In response to mobilization against the TPP, Congress in an election year has sent a variety of letters to the president on the shortcomings of the TPP. These include: 153 members of Congress calling for stronger labor standards, a bi-partisan letter signed by 140 members of Congress opposing the agricultural provisions of the TPP, and 120 members of Congress signed a letter saying they would not support a trade agreement with weak environmental standards and 35 members of Congress writing concerning the human rights violations in Vietnam, and Brunei adopting Sharia law. While these sound good, voters should be on alert to these election year actions. Language could be added to the TPP which sounds good but changes nothing as has occurred in previous trade deals. There is no form of the TPP that can actually protect the people and planet. Corporate lawyers have been writing the TPP for four years. The only response is to defeat the TPP.
Message to US Trade Representative, Obama and free-traders in Congress: If you have to be secretive, and fear protesters because your agreement is so unpopular, you need to start over. The process should be open, transparent and participatory. Simple message: Stop the Secrecy! This is supposed to be a democracy.
Desperate Attempts to Salvage the TPP
It has been evident that there is synergy between the movement's success in stopping 'Fast Track' and the weakening negotiating position of the Obama administration. As protests have escalated, negotiators have become emboldened to stand up to the bullying of the United States.
Advocates of the TPP are beginning to face reality: the TPP negotiations may never reach completion. Last December, Wikileaks published documents that revealed there were wide chasms of dispute between the nations negotiating the TPP. Countries were unwilling to give transnational corporations as much power as the United States was demanding.
Now some advocates of the TPP believe that the TPP may be over. Negotiators have missed three deadlines to conclude the talks. Countries are recognizing that the TPP is skewed in favor of one country, the United States, and its transnational corporations. They also see the reality that the WTO has been stalled since the Seattle protests in 1999 and has been unable to reach any agreement in the Doha Round.
Advocates of corporate trade agreements realize the people are connecting globalized trade to the wealth divide, lowering of labor standards and destruction of the environment. And, there is near universal opposition to investor state rights to sue in rigged trade tribunals for loss of expected profits. Transnational corporate globalization is hitting a wall of opposition.
More opposition to rigged trade is developing: LGBT groups have demanded the US stop negotiating with Brunei because of its brutal treatment of a penal code that targets women, LGBT and religious minorities; others are protesting how the TPP will worsen inequality and the wealth divide, result in lost jobs, lower wages and expand the income divide, give corporations unusual new power under the guise of intellectual property, will make NSA spying easier, force policing of Internet users, and result in more fracking in both the United States and Europe, as well as off-shore drilling and other extreme energy extraction.
The Movement Should Not Compromise
We know that the transnationals and their corrupt congressional representatives want the TPP, TAFTA and Services Agreement to become law. It will result in concentration of wealth and political power in their hands and result in laws that could not be openly passed through legislatures to become law. We know they are not ready to give up on the trillions in profits they will reap from rigged trade.
We also know that the movement of movements that opposes rigged trade has shown some power and is capable of mobilizing even more people. As the push for rigged trade and a new form of Fast Track moves forward, if we are not fooled by false promises in Fast Track legislation, the movement to end corporate trade will grow even stronger.
Message to our allies: This is the time for continued solidarity, it is not the time for the movement to compromise, nor is the time for countries to give in to US demands. It is time for opposition to rigged corporate trade to take an even stronger stand: oppose the trade agreements that are currently being negotiated, refuse to enact any form of Fast Track and demand a transformation of trade to rules that provide for the necessities of the people and planet as the top priorities.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
6
4
4
