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  1. #1
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    Trans-Pacific Partnership Do ents Show Trade Treaty Could Grow Much Larger Than NAFTA


    The leaked text provides stark warnings about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring without press, public or policymaker oversight. It reveals that negotiators already have agreed to many radical terms granting expansive new rights and privileges for foreign investors and their private corporate enforcement through extra-judicial “investor-state” tribunals.

    Although TPP has been branded as a “trade” agreement, the leaked text shows that TPP would limit how signatory countries may regulate foreign firms operating within their boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms. The leaked text reveals a two-track legal system, with foreign firms empowered to skirt domestic courts and laws to directly sue TPP governments in foreign tribunals. There they can demand compensation for domestic financial, health, environmental, land use laws and other laws they claim undermine their new TPP privileges.

    The leak also reveals that all countries involved in TPP talks – except Australia – have agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of such foreign tribunals, which would be empowered to order payment of unlimited government Treasury funds to foreign investors over TPP claims.

    Some other exciting tidbits:

    • The deal forbids participating nations to apply financial transaction taxes or capital controls.

    • Health and land use policies, government procurement decisions, regulatory permits, intellectual property rights and regulation of financial instruments such as derivatives would all be subjects open for corporations to go to the international tribunals and subvert national rules.

    • “The foreign tribunals would be staffed by private sector lawyers who rotate between acting as ‘judges’ and representing corporations suing governments, posing major conflicts of
    interest.”

    • Investors have the right to claim damages from governments based on their own expectations of how they should be treated, in terms of regulations or permitting.

    • “U.S. negotiators alone are pushing for foreign investors to have greater rights than domestic investors with respect to disputes relating to procurement contracts with the signatory governments, contracts for natural resource concessions on land controlled by the national government, and contracts to operate utilities.”

    http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/06/...er-than-nafta/

  2. #2
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    Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

    The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP. Both pacts exclude China.

    Since the beginning of the TPP negotiations, the process of drafting and negotiating the treaty’s chapters has been shrouded in an unprecedented level of secrecy. Access to drafts of the TPP chapters is shielded from the general public. Members of the US Congress are only able to view selected portions of treaty-related do ents in highly restrictive conditions and under strict supervision. It has been previously revealed that only three individuals in each TPP nation have access to the full text of the agreement, while 600 ’trade advisers’ – lobbyists guarding the interests of large US corporations such as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto and Walmart – are granted privileged access to crucial sections of the treaty text.

    WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange stated: “The US administration is aggressively pushing the TPP through the US legislative process on the sly.” The advanced draft of the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter, published by WikiLeaks on 13 November 2013, provides the public with the fullest opportunity so far to familiarise themselves with the details and implications of the TPP.

    The 95-page, 30,000-word IP Chapter lays out provisions for ins uting a far-reaching, transnational legal and enforcement regime, modifying or replacing existing laws in TPP member states. The Chapter’s subsections include agreements relating to patents (who may produce goods or drugs), copyright (who may transmit information), trademarks (who may describe information or goods as authentic) and industrial design.

    The longest section of the Chapter – ’Enforcement’ – is devoted to detailing new policing measures, with far-reaching implications for individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological and environmental commons. Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards. The TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with secret evidence.

    The IP Chapter also replicates many of the surveillance and enforcement provisions from the shelved SOPA and ACTA treaties.


    https://wikileaks.org/tpp/pressrelease.html




  3. #3
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    special tribunals for qualifying firms, secret evidence is allowed, no human rights curbs are included, the treaty is presented to the US Senate as a finished product after it has been negotiated in secret -- what could go wrong?

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    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    One of the most controversial provisions in the talks includes new corporate empowerment language insisted upon by the U.S. government, which would allow foreign companies to challenge laws or regulations in a privately run international court. Under World Trade Organization treaties, this political power to contest government law is reserved for sovereign nations. The U.S. has endorsed some corporate political powers in prior trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, but the scope of what laws can be challenged appears to be much broader in TPP negotiations.


    "The United States, as in previous rounds, has shown no flexibility on its proposal, being one of the most significant barriers to closing the chapter, since under the concept of Investment Agreement nearly all significant contracts that can be made between a state and a foreign investor are included," the memo reads. "Only the U.S. and Japan support the proposal."



    Under NAFTA, companies including Exxon Mobil, Dow Chemical and Eli Lilly have attempted to overrule Canadian regulations on offshore oil drilling, fracking, pesticides, drug patents and other issues. Companies could challenge an even broader array of rules under the TPP language.


    New standards concerning access to key medicines appear to be equally problematic for many nations. The Obama administration is insisting on mandating new intellectual property rules in the treaty that would grant pharmaceutical companies long-term monopolies on new medications. As a result, companies can charge high prices without regard to compe ion from generic providers. The result, public health experts have warned, would be higher prices around the world, and lack of access to life-saving drugs in poor countries.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...n_4409211.html

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    It would be really wonderful proof of how the (Senate) Repugs are 100% for the 1%/VRWC/UCA if they vote to approve of THIS abortion.

  7. #7
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    fast track authority may not get a vote in the Senate

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) appears not to have been swayed by President Barack Obama's State of the Union appeal to Congress to push through trade deals, declaring flatly on Wednesday that he opposes so-called fast-track authority for the White House.

    Fast track, known formally as Trade Promotional Authority, essentially requires Congress to give international trade agreements negotiated by the president an up-or-down vote with no chance for amendments.
    The fast-track authority lapsed during the administration of George W. Bush, and Obama would like to revive it in hopes of passing his ambitious and murky Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, which many opponents on the left and right fear will undermine the United States' ability to maintain its own labor and environmental protections.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4689240.html

  8. #8
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    fast track authority may not get a vote in the Senate

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4689240.html
    So no fast track.

    But what happens when/if the TPP becomes a bill in Congress, and it becomes public info rather than a secret held only by negotiators and 100s of corporate representatives?

  9. #9
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    WikiLeaks Reveals Global Trade Deal Kept More Secret Than the Trans-Pacific Partnership

    The whistleblower and transparency website WikiLeaks published on Thursday the secret draft text of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, a controversial global trade agreement promoted by the United States and European Union that covers 50 countries and is opposed by global trade unions and anti-globalization activists.

    Activists expect the TISA deal to promote privatization of public services in countries across the globe, and WikiLeaks said the secrecy surrounding the trade negotiations exceeds that of even the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that has made headlines in the past year.

    Demonstrations erupted in Geneva in April as diplomats met in secret for the sixth round of negotiations over TISA, which would cover international trade in a wide range of service industries ranging from finance and telecommunications to transportation and even local utilities such as water. Protesters demanded that the draft text be released, but it has remained secret until now.


    Public Services International (PSI), a global trade union federating public service workers in 150 countries, has reported that TISA threatens to allow multinational corporations to permanently privatize vital public services such as healthcare and transportation in countries across the world.


    "This agreement is all about making it easier for corporations to make profits and operate with impunity across borders," said PSI General Secretary Rosa Pavanelli in response to the leak. "The aim of public services should not be to make profits for large multinational corporations. Ensuring that failed privatizations can never be reversed is free-market ideology gone mad."


    http://truth-out.org/news/item/24486...ic-partnership



  10. #10
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    David Cay Johnston has more on the same:
    WikiLeaks last week again pierced the veil of official secrecy that surrounds global trade negotiations. The peek it gave us should alarm everyone.


    Big Business and national governments wanted to conceal the terms of the proposed Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) while keeping consumers, unions, environmentalists and the vast majority of businesses in the dark. Thanks to WikiLeaks, they failed.


    The draft agreement WikiLeaks released on June 19 is fresh, written in May. It is a model of secret law, blatant in its disregard for transparency, democratic process and history. Its opening page says the terms are to remain secret for five years after negotiations formally end or the proposed new rules take effect. Talks to refine that agreement were to resume Monday in Geneva.


    Even the secrecy-shrouded Trans Pacific Partnership that President Barack Obama and his Big Business allies want to ram through Congress without changes and only perfunctory debate does not include a five-year veil of secrecy after adoption. WikiLeaks has released a portion of TPP draft do ents to the public.


    It is impossible to obey a law or know how it affects you when the law is secret. And that is what this agreement would be, a new rulebook for trade in services — principally banking, insurance and trusts.
    The 18-page draft agreement involves 50 nations, which produce more than two-thirds of officially measured global economic activity. That means the consequences of the new rules would be enormous, especially for those living in the more than 140 countries not taking part in the talks. Whether people can get loans or buy insurance and at what prices as well as what jobs may be available will be affected by any new trade rules.

    Keeping us in the dark

    The TISA leak marked the second anniversary of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s taking refuge in Ecuador’s London Embassy, demonstrating that he may be cornered but he has not given up the fight for open government.


    If this is the first you have heard of this agreement, it is not surprising. Not one of the five big American newspapers — The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today — wrote a word about the do ent. Ditto the major TV networks.


    Why the secrecy? Why shut down the marketplace of ideas?


    The answer becomes obvious upon reading the draft: It is intended to subvert the creation, by governments, of rules that benefit all of society and instead make sure the rules enhance the power of the financial services industry and reduce its accountability.
    http://america.aljazeera.com/opinion...ntsecrecy.html

  11. #11
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    "corporate sovereignty" takes a blow from Germany

    Germany U-Turns, Torpedoes Corporate Sovereignty Charter in Trade Agreements With US and Canada, Resistance Grows

    German EU diplomats confirmed in Brussels on Friday that the [German] federal government could not sign the agreement with Canada “as it is now negotiated.” Germany is, in principle, ready to initial the agreement in September, but the chapter on the legal protection of investors is “problematic” and currently not acceptable.

    As the Transnational Ins ute reports, Germany currently heads the list of states to have signed such agreements, with a total of 139 signed BITs, of which 130 have entered into force. In the vast majority of these agreements investors have the right to apply for international arbitration (investor-state arbitration) when they feel there has been an alleged breach of a treaty provision. This right of action was increasingly included in BITS from the 1980s onwards, but it wasn’t until the end of the 1990s that investors began to widely and offensively sue host states.

    Since then, nearly 400 known arbitration cases have been launched under these agreements. However, due to the acute lack of transparency and accountability of the international arbitration system, the total number of cases remains unknown.


    What is known, thanks to recent figures published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, is that almost half of new ISDS cases in 2013 were filed against developed countries – most of them against EU member states, including Germany. In the last decade it has been sued twice for billions of euros a piece – and what’s more, by the same company!


    An Expensive
    Battle Over Germany Energy Policy


    That company is Berlin-based energy giant Vattenfall AG, a subsidiary of Vattenfall AB, which is wholly-owned by the Swedish state. Vattenfall’s first complaint, for €1.4 billion, came on the back of Germany’s decision to reduce the damaging effects of carbon dioxide emissions from a coal-fired power plant owned by Vattenfall.


    Then, following the Fukushima disaster, Germany decided to close a nuclear power plant also owned by Vattenfall, which hit back by taking the country to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The Swedish firm claims that it has suffered no less than €3.7 billion in losses and lost profits resulting from the government’s decision to phase out nuclear power.

    Interestingly, neither of Vattenfall’s challenges argues that its power plants are actually safe or environmentally sound; the sole focus is on protecting investors from losing money. As I wrote in “The Global Corporatocracy Is Just A Few Strokes of a Pen From Completion,” it is this exclusive focus on investor rights – at the expense of all other considerations – that is at the root of all that is wrong with the new generation of “free” trade treaties:

    If allowed to take universal effect, the system will impose above you, me, and our governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of all financial risk and social and environmental responsibility.

    http://wolfstreet.com/2014/08/01/ger...de-agreements/


    so if a company/investors thinks a govt policy cost it money, under these "corporate sovereignty" agreements, a company/investors can fleece that govt's taxpayers.

    corporations to

    corporations NEVER had, or have any "social and environmental responsibility". Their only responsibility is to make profits, and abuse, even break, the spirit of any law that reduces their profits.

    Last edited by boutons_deux; 08-04-2014 at 06:36 AM.

  12. #12
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    Election Results Indicate Huge Mandate for New Trade Pacts


    Let's just be clear what these trade deals are about. They have nothing to do with "free trade," in spite of the fact that the media routinely use that term to help sell TPP and TTIP. The formal trade barriers in the form of tariffs and quotas are already very low. This means that the traditional argument of gains from trade does not apply. These pacts are about putting in place a set of pro-business rules and regulations that would never pass through the normal political process.

    To start with the most egregious example, one of the main goals of the United States is to establish a system of special courts that would override the legal system in each country, including the United States. These investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals would have the final say on most matters involving conflicts with foreign investors.

    The rationale for a system of ISDS is that foreign investors may be wary about investing in a country without a tradition of an independent judiciary that can be trusted to treat them fairly. While this may be an arguable position in some cases, does anyone really think that German, Dutch or US courts can't be trusted to treat foreign investors fairly?


    In addition to establishing this extra-legal structure, these deals would also limit the ability of national and state governments to impose environmental regulations, workplace safety regulations, food safety regulations and Internet privacy regulations. It could also limit the ability to have labor regulations like a higher minimum wage or rules on paid sick days.

    The pacts are also likely to include a number of protectionist measures that will raise costs and reduce trade and growth. In particular, the pharmaceutical industry is trying to increase the length and scope of government granted patent monopolies. This will mean more drugs like Sovaldi selling for $84,000 a treatment, when the generic version can be sold for a few hundred dollars. And, they want longer and stronger copyright protection so they can imprison people for sharing music and videos without permission.


    TPP and TTIP are everything that people hate about Washington. They are deals being crafted in secret by business interests for business interests. They are never going to be subject to any serious political debate involving the public at large. And the leaders of both political parties are in cahoots on the trade deals and the route for pushing them through Congress.


    Just to be clear, there are trade deals that could boost growth and benefit most of the public. We could eliminate licensing rules that make it difficult for foreign professionals like doctors and lawyers from practicing in the United States. Bringing the pay of our professionals down to levels in Europe and Canada would save consumers hundreds of billions of dollars a year and provide a real boost to growth. We can also have trade agreements that reduce rather increase patent protection, saving us hundreds of billions of dollars on prescription drugs and other items.


    But that would be the structure of trade agreements negotiated in the public interest. That is not we see in the United States. We instead get the elite media and politicians shoving TPP and TTIP down our throats regardless of how people vote.

    http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/27337-election-results-indicate-huge-mandate-for-new-trade-pacts

  13. #13
    dangerous floater Winehole23's Avatar
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    Tariffs are already low. Negotiations now involve such things as intellectual property, financial regulations, labor laws, and rules for health, safety, and the environment.

    It's no longer free trade versus protectionism. Big corporations and Wall Street want some of both.


    They want more international protection when it comes to their intellectual property and other assets. So they've been seeking trade rules that secure and extend their patents, trademarks, and copyrights abroad, and protect their global franchise agreements, securities, and loans.


    But they want less protection of consumers, workers, small investors, and the environment, because these interfere with their profits. So they've been seeking trade rules that allow them to override these protections.
    Not surprisingly for a deal that's been drafted mostly by corporate and Wall Street lobbyists, the TPP provides exactly this mix.
    http://robertreich.org/

  15. #15
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    Vetoing TTP and its Atlantic accomplice TTIP would rank up with ACA, imo, as Barry's pro-99% legacy, but he seems ready to sign both.

    TTP and TTIP = US middle classed get (even more) raped into the lower class.

  16. #16
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    TTP and TTIP both expand "investor state dispute settlement" powers such that investors can further shake down governements(taxpayers) for $100Ms and probably many $10Bs over the years.

    TTP and TTIP consecrate, enshrine supra-state BigCorps as the supreme powers on the planet, with govts(people) as weak, bullied accomplices. iow, Na'vi gonna win big. Sky People gonna own, take down all the Home Trees.

  17. #17
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    Congressional Leaders Reject Wall Street’s Push for Deregulatory “Trade” Pacts


    As proposed, both pacts would include controversial foreign investor privilegesthat would empower some of the world’s largest banks to demand U.S. taxpayer money for having to comply with U.S. financial stability policies.

    Including such provisions in the TPP could expose American taxpayers to billions of dollars in losses and dissuade the government from establishing or enforcing financial rules that impact foreign banks. The consequence would be to strip our regulators of the tools they need to prevent the next crisis.

    Rep. Waters and Reps. Lacy Clay, Keith Ellison, and Raúl Grijalva sent a similar letter to Froman that called for ISDS to be excluded from TAFTA to safeguard financial stability, stating:
    Private foreign investors should not be empowered to cir vent U.S. courts, go before extrajudicial tribunals and demand compensation from U.S. taxpayers because they do not like U.S. domestic financial regulatory policies with which all firms operating here must comply.


    Warren, Baldwin, and Markey made clear in their letter that such anachronistic rules must not be inserted into a binding pact:

    To protect consumers and to address sources of systemic financial risk, Congress must maintain the flexibility to impose restrictions on harmful financial products and on the conduct or structure of financial firms. We would oppose including provisions in the TPP that would limit that flexibility.

    So did Representatives Waters, Clay, Ellison, and Grijalva:


    TTIP should also not replicate rules from past trade agreements that restrict the use of capital controls, which the International Monetary Fund and leading economists have endorsed as legitimate policy tools for preventing and mitigating financial crises. Nor should TTIP include provisions that could limit Congress’ prerogative to enact a financial transaction tax to curb speculation while generating revenue.

    We believe it is highly inappropriate to include terms implicating financial regulation in an industry-dominated, non-transparent “trade” negotiation. Financial regulations do not belong in a framework that targets regulations as potential “barriers to trade.” Such a framework could chill or roll back post-crisis efforts to re-regulate finance on both sides of the Atlantic whereas further regulation of the sector is much needed.

    http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/

    ======================

    Bill Black: Obama’s Vain Search for a TPP “Legacy”


    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/...+capitalism%29


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    Let's Take Apart the Corporate Case for Fast Track Trade Authority

    The promoters of fast track say we need it to push “trade” agreements through Congress to expand trade and increase exports. “What we’re going to do through this trade agreement is open up markets,” Froman told Congress Tuesday, “and then level the playing field so we can protect workers, protect American jobs and then ensure a fair and level playing field by raising labor and environmental standards, raising intellectual property rights, standards and enforcement, making sure that we’re putting disciplines on state-owned enterprises that pose a real threat to workers.”

    Saying that 95 percent of the world’s markets are outside the U.S. implies that we need TPP and other agreements because we are currently not selling goods to 95 percent of the world. This is patently false. We sell goods and services around the world already. In fact, it contradicts other corporate arguments for these agreements like, “More than 38 million American jobs already depend on trade.”

    This argument deceives people about the very nature of these agreements. Most of the objections being voiced over these coming agreements are about non-trade issues.

    Only five of TPP’s 29 chapters deal with what people understand as “trade.”

    So an argument that TPP and similar agreements will “expand trade” masks what the bulk of these agreements
    are really about, which is getting governments off the backs of the giant corporations and protecting their profits from compe ion and democratic regulation.

    Just one example of this is
    the “investor-state dispute settlements” provision, which I have called “corporate courts.” This part of “NAFTA-style” trade agreements, including TPP, allows corporations to sue governments that pass laws and regulations that interfere with profits.

    Similar clauses in trade agreements around the world have, for example, enabled tobacco companies to sue governments for trying to protect the health of their citizens. Under TPP
    these suits will be adjudicated by corporate attorneys, not democratically cons uted courts.

    Other examples are expanded copyright and patent protection for the giant multinationals, which will increase the cost of pharmaceutical products and potentially restrict the freedom of the Internet.

    Obviously the corporate advocates of these agreements want this, so they are using distraction, diversion and shiny promises of increased trade and more jobs to sell the agreements.

    http://www.commondreams.org/views/20...rade-authority


    Last edited by boutons_deux; 02-04-2015 at 12:05 PM.

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    Ten Tall Tales on Trade: Fact-Checking Obama's Top Trade Official



    Last week was a difficult for U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman. He had to go before Congress and explain how the administration's plan to expand a trade model that has offshored U.S. manufacturing jobs and exacerbated middle class wage stagnation fits with President Obama's stated "middle class economics" agenda.
    Inconveniently for Mr. Froman, it does not.

    That did not stop Froman from trying to paint the last two decades of Fast-Tracked, pro-offshoring trade deals – and the administration's plan for more of the same – as a gift to the middle class.

    The facts he cited to support this depiction actually sounded great. They just didn't have the added advantage of being true.

    Here's a rundown of the top 10 fibs and half-truths that Froman uttered before the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee last week in his sales pitch for the administration's bid to expand the NAFTA "trade" pact model by Fast-Tracking through Congress the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).


    1. Fast Track Puts Congress in the Driver's Seat (of a Runaway Car, without Brakes or a Steering Wheel)


    Froman: "[Fast Track] puts Congress in the driver's seat to define U.S. negotiating objectives and priorities for trade agreements."


    Okay, let's go with this analogy. If reviving Fast Track puts Congress in the driver's seat, it also removes the brakes and steering wheel. Reviving Fast Track would empower the administration to negotiate and sign a sweeping "trade" pact like the TPP – implicating everything from the cost of medicines to the safety of food to the reform of Wall Street – before Congress had any enforceable say over the deal's contents, even if they contradicted Congress' stated negotiating objectives. Goodbye steering wheel. Congress' role would be relegated to an expedited, no-amendments, limited-debate vote on the already-signed deal. Goodbye brakes.


    Also, if we're talking about Fast Tracking the TPP, the car is already going 60mph. As a couple of members of Congress pointed out to Froman, the administration has been negotiating the TPP for more than five years, and Froman himself stated that TPP negotiations are in their endgame. Even if Froman's assertion were true that Fast Track allows Congress to define priorities for trade agreements (rather than ensuring that such priorities are not enforceable), it's a little late for members of Congress to be naming priorities for a deal that has been under negotiation since 2009 and that Froman hopes to close in the coming months.


    2. A Trade Surplus with Our FTA Partners (Does Not Appear in Official Government Data)


    Froman: "You take all of our FTA partners as a whole, [and] we have a trade surplus. And that trade surplus has grown." Froman also claimed that the United States has a trade surplus in manufactured goods with its FTA partners. And he tried to use red herrings to explain away the surging U.S. trade deficit with Korea under the Korea FTA.


    These claims defy official U.S. government data. Data from the U.S. International Trade Commission show that the United States has a $180 billion U.S. goods trade deficit with all free trade agreement (FTA) partners (in 2013, the latest year on record). In manufactured goods, the United States has a $51 billion manufacturing trade deficit with all FTA partners. Froman claimed otherwise, in part, by counting billions of dollars' worth of "foreign exports" – goods produced abroad that simply pass through the United States without alteration before being "re-exported." These goods, by definition, do not support U.S. production jobs.


    Contributing to our FTA deficit is the 50 percent surge in the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea in just the first two years of the Korea FTA, which literally was used as the U.S. template for the TPP. This deficit increase, owing to a drop in exports and rise in imports, spells the loss of more than 50,000 American jobs in the FTA's first two years, according to the ratio used by the administration to claim the pact would create jobs. Froman tried to explain away the ballooning U.S. trade deficit under the Korea FTA as due to decreases in corn and fossil fuel exports. But even if discounting both corn and fossil fuels, U.S. annual exports to Korea still fell under the FTA, and the annual trade deficit with Korea still soared. Product-specific anomalies cannot explain away the broad-based downfall of U.S. exports to Korea under the FTA, which afflicted nine of the top 15 U.S. sectors that export to Korea. The disappointing results also cannot be blamed on low growth in Korea since the FTA. Though Korea's growth rates in the last several years have not been spectacular, the economy has still grown since the FTA (3 percent in 2013), as has consumption (2.2 percent, adjusted for inflation, in 2013). Koreans are buying more goods, just not U.S. goods.


    3. We Wish to Ensure Access to Affordable Medicines in the TPP (but Big Pharma Won't Let Us)


    Froman: "In negotiations, like TPP, we are working to ensure access to affordable life-saving medicines, including in the developing world, and create incentives for the development of new treatment and cures that benefit the world and which create the pipeline for generic drugs."


    These words play politics with people's lives. They cloak the tragic reality that if the TPP would take effect as USTR has proposed, with leaks showing even greater monopoly protections for pharmaceutical corporations than in prior pacts, people would needlessly die for lack of access to affordable medicines. A new study finds, for example, that the TPP would dramatically reduce the share of Vietnam's HIV patients who have access to life-saving antiretroviral medicines. The study reveals that while 68 percent of Vietnam's eligible HIV patients currently receive treatment, U.S.-proposed monopoly protections for pharmaceutical corporations in the TPP would allow only 30 percent of Vietnam's HIV patients to access antiretrovirals. As a result, an estimated 45,000 people with HIV in Vietnam who currently receive antiretroviral treatment would no longer be able to afford the life-saving drugs.


    Froman also indicated in the Senate hearing that USTR is pushing to include a special monopoly protection for pharmaceutical firms that contradicts the Obama administration's own stated objectives for reducing the cost of medicines in the United States. President Obama's budget proposes to reduce a special monopoly protection for pharmaceutical firms with regard to biologic medicines – drugs used to combat cancer and other diseases that cost approximately 22 times more than conventional medicines. To lower the exorbitant prices and the resulting burden on programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the Obama administration's 2015 budget would reduce the period of Big Pharma's monopoly protection for biologics from 12 to seven years. The administration estimates this would save taxpayers more than $4.2 billion over the next decade just for federal programs. However, Froman suggested last week that USTR continues to push for the 12 years of corporate protection in the TPP, which would lock into place pharmaceutical firms' lengthy monopolies here at home while effectively scrapping the administration's own proposal to save billions in unnecessary healthcare costs.


    4. Most Exporters are Small Businesses (that Have Endured Slow and Falling Exports under FTAs)


    Froman: "15,600 firms export from Pennsylvania. Almost 90 percent of them are small and medium sized businesses. And the question is whether with these trade agreements we can create more opportunities for these kinds of businesses."


    Implying that exporting is mainly the domain of small businesses because they make up most exporting firms is like implying that the NBA is a league of short people because most NBA players are shorter than 7 feet tall. The reason small and medium enterprises (defined as 500 employees or less) comprise most U.S. exporting firms is simply because they cons ute 99.7 percent of U.S. firms overall (in the same way that those of us below 7 feet cons ute more than 99 percent of the U.S. population). The more relevant question is what share of small and medium firms actually depend on exports for their success. Only 3 percent of U.S. small and medium enterprises export any good to any country. In contrast, 38 percent of large U.S. firms are exporters. Even if FTAs actually succeeded in boosting exports (which they don't, per the government data noted below), exporting is primarily the domain of large corporations, not small businesses.


    As for whether "with these trade agreements we can create more opportunities" for small firms, the record of past FTAs suggests not. Under the Korea FTA, U.S. small businesses have seen their exports to Korea decline even more sharply than large firms (a 14 percent vs. 3 percent downfall in the first year of the FTA). And small firms' exports to Mexico and Canada under NAFTA have grown more slowly than their exports to the rest of the world. Small businesses' exports to all non-NAFTA countries grew over 50 percent more than their exports to Canada and Mexico (74 percent vs. 47 percent) during a 1996-2012 window of data availability. The sluggish export growth owes in part to the fact that small businesses' exports grew less than half as much as large firms' exports to NAFTA partners (47 percent vs. 97 percent from 1996-2012).


    5. We Try to Be Transparent (with the Corporate Advisors Who Can Access Secret Texts)


    Froman: "And to ensure these agreements are balanced, we seek a diversity of voices in America's trade policy. The Administration has taken unprecedented steps to increase transparency… We have held public hearings soliciting the public's input on the negotiations and suspended negotiating rounds to host first-of-a-kind stakeholder events so that the public can provide our negotiators with direct feedback on the negotiations."


    "A diversity of voices" is an odd way to describe the more than 500 official trade advisors with privileged access to secretive U.S. trade texts and U.S. trade negotiators. About nine out of ten of these advisors explicitly represent industry interests. Just 10 of the more than 500 advisors (less than 2 percent) represent environmental, consumer, development, food safety, financial regulation, Internet freedom, or public health organizations. It's little wonder that so many of these groups, excluded from setting the content of the TPP, have denounced leaked TPP texts as presenting threats to the public interest. And as for the claim of "unprecedented steps to increase transparency," the reality is closer to the opposite. When the Bush administration negotiated the last similarly sweeping trade pact – the Free Trade Area of the Americas – USTR published the negotiating text online for anyone to see amid negotiations. In a step backwards from the degree of transparency exhibited by the Bush administration, the Obama administration has refused repeated calls from members of Congress and civil society organizations to release TPP texts. This secrecy limits the utility of the public hearings and stakeholder events that Froman touts, as it is difficult to opine on a text you are prohibited from seeing.


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    6. Supporting Manufacturing and Higher Wages (Is a Goal in Spite of Our Trade Policies)

    Froman: "In 2015, the Obama Administration will continue to pursue trade policies aimed at supporting the growth of manufacturing and associated high-quality jobs here at home and maintaining American manufacturers' compe ive edge."

    The only objectionable word in this sentence is "continue." Since NAFTA, we have endured a net loss of nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs – one out of every four – and more than 57,000 manufacturing facilities. While not all of those losses are due to NAFTA, the deal's inclusion of special protections for firms that relocate abroad certainly contributed to the hemorrhaging of U.S. manufacturing. The U.S. manufactured goods trade balance with Canada and Mexico in NAFTA's first 20 years changed from a $5 billion surplus in 1993 to a $64.9 billion deficit in 2013. The U.S. Department of Labor has certified (under one narrow program) more than 845,000 specific U.S. workers – many of them in manufacturing – as enduring "trade-related" job losses since NAFTA due to the offshoring of their factories to Mexico or Canada, or import compe ion from those countries. And under just two years of the Korea FTA, U.S. manufacturing exports to Korea have fallen. Overall, the United States has a $51 billion trade deficit in manufactured goods with its 20 FTA partners. Reviving manufacturing and reviving Fast Track for the NAFTA-expanding TPP are incompatible.


    Froman: "At a time when too many workers haven't seen their paychecks grow in much too long, these jobs typically pay up to 18% more on average than non-export related jobs."


    Froman neglects to mention a key reason that too many workers haven't seen their paychecks grow: NAFTA-style deals have not only incentivized the offshoring of well-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs, but forced these workers to compete for lower-paid service sector jobs, which has contributed to downward pressure on wages even in non-offshoreable sectors. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about three out of every five displaced manufacturing workers who were rehired in 2014 experienced a wage reduction. About one out of every three displaced manufacturing workers took a pay cut of greater than 20 percent. As increasing numbers of American workers, displaced from better-paying jobs by current trade policies, have joined the glut of workers competing for non-offshoreable jobs in retail, hospitality and healthcare, real wages have actually been declining in these growing sectors. A litany of studies has produced an academic consensus that such trade dynamics have contributed to the historic increase in U.S. income inequality – the only debate is the degree to which trade is to blame. The TPP would not only replicate, but actually expand, NAFTA's extraordinary privileges for firms that relocate abroad and eliminate many of the usual risks that make firms think twice about moving to low-wage countries like Vietnam – a TPP negotiating partner where minimum wages average less than 60 cents an hour, making the country a low-cost offshoring alternative to even China.


    7. The TPP Supports an Internet that Is Open (to Lawsuits for Common Online Activity)


    Froman: "We will continue to support a free and open Internet that encourages the flow of information across the digital world."


    Repe ion of this pla ude has failed to assuage the concerns of Internet freedom groups that point out that leaked TPP texts do not support Froman's assurances. In a July 2014 letter, an array of Internet service providers, tech companies, and Internet freedom groups wrote to Froman about leaked TPP copyright terms, some of which resemble provisions in the defeated Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which could "significantly constrain legitimate online activity and innovation." Noting the deal's terms on Internet service provider liability, the groups stated, "We are worried about language that would force service providers throughout the region to monitor and policy their users' actions on the internet, pass on automated takedown notices, block websites and disconnect Internet users."


    8. Our Exports Have Grown (More Quickly to Non-FTA Countries)


    Froman: "Our total exports have grown by nearly 50 percent and contributed nearly one-third of our economic growth since the second quarter of 2009. In 2013, the most recent year on record, American exports reached a record high of $2.3 trillion..." "By opening rapidly expanding markets with millions of new middle-class consumers in parts of the globe like the Asia-Pacific, our trade agreements will help our businesses and workers access overseas markets..."


    U.S. goods exports grew by a grand total of 0 percent in 2013
    . The year before that, they grew by 2 percent. As a result, the administration utterly failed to reach President Obama's stated goal to double U.S. exports from 2009 to 2014. Most of the export growth Froman cites – which is less than half of the administration's stated objective – came early in Obama's tenure as a predictable rebound from the global recession that followed the 2007-2008 financial crisis. At the abysmal export growth rate seen since then, we will not reach Obama's stated goal to double 2009's exports until 2054, 40 years behind schedule.


    Froman ironically uses this export growth drop-off to argue for more-of-the-same trade policy (e.g. the TPP). The data simply does not support the oft-parroted pitch that we need TPP-style FTAs to boost exports. In the first two years of the Korea FTA, U.S. exports to Korea have fallen 5 percent. Overall, growth of U.S. exports to countries that are not FTA partners has exceeded U.S. export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 30 percent over the last decade. That's not a solid basis from which to argue, in the name of exports, for yet another FTA.


    And if we're seeking to export to those countries that are growing the fastest, then the TPP is the wrong trade pact. Of the TPP countries with which we do not already have an FTA, all but one are actually growing more slowly than the per capita growth rate of the East Asian and Pacific region overall.


    9. Increases in Food Exports (Have Been Swamped by a Surge in Food Imports)


    Froman: "In 2013, U.S. farmers and ranchers exported a record $148.7 billion of food and agricultural goods to consumers around the world."


    Yes, U.S. food exports have increased, but not nearly as much as food imports. In 2013, the total volume of U.S. food exports stood just 0.5 percent higher than in 1995, while imports of food into the United States had more than doubled (growing 115 percent since 1995). Existing FTAs have contributed to the imbalanced food trade. The average annual U.S. agricultural deficit with Canada and Mexico under NAFTA's first two decades reached $975 million, almost three times the pre-NAFTA level. And under the first two years of the Korea FTA, U.S. agricultural exports to Korea plummeted 34 percent. Smaller-scale U.S. family farms have been hardest hit. About 170,000 small U.S. family farms have gone under since NAFTA and NAFTA expansion pacts have taken effect, a 21 percent decrease in the total number.


    10. The TPP Takes Heed of NAFTA's Mistakes (and Builds on Them)


    Froman: "I think the President has made clear that as we pursue a new trade policy, we need to learn from the experiences of the past and that's certainly what we're doing through TPP and the rest of our agenda. For example, when he was running for President, he said we ought to renegotiate NAFTA. What that meant was to make labor and environment not side issues that weren't enforceable, but to bring labor and environment in the core of the agreement and make them enforceable just like any other provision of the trade agreement consistent with what Congress and the previous administration worked out in the so-called May 10th agreement."


    When candidate Obama said in 2008 that he would renegotiate NAFTA – a pact that had become broadly unpopular for incentivizing the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing jobs – most people probably didn't imagine that he meant expanding those offshoring incentives further. But the TPP would extend further NAFTA's extraordinary privileges for firms that relocate abroad to low-wage countries (like TPP negotiating partner Vietnam). Most people also probably would not expect "learning from the experiences of the past" to lead to an expansion of the monopoly protections that NAFTA gave to pharmaceutical corporations, thereby reducing the availability of generics and increasing the cost of medicines. But Froman himself stated last week that such corporate protections – an hetical to textbook notions of "free trade" – are part of the TPP's NAFTA-plus provisions.


    And though Froman touts the May 10 deal as an improvement over NAFTA for labor rights, a recent government report has shown the May 10 provisions to be ineffective at curbing labor abuses in FTA partner countries. A November 2014 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found broad labor rights violations across all five surveyed FTA partner countries, regardless of whether or not the FTA included the labor provisions of the vaunted May 10 deal, including unionist murders in Colombia and impunity for union-busting in Peru. Several of the TPP negotiating partners are notorious labor rights abusers – four of them were cited in a recent Department of Labor report for using child and/or forced labor. Vietnam, meanwhile, outright bans independent unions. Why would incorporation of the same terms that have failed to curb labor abuses in existing FTAs be expected to end the systematic labor rights abuses of TPP partners?


    And despite the May 10 deal's environmental provisions, the TPP's extraordinary investment provisions would empower thousands of foreign firms to bypass domestic courts, go before extrajudicial tribunals, and challenge new domestic environmental protections as "frustrating their expectations." Corporations have already used such foreign investor privileges under existing U.S. FTAs to attack a moratorium on fracking, renewable energy programs, and requirements to clean up oil pollution and industrial toxins. Tribunals comprised of three private attorneys have already ordered taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions to foreign firms for such safeguards, arguing that they violate sweeping FTA-granted investor privileges that the TPP would expand. Provisions, such as those in the May 10 deal, that call for countries to enforce their environmental laws sound hollow under a TPP that would simultaneously empower corporations to "sue" countries for said enforcement.

    http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28863-ten-tall-tales-on-trade-fact-checking-obama-s-top-trade-official

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    New Trade Data Come at the Worst Possible Time for Obama

    President Obama’s push for a massive new trade deal with Asia is predicated on the idea it will help everyday Americans: that it will “level the playing field for the middle class,” in Obama’swords. But as the debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership enters its endgame, newly released government data about the US trade deficit shows recent trade deals have done the opposite of what was promised—and have inflicted added damage on American jobs.

    The Census Bureau’s annual trade data for 2014, released Thursday morning, shows the US trade deficit in 2014 jumped 6 percent to $505 billion in 2013. This increase received a late boost from the December 2014 numbers, which showed at 17.1 percent increase in the trade deficit—resulting in the biggest trade imbalance since December 2012.


    A country’s trade balance is a crucial economic indicator; a nation that is exporting far more goods than it is importing is generally in good economic health. Conversely, a country that is increasingly importing more than it exports—as is the case with the United States—is watching valuable dollars and jobs flow overseas.


    The data shows a small, 1 percent growth in US exports for 2014, though the domestic oil and gas boom accounts for much of that. US manufacturing exports fell by more than $5 billion in 2014, and the US goods trade deficit rose to $736.8 billion. (More on that number in a minute; it doesn’t tell the full story.)


    There’s a simple explanation for the widening trade deficit: the US dollar is strong, and there’s weak growth overseas, which would naturally depress exports.


    But congressional critics of the TPP seized on a broader point on Thursday morning—
    robust promises about the benefits of past trade deals have turned out to be empty.

    http://www.thenation.com/blog/197273...ble-time-obama



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    Doctors warn of healthcare impact from Pacific trade pact


    Doctors and health professionals from both sides of the Pacific on Thursday said they worry that a major regional trade pact could result in higher medical costs and urged a full assessment of the pact's impact on healthcare.

    In a letter to be published in The Lancet medical journal, academics and medical associations from seven of the 12 countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership voiced their concerns over the deal, which seeks to cut tariffs and set common standards on intellectual property.

    "Rising medicine costs would disproportionately affect already vulnerable populations, obstructing efforts to improve health equity within and between countries," they wrote in the letter.


    "We call on our governments to publicly release the full (TPP) draft text, and to secure independent and comprehensive assessments of the health and human rights consequences of the proposed agreement for each nation."

    With the TPP talks nearing completion, one of the thorniest outstanding issues is the monopoly period for biologic drugs, which include some of the latest cancer treatments, such as Roche Holding AG's Herceptin for breast cancer and Merck & Co's Gardasil for cervical cancer.

    The United States protects biologics for 12 years, while Japan protects them for eight years and Australia for five. Some other countries like Chile have no special protections at all.


    The issue is particularly difficult for Australia and New Zealand, which have taxpayer-funded subsidy schemes for medicines. Costs could balloon if cheaper generic drugs are slower to come to market.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/12/us-trade-medicines-idUSKBN0LG34120150212?feedType=RSS&feedName=health News

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    Newly Leaked TTIP Draft Reveals Far-Reaching Assault on US/EU Democracy

    Mammoth deal an even greater boon to corporate power than previously known, warn analysts

    The European Commission's latest proposed chapter (pdf) on "regulatory cooperation" was first leaked to Friends of the Earth and dates to the month of March. It follows previous leaks of the chapter, and experts say the most recent iteration is even worse.

    "The Commission proposal introduces a system that puts every new environmental, health, and labor standard at European and member state level at risk. It creates a labyrinth of red tape for regulators, to be paid by the tax payer, that undermines their appe e to adopt legislation in the public interest,"

    Regulatory cooperation refers to the "harmonization of regulatory frameworks between the E.U. and the U.S. once the TTIP negotiations are done," ostensibly to ensure such regulations do not pose barriers to trade,

    "cooperation," in fact, allows corporate power to trample democratic protections, from labor to public health to climate regulations, while encouraging a race to the lowest possible standards.

    The newest version of the regulatory cooperation chapter reveals that the European Commission is angling to impose even more barriers to regulations.

    The chapter includes a "regulatory exchange" proposal, which will "force laws drafted by democratically-elected politicians through an extensive screening process,"

    "Laws will be evaluated on whether or not they are compatible with the economic interests of major companies," the organization explains. "Responsibility for this screening will lie with the 'Regulatory cooperation body,' a permanent, undemocratic, and unaccountable conclave of European and American technocrats."

    "What we are looking at here is potentially endless procedures at every step of the regulatory process, including once the legislation has been adopted,"

    it would take power away from legislators and regulators and give it to this group of technocrats that is not elected and operates in secrecy,"

    roposals for regulatory cooperation carry the threat of lowering standards in the long and short term, on both sides of the Atlantic, at the state and member state/European levels. They constrain democratic decision-making by strengthening the influence of big business over regulation."

    http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...useu-democracy

    TPP and TTIP would be essentially bloodless coups-d'etats, replacing national sovereignty with BigCorp and capitalists' rent-seeking.

    If country passed a regulation that hurt, or prevented corporate profit, they would be sued and adjudicated in a secret, extra-judicial panel run by corrupt corporate lawyers.



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    TTP/TTIP are NOTHING A BIGCORP coup d'etat

    Only members of the House and Senate are currently allowed to view the text of the deal, and even they are forbidden from discussing what it contains.

    As a new report from
    Politico published Monday details, "If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving."

    http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/05/04/secrecy-over-tpp-fuels-growing-opposition-congress

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    Representative Alan Grayson of Florida has released a video explaining the monstrous trade deals that could be passed in secret if Fast Track authority is granted to President Obama


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