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Related: About this forumTPP-Trade agreement is really enforceable corporate global governance...
24 new corporate privileges...That override U.S. law...
Breaking '08 Pledge, Leaked Doc Shows Obama Wants to Help Corporations Avoid Regulations
msongs
(67,509 posts)joelz
(185 posts)guessing the corporate news will downplay or ignore, Amie's news show is real news wonder why it not talked about more around here?
geefloyd46
(1,939 posts)Maybe they could give us a government that our corporations aren't using.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)June 14, 2012
A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama. A U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal. The body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its ruling. We speak to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch, a fair trade group that posted the leaked documents on its website. "This isnt just a bad trade agreement," Wallach says. "This is a 'one-percenter' power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights." [includes rush transcript]
TRANSCRIPT:
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to a controversial trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations that until now has remained largely secret. Its called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. A chapter from the draft agreement leaked Wednesday outlines how it would allow foreign corporations operating in the United States to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal. The body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its rulings.
The agreement is being negotiated by the U.S. trade representative, Ron Kirk, appointed by President Obama. But the newly revealed terms contradict promises Obama made while running for president in 2008. One campaign document read in part, quote, "We will not negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the government from protecting the environment, food safety, or the health of its citizens; [or] give greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors."
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier leaks from the draft Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement exposed how it included rules that could increase the cost of medication and make participating countries adopt restrictive copyright measures.
No one from the U.S. trade representatives office was able to join us, but in a statement to Democracy Now!, they said, quote, "Nothing in our TPP investment proposal could impair our governments ability to pursue legitimate, non-discriminatory public interest regulation."
For more, were joined by Lori Wallach, director of the fair trade group Public Citizens Global Trade Watch. The leaked documents were posted on her organizations website early Wednesday morning.
Lori, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain what the documents show and what this agreement is about.
LORI WALLACH: Well, its been branded as a trade agreement, but really it is enforceable corporate global governance. The agreement requires that every signatory country conform all of its laws, regulations and administrative procedures to what are 26 chapters of very comprehensive rules, only two of which have anything to do with trade. The other 24 chapters set a whole array of corporate new privileges and rights and handcuff governments, limit regulation. So the chapter that leakedand its actually on the website of Citizens Trade Campaign, its a national coalition for fair tradethat chapter is the chapter that sets up new rights and privileges for foreign investors, including their right to privately enforce this public treaty by suing our government, raiding our Treasury, over costs of complying with the same policies that all U.S. companies have to comply with. Its really outrageous.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Lori, theres been a quite a bit of complaint, even in Congress, about the secretive nature of these continuing negotiations. About 600 or so corporate advisers have access to information that even members of Congress dont? Could you talk about how that has come about?
LORI WALLACH: Well, this is how you get a text and in a potential agreement that is this outrageous. I mean, this isnt just a bad trade agreement, this is a one-percenter power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights. How that happens is the negotiations have been done in total secrecy. So, for two-and-a-half years, until this leak emerged, people have suspected whats going on, because, as you said, under U.S. law there are 600 official advisers, they have security clearance to see the text, they advise the U.S. position. Meanwhile, the senator, Ron Wyden, who is the chairman of the trade committee in the Senate, the committee with jurisdiction over the TPP, has been denied access to the text, as has his staff, who has security clearance, to a point where this man who has supported agreements like this in the past has filed legislation demanding he have the right to see the agreement that hes supposed to be having oversight with. Hes on the Intelligence Committee, and he has security clearance, so he can see our nuclear secrets. He just cant see this corporate bill of rights that is trying to be slipped into effect in the name of being a trade agreement. Its a very elegant Trojan horse strategy. You brand it one thing, and then you put an agenda that could not survive sunshine into this agreement.
We have been able also to get some of the texts on patents, expanding patents for Big Pharma, jacking up medicine prices. And we have analysis on our website, tradewatch.org, as well as information about how to get involved, because these agreements are a little bit like Dracula. You drag them in the sunshine, and they do not fare well. But all of us, and also across all of the countries involved, there are citizen movements that are basically saying, "This is not in our name. We dont need global enforceable corporate rights. We need more democracy. We need more accountability."
AMY GOODMAN: Lori Wallach
LORI WALLACH: And this agreement is the antithesis.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read part of the comment we got from the U.S. trade representatives office when we invited them on todays show. They wrote, quote, "The Obama Administration has infused unprecedented transparency into the TPP negotiations. We have worked with Members of Congress ... [and] invited stakeholders to every round of negotiations where they have given presentations and met with individual negotiating teams. ... We are always looking for ways to enhance provisions on transparency and public participation." Lori Wallach, your comment?
LORI WALLACH: Well, to start with, the idea of transparency of the current negotiators is a one-way mirror. We can basically talk to them and do presentations. But as this leak shows, nothing that the public interest organizationsand its a huge array of organizations, from faith groups to consumer groups, environmental, labornothing that we have said is now reflected in the U.S. position in this negotiation, which Im sad to say is the most extreme. I mean, the U.S. is even opposing proposals in this agreement to try and make sure countries have the ability to use financial regulation to ensure financial stability. The U.S. positions dont reflect what weve been saying, but we can talk at them.
But just to put this in perspective, in the last negotiation of a big regional agreementthat was the Free Trade Area of the Americas in the 1990s, 34 countries, very complicated agreementtwo years into the negotiation, the entire draft text was published officially by the governments. Here we are, three years into this negotiation with eight countries, and they will not publish a sentence. In fact, it finally leaked that they had signed a special agreement not to release any draft text for four years after negotiations are donea secrecy agreement on top of the normal secrecy. And when asked, Ron Kirk, the trade representative, whyin the past, the U.S. has sent out draft texts. The WTO, hardly a paradigm of transparency, publishes draft texts. "What thewhats going on?" he was asked. He said, "Well, in the past, for instance, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, when the text was revealed, we couldnt finish it." Now, what sort of indictment is that of what they are doing behind closed doors, that merely allowing the public who will live with the results and Congress to know whats up is going to somehow derail the plans to lock us in? Because whats really important to understand about these agreements, its not about trade, and its like cement. Once the cement dries in these agreements, you cant change the rules, unless all the agreementall the other countries agree to amend the agreement.
So what were talking about with this leaked chapter is literally a parallel system of justice. People have domestic laws and courts, trying to defend our rights and get our needs met. Corporations would have a parallel system of private attorneys, three of them, no conflict-of-interest laws. The U.S. and the other countries would submit themselves to the jurisdiction of this corporate kangaroo court, and these three random attorneys would have the right to order the U.S. government to pay unlimited amounts of our tax dollars to corporations and investors who, A, claim regulatory costs need to be refunded, or, B, are saying theyre not being treated well enough, regardless if the policies they dislike are the exact same ones that apply to all of us. Even under NAFTAs system, which has some of this, $350 million have already been paid out to corporations by governments, over toxics bans, zoning laws, timber rules. This is a sneaky outrage. And if people actually put a spotlight on it, we can stop it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, Lori, I wanted to ask youyou mentioned the eight nations that are involved in the negotiations. Which nations are they? And also, the issue of the way this is being negotiated, the number could expand dramatically in the future. Can you talk about that?
LORI WALLACH: Well, the reason why it is so incredibly important that this agreement be exposed is this could well be the last agreement thats negotiated. So, many of your listeners and viewers have been involved in the sneaky way trade agreements have been used by corporations to limit regulation and to foster a race to the bottom since NAFTA. And each of these agreements has gotten bolder, more expansive in its limits on government regulation and in its granting of corporate powers. This one could be the end, because what they intend to do is leave it open, once its done, for any other country to join. So, this is an agreement that ultimately could have the whole world in it as a set of binding corporate guarantees of new rights and privileges, enforced with cash sanctions and trade sanctions. It is not an exaggeration to say that the TPP threatens to become a regime of binding global governance, right at the time that the Occupy movement and movements around the world are demanding more power and control. This is the fightback. This is locking in the bad old way plus. And in addition, the way that the agreement is being negotiated, these rules would require that you not only change all of your existing lawsso good progressive laws would have to be gotten rid ofbut that, in the future, you dont create new laws.
Now, the agreement now includes Australia, Brunei, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, Peru and Vietnam, as well as the U.S., plus Malaysia has now joined. And the agreement includes all of the NAFTA-style privileges that promote offshoring. But more drastically, it has all sorts of new corporate privileges, so the right to extend medicine and seed monopolies to jack up medicine prices, even the right to challenge formularies, medicine prescription group buying plans. For instance, what the Obama administration has put in their health reform bill, they are at the negotiating table behind closed doors trying to kill the right to use for other countries. Or the financial rules would have just a limit. Countries arent allowed to ban risky financial products or services, at the same time that were trying to issue regulations under financial reform. And the agreement even meddles with how we spend our local tax dollars. For folks around the country who are doing sweat-free campaigns, who are doing living wage campaigns, green buying campaigns, this agreement says, A, you cant have local preferences, so no "buy New York" state preference to recycle money back in your state, your tax dollars, no "buy American," but also conditions like a product has to have recycled content or that that uniform has to be sweat-free. Those kind of conditions can be challenged. It is an incredible corporate power tool. Its only gotten this far because its been secret. And people in the other countries dont want it either. But our country is the one thats largely pushing the most radical provisions, which is why it was so important for this text, which everyone can see an analysis of at tradewatch.org, to be made public, to make people aware of whats really going on.
AMY GOODMAN: Lori, the last round of negotiations on the trade agreement took place in Dallas. While there, Obamas appointed trade representative, Ron Kirk, spoke at an event for the local business community. The Yes Men took the opportunity to present Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas, with a mock award. This is a clip.
AMY GOODMAN: The next round of negotiations on TPP are scheduled over the July 4th holiday weekend. Lori Wallach, can you comment on this? And also, what I assume would be President Obamas response, if talking behind the scenes, like perhaps tonight when hes going to be at Sarah Jessica Parker house withwith raising a lot of moneythe financial sector is donating $37 million to Mitt Romney so far, the Obama administrations haul, $4.8 millionthat even his own Wall Street supporters are going over to Romney right now, so he would say he is doing better than Romney would in trying to take on these guys.
LORI WALLACH: I think that, for President Obama, there are two scenarios. One is, he has not been on top of what these negotiators are doing. This really has been under the radar. Its so important that the text finally came out, because it sends a warning to Congress, to the public, etc., and that basically hes got negotiators on the loose. They are many of the same people who during the Clinton administration got us into NAFTA, that recycled back into the trade negotiating team. The other alternative explanation is just the money one, which is, it is the case that this is an agreement the 1 percent loves. This is sort of one-percenter fantasy. Its not just that on the margins and in national governments you have to keep fighting with all your money and lobbying to try and get what you want; this would lock it in for the future, indefinitely.
AMY GOODMAN: Lori Wallach, we want to thank you very much for being with us, director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch. And we will continue to watch this.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, whistleblower Jesselyn Radack on what a number in Congress are calling national security leaks. Stay with us.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)Undermining Food Safety
TPP would require us to import food that does not meet U.S. safety standards. It would limit food labeling.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)WTO Attacks on U.S. Consumer Safeguards
In a set of decisions this fall, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled against U.S.country-of-origin labels on meat, dolphin-safe labels on tuna, and the ban on sweet-flavored cigarettes designed to combat youth smoking.
These are the policies we rely on to allow us to protect childrens health and make informed decisions as consumers. Under current rules, the U.S. will have to water down or eliminate these policies, or face trade sanctions.
Featured Content (links at source)
(05/16/2012) Press Release: Public Citizen Condemns WTO Attack on U.S. Dolphin Protection Efforts
(04/04/2012) Press Release: Public Citizen Condemns WTO Attack on U.S. Efforts to Reduce Teen Smoking
(3/22/2012) Press Release: Public Citizen Applauds Obama Administration's Efforts to Defend Consumer Country of Origin Meat Labeling; Appeal of WTO Ruling Necessary First Step
Article: Wash. Post: Tuna, Meat Labeling Disputes Highlight WTO Control
Video: Todd Tucker on the Thom Hartmann Show: It's Now Illegal to Know What's in Your Food
Take Action
Sign the Consumer Rights Pledge
Shine the spotlight on the WTO's attack on consumer rights: Take the pledge today! By taking action can we make sure that the Obama administration and Congress do not bow to the WTO orders.
PETITION
Sign the Consumer Rights Pledge:
Previously, weve seen this global commerce agency facilitate offshoring of jobs to low-wage countries and rule against a series of health and environmental laws around the world. Now the WTO has even ruled against consumers basic right to know where products come from and how they are produced.
Enough is enough!
When the WTO rules against a policy, countries are pressured to water down or eliminate their laws. Our government must not cave in and follow a WTO order to gut our laws, if necessary by eliminating any funding to make a WTO-ordered roll back possible.
I pledge NOT to support trade deals that include similar anti-consumer provisions.
I also pledge to alert my community and my elected representatives to the WTO attacks on our consumer policies.
Sign,
Overview page: Related: http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=1326
midnight
(26,624 posts)proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)GREAT blog ( http://ex-skf.blogspot.com )!
View From Asia
June 21, 2012, 12:28 am
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JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I am quite familiar with some of the draconian provisions in the NAFTA. In particular, countries who enter into these agreements are handicapped with regard to enforcing laws including local laws that protect citizens. The effect on environmental regulation is potentially and maybe even actually murderous, quite literally murderous.
Under our own Constitution, our treaties are equal in their legal to force to the Constitution which traditionally has been the highest law of the land. No longer will we be a sovereign nation if this trade treaty goes through.
Please fight this with all your might. This is a big deal-breaker. If Obama signs this, I will leave DU and the Democratic Party. I have seen the effects of NAFTA on national environmental regulations, and you might as well say goodbye to clean air and clean water if this is signed.