Author Govert SchullerPosted on Categories Economics By Nick Egnatz.
The TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) is a treaty between the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. Together with the TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) between the U.S. and the European Union countries and TiSA (Trade in Services Agreement) between the U.S. and 49 other nations, the three treaties represent what consumer advocate Ralph Nader calls a “corporate coup d’etat”.
This trio of treaties has been negotiated in secrecy for the last 7 years by 600 corporate lawyers and our State Department. President Obama exerted his political muscle to obtain Fast Tract Authority that limits debate and forces Congress to vote up or down on the treaties without amendments.
Benignly called a trade deal, yet only 6 of the TPP’s 30 chapters deal with trade.
“The other two dozen chapters amount to a devilish ‘partnership’ for corporate protectionism. They create sweeping new ‘rights’ and escape hatches to protect multinational corporations from accountability to our governments… and to us.” Syndicated columnist Jim Hightower.[1]
As treaties, the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause will anoint the trio, “the supreme law of the land”, superior to all state law and to all prior federal law.
“By the Constitution of the United States, a treaty and a statute are placed on the same footing, and if the two are inconsistent, the one last in date will control, provided the stipulation of the treaty on the subject is self-executing”.[2]
Finally released on Nov. 5, 2015, the TPP now confronts us — 5,544 pages of undecipherable legalese. President Obama, the Republican Congress and just enough Democratic Members have joined hands with the huge transnational corporations singing kumbaya in praise of the TPP. What could possibly go wrong with it?
In 1994 President Clinton had similar rosy predictions that NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) would result in one million new jobs, twenty years later the Economic Policy Institute estimated that 700,000 jobs were lost to Mexico as a result of the treaty.[3]
Again in 2012, President Obama predicted 70,000 new jobs would result from the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). The Economic Policy Institute instead says it has cost us 40,000 jobs.[4]
Obama has dispatched his Cabinet officers to the media, singing the treaty’s praises. But their refrain has fallen on ears that have heard it all before. Trade unions have been the backbone of support for the Democratic Party, yet every major trade union vehemently opposes the TPP. Environmental organizations oppose the TPP. Groups defending internet freedom, oppose the TPP.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called NAFTA, TPP and TTIP
“thinly disguised tools to increase corporate profits by poisoning workers, polluting the environment and hiding information from consumers”.[5]
On the other side President Obama thinks that,
“We have an opportunity to set the most progressive trade agreement in our nation’s history”. (BarackObama.com)
Ralph Nader’s response:
“One must seriously question what President Obama and his corporate allies believe to be the definition of “progressive” when it comes to this grandiose statement. History shows the very opposite of progress when it comes to these democratic sovereignty-shredding and job-exporting corporate-driven trade treaties — unless progress is referring to fulfilling the deepest wishes of runaway global corporations”.[6]
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges on the TPP:
“Corporations will be empowered to hold a wide variety of patents, including over plants and animals, turning basic necessities and the natural world into marketable products. And, just to make sure corporations extract every pound of flesh, any public law interpreted by corporations as impeding projected profit, even a law designed to protect the environment or consumers, will be subject to challenge in an entity called the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) section. The ISDS, bolstered and expanded under the TPP, will see corporations paid massive sums in compensation from offending governments for impeding their ‘right’ to further swell their bank accounts. Corporate profit effectively will replace the common good”.[7]
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune also opposes the treaty:
“Congress must stand up for American jobs, clean air and water, and a healthy climate and environment by rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership”.[8]
President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, 11,000 pages of legalese, was unintelligible enough that the Constitutional law professor himself did not understand that many people would not be able to keep their health insurance policies when he promised them that they would. The TPP likewise makes general statements that environmental and labor standards will be upheld and then proceeds to offer pages and pages of unintelligible mumbo jumbo that pave the way for legal action challenging these generalities. Citizens, labor groups, environmental groups, etc. will have no standing to bring legal action within the TPP, TTIP and TiSA. Only the corporations are given the right to adjudicate claims and this will be done before secret tribunals of corporate lawyers.
What could possibly go wrong, indeed?
Nick Egnatz is a Vietnam vet who was named NW Indiana Citizen of the Year 2006 by the National Association of Social Workers for his anti war activism.
Contact Nick at OccupyNick@yahoo.com
[1]. Hightower, Jim. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership is not about free trade. It’s a corporate coup d’etat–against us!“. Hightower – Lowdown. 30/8, Aug 2015.
[2]. Whitney v. Robertson, U.S. Supreme Court, 124 U.S. 190 (1888).
[3]. Scott, Robert E. “NAFTA’s Legacy: Growing U.S. Trade Deficits Cost 682,900 Jobs“. Economic Policy Institute. 17 Dec 2013.
[4]. “KORUS Has Cost the United States 40,000 Jobs: U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement has hurt the American economy, Trans-Pacific Partnership could be even worse”. Press release. Economic Policy Institute. 18 July 2013.
[5]. Vail, Bruce. “Rejecting TPP, AFL-CIO’s Trumka Calls for ‘Global New Deal’“. In These Times. 25 Mar 2014.
[6]. Nader, Ralph. “10 Reasons The TPP Is Not A ‘Progressive’ Trade Agreement“. Huffington Post. The Blog. 8 June 2015.
[7]. Hedges, Chris. “The Most Brazen Corporate Power Grab in American History“. Truthdig. 6 Nov 2015.
[8].Byrnes, Dan. “Sierra Club: Congress Should Reject Polluter-Friendly Trans-Pacific Partnership“. Sierra Club (Oklahoma Chapter). 5 Oct 2015.
Hi Shayar,
It seems like your basic understanding of free trade is correct. The TPP and the other two treaties, TTIP and TiSA are so much more than just free trade treaties. They are tremendous expansions of private corporate power over the people and our elected, representative governments.
The fact that the TPP is hard to understand is intentional. It was developed and negotiated in strict secrecy and now is a huge legal document with nice sounding general statements such as it will respect the environment and workers rights, followed by more than 5,500 pages of legal mumbo jumbo that in fact will probably do exactly the opposite.
, i don’t /really/ know what i’m talking about, and i don’t want to argue or score pitnos, but am just someone who thinks one way about this subject but would like to know more.the tpp doesnt sound like a good thing to me. i read the newspaper editorials, which from what i’ve heard, will support anything the finance ministry backs for the access, asking the government to clarify the benefits of the TPP, to sell it to the public to end this debate. but have they? if they have, i apologize for missing this, but i still don’t see what the benefits are.my understanding of free trade is that its not really about exports, its about imports and that tariffs are there to protect domestic jobs or to make them competitive with foreign countries that have an advantage of not having the safety standards and regulations (expenses) the domestic country has, and that dropping a tariff means the domestic worker must either compete by forfeiting the safety regulations meant to protect him or find another job. this i don’t think is a good thing for an economy because from what i’ve heard 30% of the country either works part time or is unemployed. so there arent other jobs for this displaced worker to find. and that i think will lower domestic demand and hurt the economy.
I am Nick’s older and oldest brother. Almost 72, a lifetime entrepreneur (since the age of 12), business man, formers Citibanker, Award-winning Ford dealer, consultant.etc. etc..
Am now; a Poet / Artist – Simpleton and Sage in training.
With an Undergraduate and graduate education in business and finance, from Indiana University Bloomington. Have traveled and studyined international business in Europe and behind the Iron Curtain in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Have been around the block a few times.
Our earth & environment are the basis of all our wealth. We are here on earth to steward this precious treasure and pass it on, better than we found, it to our children and grandchildren.
I encourage you to write to and speak up about this issue to any and all environmental and social justice organizations you are affiliated with.
This is an important responsibility for us all.
Thank you for your help,
Michael Egnatz