a Bill to Congress seeking renewal of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or fast track legislation to allow our President to speed up approval of the TPP Agreement. Under fast track authority, Congress has up to 90 days to vote on the Agreement. This offers little time for congressional oversight and public debate.
With only five of its 29 chapters pertaining to trade issues, the TPP Agreement is not a traditional free trade agreement. Outlines of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement published by the Office of the US Trade Representative indicate legislation will also cover environmental protection, financial regulations, government procurement policy, intellectual property, labor rights, and telecommunications.
What is unusual and alarming is that the TPP rounds of negotiations have been shrouded in secret. Members of Congress, governors, state legislators, the press, civic organizations, and we-the-public have been left out in the dark. On the other hand, multinational corporations have had privileged access during negotiations and to the full text of this Agreement. No doubt, they have played a crucial role in framing the terms of this Agreement.
The only knowledge we-the-public have about some of the terms of the TPP is through five leaked documents. These include the draft Investment Chapter (Public Citizen verified June 2012), draft text of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter (WikiLeaks Nov 2013), two documents showing the state of the negotiations (WikiLeaks Dec 2013), draft text of the Environment Chapter (WikiLeaks Jan 2014), and the Report from the Chairs for Environment Chapter (released Jan 2014).
Based on what little we now know about the TPP, the diagnosis is not good. In addition to more job losses, increased threats to our environment and health, exposure to unsafe foods and products, we will face even greater challenges from global corporate power that already shackles our government.
I am very concerned about the TPP.
Three Worlds One Vision 
I hadn’t heard details about this agreement, and no, it doesn’t look good. Anything shrowded in so much secrecy makes one wonder – why? Thanks for bringing this up, Rosalie.
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Thanks for dropping by, Bruce. Do spread the news.
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Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Cyril, thanks for sharing my post with your readers on Guyanese Online.
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Thank you, Rosaliene. With some frequency, we hear and read about legislation that is passed without our representatives having the time to read it. This includes long documents that undoubtedly use much legal language and go on for hundreds of pages. I don’t know what the historical precedents are in this regard — say the typical review process that existed 25 or 50 years ago. A cause for concern, indeed. Might you or any of your readers enlighten us further about what was typical in the mid-twentieth century?
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Dr. Stein, I’m not aware of the historical precedents of the US government’s review process in passing trade legislation. I was not living in the US when the last major treaty, NAFTA, was signed with Canada and Mexico.
In 1994, when the US started talks for a proposed extension of NAFTA to include Central and South America, known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), I was working as an international trade professional in Brazil. There was lots of heated debate in Brazil about this proposed treaty. It eventually failed due to unresolved terms of the agreement between the US and Brazil.
The US did not give up. Negotiations for the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) began in 2003 and was signed in 2004. When the Dominican Republic, a Caribbean nation, joined the negotiations, the treaty was renamed DR-CAFTA.
When there is opposition in the countries involved in the negotiations, trade treaties can take years of negotiations before all the parties involved can reach an agreement on all the terms of the proposed treaty. The public, in each participating nation, play an important role in this process.
Without transparency in these negotiations between nation states, workers, farmers, small businesses and industries always pay the price.
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Good going, Rose – our newspapers and tv news fill us with Olympics and The Beetles, schoolyard murders and celebrity sightings while events like TPP are undermining our democracy. The US, like most other governments, has always done some part of its business in secrecy but since the 70s, it’s been getting more so. All the more essential are blogs like yours.
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Thanks, Angela. Doing my small part to spread awareness.
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