[Peace-discuss] Here's Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Is Just Plain Wrong

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

Here's Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Is Just Plain Wrong

				

Posted on Jan 7, 2015



 
<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/heres_why_the_trans-pacific_partnership
_agreement_just_plain_wrong_20150107>
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/heres_why_the_trans-pacific_partnership_
agreement_just_plain_wrong_20150107


By  <http://www.truthdig.com/robert_reich/> Robert Reich

Description:
http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/tppguy_590.jpg

    A protest against the proposed TPP trade agreement and NAFTA Agreement
in Toronto, Canada.
<http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-382675p1.html?cr=00&pl=edit-00>
arindambanerjee /  <http://www.shutterstock.com/editorial?cr=00&pl=edit-00>
Shutterstock 


This post originally ran on  <http://robertreich.org/post/107257859130>
Robert Reich's Web page.
Republicans who now run Congress say they want to cooperate with President
Obama, and point to the administration's Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP,
as the
<http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/trade-outlook-2015-113793.html>
model. The only problem is the TPP would be a disaster.
If you haven't heard much about the TPP, that's part of the problem right
there. It would be the largest trade deal in history - involving countries
stretching from Chile to Japan, representing 792 million people and
accounting for 40 percent of the world economy - yet it's been devised in
secret.
Lobbyists from America's biggest corporations and Wall Street's biggest
banks have been involved but not the American public. That's a recipe for
fatter profits and bigger paychecks at the top, but not a good deal for most
of us, or even for most of the rest of the world.

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First some background. We used to think about trade policy as a choice
between "free trade" and "protectionism." Free trade meant opening our
borders to products made elsewhere. Protectionism meant putting up tariffs
and quotas to keep them out. 

In the decades after World War II, America chose free trade. The idea was
that each country would specialize in goods it produced best and at least
cost. That way, living standards would rise here and abroad. New jobs would
be created to take the place of jobs that were lost. And communism would be
contained.

For three decades, free trade worked. It was a win-win-win.

But in more recent decades the choice has become far more complicated and
the payoff from trade agreements more skewed to those at the top.
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.
What's been  <https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/> leaked about it so far
reveals, for example, that the pharmaceutical industry gets stronger patent
protections, delaying cheaper generic versions of drugs. That will be a good
deal for Big Pharma but not necessarily for the inhabitants of developing
nations who won't get certain life-saving drugs at a cost they can afford.
The TPP also gives global corporations an international
<http://www.citizen.org/documents/tpp-investment-fixes.pdf> tribunal of
private attorneys, outside any nation's legal system, who can order
compensation for any "unjust expropriation" of foreign assets.  
Even better for global companies, the tribunal can order compensation for
any
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tppa-w
hen-foreign-investors-sue-the-state/5357500> lost profits found to result
from a nation's regulations. Philip Morris is using a similar
<http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15991> provision against Uruguay
(the provision appears in a bilateral trade treaty between Uruguay and
Switzerland), claiming that Uruguay's strong anti-smoking regulations
unfairly diminish the company's profits.
Anyone believing the TPP is good for Americans take note: The foreign
subsidiaries of U.S.-based corporations could just as easily challenge any
U.S. government regulation they claim unfairly diminishes their profits -
say, a regulation protecting American consumers from unsafe products or
unhealthy foods, investors from fraudulent securities or predatory lending,
workers from unsafe working conditions, taxpayers from another bailout of
Wall Street, or the environment from toxic emissions.
The administration says the trade deal will boost U.S. exports in the
fast-growing Pacific basin where the United States faces growing economic
competition from China. The TPP is part of Obama's strategy to contain
China's economic and strategic prowess.
Fine. But the deal will also allow American corporations to outsource even
more jobs abroad.
In other words, the TPP is a Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom,
giving big corporations and Wall Street banks a way to eliminate any and all
laws and regulations that get in the way of their profits.
At a time when corporate profits are at record highs and the real median
wage is lower than it's been in four decades, most Americans need protection
- not from international trade but from the political power of large
corporations and Wall Street.
The Trans Pacific Partnership is the wrong remedy to the wrong problem. Any
way you look at it, it's just plain wrong.

 

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