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the "labor protections" in for works in foreign countries haven't been enforced in earlier agreements and won't be enforced in TPP.
the "labor protections" in for works in foreign countries haven't been enforced in earlier agreements and won't be enforced in TPP.
What the TPP means for agricultural greenhouse gas emissions
negotiators might end protections for U.S. sugar producers. Of course that didn’t happen. There were also suggestions that Canada might throw open its highly regulated milk market. That didn’t happen either.
The TPP opened North America’s door to imports of milk (in Canada) and sugar (in the U.S.), but just a crack. It seems that North American farmers are giving away very little, and getting a lot in return.
Contrast that with milk and sugar. Canada is letting 3.25 percent of its milk come from imports, and it’s promising to pay $4.3 billion to make up for farmers’ loses. The U.S. will allow 65,000 metric tons of sugar in per year without tariffs from the other partner countries (and only if Mexico can’t provide it). “We don’t see ourselves as being harmed economically by these provisions,” Jack Roney, an economist with the American Sugar Alliance, told Capital Press. “The volumes involved are really not large enough to have a significant effect.”
The crops with lobbyists and political connections seem to have gotten help. Sugar isn’t a particularly large part of the American economy, but I’m not surprised that it didn’t have to make significant concessions, because sugar growers have long had outsized sway in Washington, D.C. There are a few wonderfully over-the-top examples of the sugar industry making its political clout visible.
plopping aseptically sealed, unrefrigerated boxes of milk on container ships turns out to have a small climate impact compared to the milk production itself (even with meat, which must be kept cold, transportation is a tiny part of the greenhouse-gas footprint).
In New Zealand, dairies generally graze cattle on clover and ryegrass year round, which provides climate benefits. A United Nations assessment found that producing a kilogram of milk in the U.S. produced nearly twice the amount of greenhouse gases as producing a kilogram of milk in New Zealand.
hat greener production practices are more efficient, and therefore cheaper — does tend to apply to meat and dairy, so increasing meat exports from the U.S. could be good for greenhouse gas emissions in the long term.
free trade is just about eliminating tariffs. But in practice, “free trade” too often favors the rich and powerful. Instead of everyone booting their trade barriers and subsidies, it’s often the poor countries that drop their trade barriers, while, in return, the rich countries protect their cons uent industries a tiny bit less.
http://grist.org/politics/what-the-t...=daily-horizon
As TPP Deal Inked, Guatemala Labor Case Unmasks Free Trade's Empty Promises
But to see through the hollow rhetoric, you just have to look at the example of the first-ever labor case brought under a free trade agreement - which is about to wrap up, likely in the midst of the TPP debate in Congress.
In December, an arbitration panel will issue its ruling on a complaint brought by the US under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) against the Guatemalan government for failing to effectively enforce its labor laws.
It's taken years to bring just one case this far, and the potential penalty is a mere slap on the wrist.
Snail's Pace
It's been seven years since the AFL-CIO, together with six Guatemalan unions, first submitted a complaint to the Department of Labor. They accused Guatemala of failing to protect workers' legally guaranteed rights - to association, collective bargaining, and acceptable conditions - by not conducting inspections, registering unions, or ensuring compliance with court orders.
Only 2 percent of Guatemala's working population belongs to a union. It has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for union activists. The AFL-CIO reported that 72 Guatemalan unionists had been murdered since CAFTA went into effect, as of August 2014, with near-total impunity for their assassins.
The slow pace of the CAFTA case is "a huge detriment to workers in Guatemala," said Stephen Wishart, Central America director for the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. "Their rights are being violated in the same ways that were presented back in 2008."
The delays have simply given the Guatemalan government an opportunity to "put make-up on the problems," said Homero Fuentes, of a Guatemalan labor standards monitoring organization called COVERCO.
After deciding to accept the case, the US held consultations with the Guatemalan government, but failed to reach an agreement. In 2011 the US requested the establishment of the arbitration panel, which is supposed to protect workers' rights under CAFTA.
The panel was finally cons uted in 2012 - but was put on hold six months later, when Guatemala signed an Enforcement Plan, agreeing to add more labor inspectors and increase the Ministry of Labor's budget for enforcement.
But Guatemala failed to act on most of the plan. Finally last September, the US requested that the panel be recons uted. The first hearing was held in June.
"A lot of people would argue that the timing of that is not coincidental - we're in the middle of a huge trade debate," said Cassandra Waters, a Global Workers Rights Fellow at the AFL-CIO.
Violence Unaddressed
Anti-union violence isn't among the complaint's charges. The US government argues that's a problem that falls outside the scope of free-trade pacts.
The AFL-CIO disagrees. "There's nothing in these agreements that prevents them from taking up violence," said Waters. "Guatemala is required to enforce its laws related to freedom of association - and that would include investigating murders of trade unionists."
The violence, coupled with other failures to enforce labor law, make it extraordinarily difficult for Guatemalan workers to form unions.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...empty-promises
of course, St Ronnie and his neocon controllers ed up El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatamala in the 1980s when "social justice" and "union movements" were take as Communist infiltrations. The CIA empowered, financed, equipped right-wing groups that emasculated "leftist" govts and then stayed on to run the countries as de facto govts.
EFF: the Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared
Wikileaks has released the finalized Intellectual Property text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which international negotiators agreed upon a few days ago. Unfortunately, it contains many of the consumer-hostile provisions that so many organizations spoke out against beforehand. This includes the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years, and a ban on the cir vention of DRM. The EFF says, "If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good pla ude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever." The EFF walks us through all the other awful provisions as well — it's quite a lengthy analysis.
in principle, treaty level agreements between countries moot local regulations. I believe -- I could be wrong, who would know at all, but for Wikileaks? -- they can be amerced as restraint of trade in the dispute mechanism, if they adversely affect projected profits.
could be nasty. Australia and Japan can afford to sue us. , lotta rich companies can, especially if they have a treaty that encourages them to, and a tribunal specially designed to try the disputes.
Last edited by Winehole23; 10-10-2015 at 02:19 AM.
"could be nasty"
BigCorp wrote TPP, elevating itself to have power over sovereign states, so it will not be "could", but most certainly WILL BE nasty. Once they have that power, they will use it.
Full Text Of TPP Released: And It's Really, Really Bad
from the no-wonder-they-were-hiding-it dept
But the problems with the TPP run deep: Despite earlier promises from both the USTR and Australia that intellectual property would not be subject to the "corporate sovereignty" provisions (which they call "investor state dispute settlement" or ISDS), they absolutely are. And this is amassive problem. It means that any country that's a member of the TPP can effectively nevermove its intellectual property rules in the direction of better benefiting the public -- because some foreign company will claim that this takes away their expected profits. Section 9.1 lists "intellectual property" as the type of asset that is a part of the ISDS process.
We already know what a mess this can create. Remember Eli Lilly is currently using NAFTA's corporate sovereignty provisions to demand half a billion dollars from Canada, after Canada rejected two of its patents because Canada realized the drugs that Eli Lilly had tried to patent did not deliver the benefits the company claimed when trying to get the patent. Canada said that was a good reason to reject the patent. Eli Lilly claimed that this was taking away its assets and demanded half a billion dollars.
What's kind of amazing here is that we've spent years warning about problems with the "intellectual property" chapter and the "investment" chapter individually, and the absolute worst part of this agreement is the way the negotiators tied them together in a ridiculous and dangerous way. This is much, much worse than many of the things we feared would be in the agreement, and it's made even worse by the fact that the USTR directly promised this would not be in the agreement.
KEI warns that at least part of the e-commerce provision can be read to ban a requirement for open source software, which would seem to undermine certain open source licenses, like the GPL. Michael Geist notes that the do ent confirms that Canada basically has agreed to wipe out many useful copyright reforms from a few years ago, and to extend its copyrights yet again, robbing the public of the public domain. Of course, that raises the question of whether or not someone could make an ISDS claim that Canada is taking away their "investment" in Canada... Oh, who am I kidding. ISDS doesn't apply to the public... just to companies.
There are also, as expected, serious problems for affordable medicine and healthcare, privacy,surveillance and more. Despite claiming to demand "nondiscriminatory treatment of digital products" and "cross border transfer by electric means" of information -- an anti-censorship/blocking provision -- the agreement lets Malaysia off the hook on such requirements.
In addition to that, last month we wrote about how it appeared that the negotiators had carved tobacco out of the ISDS section, but upon reading the whole thing, people are pointing out that it's not actually true, as it makes that part voluntary for countries to decide themselves.
In short, the TPP appears to be a massive mess, and in some ways worse than we feared. According to some, concurrent with the release,
President Obama told Congress of his intent to sign the TPP, which started the 90-day clock for Congress to "review" the agreement --
conveniently making sure that much of the debate is limited by the end-of-the-year holidays,
long Congressional "recesses" that happen around this time, and
other key end-of-the-year business.
In short, this agreement that was negotiated in near total secrecy (unless you were a big corporate lobbyist) is a really bad deal, and the administration is going to play every trick it can come up with to get it approved. Now would be a good time to let your elected officials know that they need to vote against the TPP.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151106/07051932731/full-text-tpp-released-really-really-bad.shtml
BigCorp wrote TPP so we (the smart, concerned ones) absolutely know everybody and everything else will get raped.
Bernie says he will do everything he can to block TPP, while Hillary has flipped from supporter to somewhat non-supporter.
If TPP slips by Congress and is signed by Obama, it will be a huge STAIN on Obama's legacy.
TPP isn't about "trade" as Obama LIES, it's about increasing the rights, powers of BigCrop to screw everybody and everything else.
and 6000 pages are allowed only a Congressional debate limit of 20 hours
Statement by MSF on the official release of the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement
Today’s official release of the agreed TPP text confirms that the deal will further delay price-lowering generic compe ion by extending and strengthening monopoly market protections for pharmaceutical companies.
The TPP is a bad deal for medicine: it’s bad for humanitarian medical treatment providers such as MSF, and it’s bad for people who need access to affordable medicines around the world, including in the United States.
At a time when the high price of life-saving medicines and vaccines is increasingly recognized as a barrier to effective medical care, it is very concerning to see that the U.S. government and pharmaceutical companies have succeeded in locking in rules that will keep medicine prices high for longer and limit the tools that governments and civil society have to try to increase generic compe ion.
For example, if enacted, the TPP will not allow national regulatory authorities to use existing data that demonstrates a biological product’s safety and efficacy to authorize the sale of compe or products, even in the absence of patents.
The TPP would also force governments to extend existing patent monopolies beyond current 20-year terms at the request of pharmaceutical companies, and to redefine what type of medicine deserves a patent, including mandating the granting of new patents for modifications of existing medicines.
The provisions in the TPP text will not only raise the price of medicines and cause unnecessary suffering, but they also represent a complete departure from the U.S. government’s previous commitments to global health, including safeguards included in the U.S.’s 2007 ‘New Trade Policy.’
http://msfaccess.org/about-us/media-...-trans-pacific
TPP has provision banning requirements to transfer of or access to source code of software
The TPP E-Commerce chapter has a provision banning requirements to transfer or provide access to software source code. This applies to "mass market software."
Article 14.17: Source Code
1. No Party shall require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition for the import, distribution, sale or use of such software, or of products containing such software, in its territory.
2. For the purposes of this Article, software subject to paragraph 1 is limited to mass-market software or products containing such software and does not include software used for critical infrastructure.
3. Nothing in this Article shall preclude:
(a) the inclusion or implementation of terms and conditions related to the provision of source code in commercially negotiated contracts; or
(b) a Party from requiring the modification of source code of software necessary for that software to comply with laws or regulations which are not inconsistent with this Agreement.
4. This Article shall not be construed to affect requirements that relate to patent applications or granted patents, including any orders made by a judicial authority in relation to patent disputes, subject to safeguards against unauthorised disclosure under the law or practice of a Party.
I'm wondering how the GPL fares here, and
how much money Microsoft spent lobbying to get this included in the TPP, or
if the NSA has a role in this.
One aspect of this provision is that governments cannot insist on source code transparency, for mass market software, even to address concerns over security or interoperability.
http://keionline.org/node/2363
The clock is ticking on a time bomb that could blow up a free internet: the TPP
Its 30 chapters and 6,194 pages cover a dizzying range of policy questions that have nothing to do with tariffs, imports or exports.
Thanks to, among other things, its dramatic expansion of copyright enforcement, the agreement poses a grave threat to our basic right to access information and express ourselves on the web, and could easily be abused to criminalize common online activities and enforce widespread internet censorship.
To fully grasp the impending trainwreck here, it’s important to understand that copyright laws have a profound effect on what internet users can see and do online. The US regime of copyright enforcement has been repeatedly co-opted by special interests to censor legitimate content from the web.
Copyright laws have been used to attack LGBTQ websites, censor investigative journalism and scrub homemade videos from the net just because of the music in the background.
Many of the scariest scenes in the TPP script take place in the intellectual property chapter. This section exports the most draconian aspects of the United States’ broken copyright system and forces them onto the rest of the world, without requiring “fair use” provisions that are necessary to protect free speech.
One provision demands that TPP member countries enforce copyright terms 70 years after the death of the creator. This will keep an immeasurable amount of information, art and creativity locked away from the public domain for decades longer than necessary, and allow for governments and corporations to abuse copyright laws and censor content at will, since so much of what’s online will be subject to copyright for decades.
TPP even prescribes a mechanism for that censorship to occur. A section that can best be described as “Zombie-Sopa”, due to its similarity to the failed Stop Online Piracy Act, would require internet service providers (ISPs) to play “copyright cops” and create systems for hastily taking down internet content upon a copyright holder’s request, even without a court order.
It then entices ISPs to comply by rewarding them with legal immunity in the event that they “inadvertently” take down something they shouldn’t have. To put the nail in the coffin, the deal requires countries to enforce heavy-handed criminal sanctions and fines for copyright infringement that are wildly disproportionate to the actual damages done to copyright holders.
The TPP affects website owners too, and threatens online privacy by requiring countries to publish databases of real names and addresses associated with certain web domains. This is particularly dangerous for dissenting voices in repressive countries, but it will also leave many average website owners exposed to scammers, online harassers and trolls.
The corporate wish-list continues.
A dangerously broad “trade secrets” section endangers whistleblowers and journalists by prescribing harsh penalties for anyone accessing or exposing corporate secrets (or wrongdoing) “through a computer network”. Another article vaguely criminalizes tinkering with, unlocking or modifying your phone or other devices you own.
The most shocking revelation in the finalized text isn’t in the intellectual property chapter itself, but in a provision that includes intellectual property enforcement in the troubling Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) scheme. ISDS allows corporations to sue governments in secretive international tribunals if they feel that a nation’s local laws are “unfairly” limiting their ability to make money hand over fist.
In the shadow of a well-do ented media blackout, so much of the discussion, criticism and organizing around TPP has happened over the web. It’s terrifying to think that this agreement, if ratified, will not only trample our rights, but could also fundamentally break the most powerful tool we have to raise awareness about the urgent issues of our time, expose the secrets of the corrupt and powerful, and amplify the voices of the millions struggling for a better world.
Fortunately, TPP is not yet a done deal. Before it becomes law it has to be ratified by each country’s lawmakers, including the US Congress. If you’re concerned about how TPP might affect the future of the internet, now might be a good time to use the internet to contact your representatives, while its still a free and open place.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...e-internet-tpp
What do you know - something I agree with you on. I'm against anything that hurts American workers be it H1-B visas, illegal immigration and these stupid trade deals.
President Obama's Forum: High Theater on High Drug Prices
The Obama administration is sponsoring a forum this week on the problem of high drug prices. The purpose is presumably to express concern about a rapidly growing problem for both people in the United States and around the world. It seems likely that the point is to quite literally express concern, as opposed to taking substantive steps towards addressing an enormous problem that not only takes an economic toll, but threatens people's health and lives.
The reasons for skepticism are obvious.
First and foremost, the Obama administration has placed higher drug prices at the center of its trade agenda. As was widely reported, the last major sticking point in reaching an agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was the Obama administration's insistence on longer periods for maintaining the exclusivity on test data for biosimilar drugs.
This exclusivity means a monopoly period in which drug companies can charge high prices because there are no compe ors. The Obama administration went to the mat for the pharmaceutical industry on this issue, putting aside concerns in other areas. For example, the pursuit of the pharmaceutical industry's agenda meant that currency management - which has led to the huge US trade deficit and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs - was not an item addressed in the TPP.
In addition to the administration's willingness to do the pharmaceutical industry's bidding, the class of excluded characters also indicates a lack of seriousness on this issue. There are a number of groups that have been working for decades to increase the accessibility of drugs around the world, most notably Doctors Without Borders. It seems that none of the representatives of these groups will be present at the forum.
There also have been many academics who have been working to develop alternative systems of research financing so that drugs could be sold in a free market without government granted monopolies, like patent protection and data exclusivity. The most notable person in this group is Joe Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate, who also was not on the guest list.
Any honest discussion of high drug prices should include some consideration of alternative financing mechanisms. After all, fans of free trade everywhere know that a 10 or 20 percent tariff on clothes or cars is bad news. Such tariffs lead to economic waste and encourage corruption, as is explained in the economics textbooks.
Patent monopolies typically raise the price of drugs by 10 or even 100 times the free market price. This is equivalent to tariffs of 1,000 or 10,000 percent. Everything the economics textbooks say about 10 or 20 percent tariffs applies to the protection given drug companies, except the impact is hugely greater since the size of the effective tariff is so much larger. How could a serious forum on drug prices not deal with this fundamental issue?
There are alternative financing mechanisms to patent monopoly already in existence. The government spends more than $30 billion a year funding biomedical research through the National Ins utes of Health. Everyone familiar with the output from this research, especially the drug companies, agrees that this is money very well spent. This funding certainly could be expanded.
There is also much research financed by private foundations and charities. Working with other organizations and drug companies, Doctors Without Borders has developed a number of new drugs and treatments. This research has benefited hundreds of millions of people, but cost less than one tenth of what the pharmaceutical industry claims it costs them to develop a single drug.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/ite...gh-drug-prices
BigCorp doing the dirty in Geneva, secretly
Secret trade talks could weaken climate targets set in Paris, warn campaigners
Secret trade talks in Geneva could outlaw subsidies for renewable energy, undermining climate discussions in Paris that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions, anti-poverty campaigners have warned.
The Geneva summit involving 22 countries including the US, Mexico, Australia and the 28 EU member states, aim to create a “level playing field”, with the possible consequence that
fracking companies could dispute subsidies for solar or wind power. ( anybody smell a BigCarbon rat? )
Unions and anti-poverty campaigners said the implications for developing world economies that want to promote investment in renewable energy would prove disastrous.
According to leaked do ents, a draft chapter of the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) would, if adopted, force governments to accept “technological neutrality”. Disputes over subsidies to renewables would be
resolved in a tribunal system outside national government control.
“This chapter shall apply measures affecting trade in energy related services, irrespective of the energy source dealt with, technology used, whether the energy source is renewable or non-renewable, and whether the service is supplied onshore or offshore,” says the draft obtained by WikiLeaks.
the proposals as drafted would leave “elected policymakers unable to encourage renewable energy over non-renewable, clean over dirty, or local over imported”.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/03/secret-trade-talks-climate-targets-paris-genevaA
WTO Authorizes Over $1 Billion in Sanctions Unless U.S. Guts Popular Country-of-Origin Meat Labels, Disproving Obama Claim That Trade Pacts Can’t Undermine Public Interest Policies
Today’s World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against the U.S. country-of-origin meat labels (COOL) that consumers rely on to make informed choices about their food provides a glaring example of how trade agreements can undermine U.S. public interest policies, Public Citizen said today. How the Obama administration responds to the WTO ruling will have a significant impact on its efforts to build congressional and public support for the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
In his May 2015 speech at Nike headquarters, President Barack Obama said that critics’ warnings that the TPP could “undermine American regulation – food safety, worker safety, even financial regulations” was “just not true.” He said: “They’re making this stuff up. No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.”
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire...country-origin
that's TAXPAYERS' $1B
Capitalists ing over countries without going to court
Transnational Companies Sue Developing States
Explosion
The world of investment arbitration is very intransparent. After a few months' research, journalists working for the Dutch magazines Oneworld and De Groene Amsterdammer have published a number of stories about the hidden world of ISDS. The stories are accompanied by an interactive map, showing all ISDS claims ever filed against a state. The database behind this map contains information about the disputes, the awards and the members of the tribunals.
What is remarkable is the rise of the popularity of ISDS. Whereas in 2000 just 15 claims were filed, in 2014 alone nearly 70 new claims saw the light. By 2014,therewere a total of 629 ISDS cases filed. This may turn out to be even more, because not all cases are public. The number of billion-dollar claims is growing.
Canada, the US and Mexico are on the top list of most-sued states. The reason is NAFTA, the free trade agreement of which ISDS is a part. However, the US has never lost a case. If we exclude the cases won by the state, a completely different picture emerges: Argentina, Venezuela, India, Mexico, Bolivia. In other words, developing and emerging countries. Many of these countries have now come to the conclusion that this arbitrationsystemisunfair, or even neocolonial.
Dutch Sandwich
Where do the claims originate from? In the list of home countries of investors the US is still number one, but in the last few years they have been surpassed by Western Europe. In 2014, more than half of all claims were filed by Western European investors. Claimant country number one is the Netherlands, with more claims than the United States.
However, a closer look at the companies involved shows that more than two-thirds of all Dutch claims have actually been filed by so-called mailbox companies. They choose to settle in the Netherlands for its attractive network of investment treaties, 95 in total, which are deemed investor-friendly.
"This is known as the Dutch sandwich," says George Kahale III, an American top lawyer, who defends states in large investment cases. "You put a Dutch holding in between, and you can call yourself Dutch. This is how the system is misused."
White Men
In 88per cent of the cases, the researchers found the names of the arbitrators involved. From this a picture emerges of a highly select club of men - and two women - who are assigned time and again to judge. A top-15 of arbitrators have been involved in a striking 63 per cent of all cases. In 22 per cent of the cases, even two members of the top-15 were involved, which means that they have been able to make or break the case.
"This is not strange," says Bernard Hanotiau, a Belgian arbitrator who is also a member of the top-15. That a few arbitrators dominate the scene, he says, is just because they are the best ones. "If you look for lung cancer specialists in Belgium, you also end up with a small group. We are specialists."
Yet this is problematic. After all, the arbitrators are not judges who have sworn an oath and have been appointed publicly. Most of them are commercial lawyers, who even continue to act as counsels next to their work as arbitrators. It is possible that a state is condemned by a judge whose law firm partner is a lawyer for an investor in a comparable case. The possibility of conflicts of interest is big.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...western-europe
Last edited by boutons_deux; 12-28-2015 at 05:34 PM.
the problem with this system is that no matter what sanction happens taxpayers here or there will always be left holding the bag, makes it real easy to grease the wheels and hop everyone on board.
still, like other WTO judgements in the past, or ICJ for that matter, the US will do whatever it likes and no one will be able to do anything about it. china too for that matter. corporations are so clearly behind this deal, where are all the free market libertarians and patriotic neocons outraged at this? All the little countries got sold out by their politicians, myself included.
ISDS/NAFTA being used by foreign predators to shakedown US taxapayers for $15B
TransCanada's Pathetic Keystone XL Lawsuit Could Galvanize Resistance to New Trade Agreements
The lawsuit won't do anything to help get the pipeline built, it's too late for that. The only purpose is for TransCanada to get compensated for the billions of dollars it wasted on this boondoggle in the first place. It's a greedy and pathetic move, but I guess that's what we've come to expect from the fossil fuel industry.
TransCanada is bringing their lawsuit under NAFTA, otherwise known as the North American Free Trade Agreement. More specifically, they're using a complex and opaque process known as the investor-state dispute system, which allows corporations to bring lawsuits against countries that they feel are unfairly blocking the free flow of trade. TransCanada's accusation is that the Obama Administration rejected Keystone XL for purely symbolic reasons, rather than its impact on the climate, and therefore the company has been discriminated against.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/20...ance-new-trade
TPP is signed but hurdles remain
Signed and sealed but not yet delivered, the Trans-Pacific Partnership will now be put through the wringer in member countries for ratification.
The 12 ministers in Auckland yesterday for the signing were relentlessly positive about its likely benefits to their economies and to the ease of trade in goods and services.
Malaysia was so enthusiastic the deal passed a vote in Parliament last week, even though it didn't need its approval. And in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam it will just require the consent of the state president.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11584767
Study: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Will Cost US a Half Million Jobs, Drag Down GDP
Economic researchers with Tufts University's Global Development and Environment Ins ute said Monday that widely cited projections claiming the TPP will boost economic activity in the US are "based on unrealistic assumptions."
Instead, the economists noted, the 12-nation Pacific Rim trade deal will likely lead to the loss of 448,000 jobs from the US workforce, while lowering GDP by more than a half-percentage point over the next decade.
The report also estimates that TPP will cause labor's share of income to decline by 1.3 percent, increasing inequality in the United States.
It noted, however, that this would not be unique to the US - that new income going to workers in all TPP signatories is expected to drop as a result of the deal, according to the analysis, widening the gap between the global rich and poor.
The Tufts researchers also found that while the US job market is projected to take the biggest hit, the TPP would lead to 771,000 job aggregate losses over the next ten years in all member nations.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...-drag-down-gdp
So, with this projected loss of US jobs, do you approve of Obama signing it?
no, it's one of his biggest ups
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...-signing.shtmlAbout an hour ago, representatives from 12 different nations officially signed the Trans Pacific Partnership (TTP) agreement in Auckland, New Zealand. The date, February 4th (New Zealand time) is noteworthy, because it's 90 days after the official text was released. There was a 90 day clock that was required between releasing the text and before the US could actually sign onto the agreement. The stated purpose of this 90 day clock was in order to allow "debate" about the agreement. Remember, the entire agreement was negotiated in secret, with US officials treating the text of the do ent as if it were a national security secret (unless you were an industry lobbyist, of course). So as a nod to pretend "transparency" there was a promise that nothing would be signed for 90 days after the text was actually released.
So... uh... what happened to that "debate"? It didn't happen at all. The TPP was barely mentioned at all by the administration in the last 90 days. Even during the State of the Union, Obama breezed past the TPP with a quick comment, even though it's supposedly a defining part of his "legacy." But there's been no debate. Because there was never any intent for an actual debate. The 90 day clock was just something that was put into the process so that the USTR and the White House could pretend that there was more "transparency" and that they wouldn't sign the agreement until after it had been looked at and understood by the public.
Of course, the signing is a totally meaningless bit of theater. The real fight is over ratification. The various countries need to ratify the TPP for the agreement to go into effect. Technically, the TPP will enter into force 60 days after all signers ratify it... or, if that doesn't happen, within two years if at least six of the 12 participant countries ratify it and those six countries account for 85% of the combined gross domestic product of the 12 countries. Got that? In short, this means that if the US doesn't ratify it, the TPP is effectively dead. The US needs a majority of both houses of Congress to approve it, similar to a typical bill. And that's no sure thing right now. Unfortunately, that's mainly because a group of our elected officials are upset that the TPP doesn't go far enough in helping big businesses block compe ion, but it's still worth following.
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