TPP talks held in British Columbia in June were kept secret, but
Canadian activists learned about them the day before from an article
in the Peruvian media. Opponents hustled to hold an emergency
teach-in and to project messages about the TPP on downtown Vancouver
buildings. More talks will take place July 15-25 in Malaysia. Photo:
Citizens Trade Campaign.
Many people know NAFTA has cost U.S. workers 700,000 jobs. But how
many know another effect was to
drive
Mexican small farmers out of business?
In the brave new world of free trade, Costco makes tortilla chips
and salsa in the U.S. and trucks them to its stores in Mexico.
Congress will soon debate whether to “fast-track” a trade deal
that would make job-killers like NAFTA look puny. The Trans-Pacific
Partnership would give corporations the right to sue national
governments if they passed any law, regulation, or court ruling
interfering with a corporation’s “expected future profits.”
They could also sue over local or state laws they didn’t like.
The TPP would cover 40 percent of the world’s economy.
Existing laws and regulations on food safety, environmental
protection, drug prices, local contracting, and internet freedom
would all be up for challenge. And the decision-makers on such suits
would not be local judges and juries; they’d be affiliated with the
World Bank, an institution dedicated to corporate interests.
CAN IT BE STOPPED?
Citizen groups believe they can stop the TPP if there is enough
outcry. They point to previous victories over the WTO (World Trade
Organization) and FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas).
What Is the TPP?
It might as well stand for “Take Power from the People,” a
Detroit postal worker said.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership
has
been under hush-hush negotiations since 2008. It includes the
United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico,
New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and, soon, Japan.
A “docking mechanism” would allow other countries, including
China, to join over time.
The contents have not been made public, but are known to the 600
“corporate advisors” helping write it, such as Chevron,
Halliburton, Walmart, Ford, GE, AT&T, Cargill, Pfizer, and the
Semiconductor Industry Association. Some information has come to
light through leaks.
Like most trade agreements, the TPP is mostly not about trade but
about giving corporations more rights to interfere with local laws.
TPP tribunals staffed by corporate lawyers, outside the control
of any government, would rule whether a country’s taxpayers must
pay monetary damages to wronged corporations.
Negotiations begin in July on a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade
Agreement between the U.S. and the European Union. Stopping TPP
would help derail it, too.
Most
unions, however, have been slow to get on board—even though the
TPP would jeopardize,
according
to the AFL-CIO, millions of jobs. The Teamsters and
Communications Workers have been the most active.
Greg Junemann, president of the Professional and Technical
Engineers, says unions have given up, certain that “what Obama
wants to do, they [Congress] are going to do.” Junemann, with other
union heads, sits on a labor advisory committee (LAC) on trade—which,
he said, has been completely ignored.
In a June 6 letter, LAC chair Thomas Buffenbarger of the
Machinists sharply criticized the administration for “restrictions
on information that is shared with LAC members,” “unwillingness
to share bracketed text or tabled positions from our negotiating
partners,” and “refusal to include labor representatives on
Industry Trade Advisory Committees.”
FAST TRACK
Over the opposition of many unions, President Obama signed
corporate-friendly trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and
Colombia in fall 2011.
He singled out the TPP as a priority in this year’s State of the
Union speech and wants Congress to give him “fast-track”
authority.
Veterans of the fight against Bill Clinton’s NAFTA will remember
fast track—Congress gives away its ability to amend an
international agreement, in favor of a simple up-or-down vote. Each
house may debate the bill for no more than 20 hours.
Fast track is likely to come up in late summer or early fall. But
most Democrats in the House are opposed to fast track and the TPP,
says Arthur Stamoulis of the Citizens Trade Campaign, and many
Republicans will also vote against it (some because they want to deny
Obama any appearance of success).
Junemann counters that, in the end, doing what big business wants
will weigh more with Republicans than hurting Obama.
In any case, “there is no way they can get TPP through without
fast track,” Stamoulis said. “When we defeated the FTAA [in the
early 2000s], the first step was cross-border people’s movements
dragging the proposal out of the shadows, shining a light on it, and
introducing accountability and scrutiny to the negotiations.”
Light and scrutiny have both been sorely lacking thus far, but
leaks about TPP’s contents are alarming.
LOCAL LAWS TRUMPED
Corporations could sue governments over laws not to their liking.
They are already doing so under existing “trade” agreements, but
TPP would vastly expand the number of corporations and countries
involved.
For example, Australia passed a law requiring plain packaging for
cigarettes (no Joe Camel). U.S.-based Philip Morris is in court over
predicted lost sales.
After the Fukushima disaster, Germany enacted a moratorium on
nuclear power; a Swedish energy company is now suing the German
government. Bechtel sued Bolivia for undoing the privatization of its
water supply.
Corporations have already collected $365 million by suing
governments, usually in developing countries, under existing
treaties, and $13 billion more is pending in suits under NAFTA and
the Central America (CAFTA) and Peru FTAs.
Most suits thus far are over environmental issues. But in June
2012, the French firm Veolia sued the Egyptian government for raising
the minimum wage.
Under TPP, the corporation would sue the federal government,
whether the case pertained to a federal, state, or local law or court
decision. If the tribunal awarded damages to the corporation, the
federal government would pay.
So if the government doesn’t want more suits, it has to change
its laws (or pressure the local government to do so). Under NAFTA,
the U.S. chemical company Ethyl Corp. sued Canada because it had
banned the use of a gasoline additive called MMT, as a public health
measure. Canada backed down, allowed MMT, and paid Ethyl $13 million.
TPP would give international firms
equal access to federal government contracts.
TPP would include aggressive
intellectual property rules to protect Big Pharma’s patents and
restrict access to generic medicines. The consequences for those
unable to afford HIV drugs, for example, especially in poor
countries, would include hundreds of thousands of deaths.
- The U.S. Department of Energy has the authority to regulate
exports of natural gas—but not to countries that have free trade
agreements with the U.S. TPP would mean stepped-up natural gas
exports, without review, to Japan, the world’s largest importer of
natural gas, and therefore increased to find that gas.
And presumably, when
U.S.
states, counties, and cities ban fracking, energy companies from
any interested country could try to get those bans overturned.
(Domestic oil and gas companies are already suing over local fracking
bans, such as in
Longmont,
Colorado, and
Dryden,
New York.)
JOBS GONE
These new rights for corporations are horrifying, but the most
widespread effect of TPP would be job loss. The minimum wage in
Vietnam, for example, is $2.23 a day, so labor-intensive industries
are already eager to move there. The TPP would accelerate that
process:
It would remove U.S. tariffs on
goods produced in Vietnam and any other TPP country.
Manufacturers in capital-intensive
industries (heavy machinery factories, paper mills, semiconductors),
who might be reluctant to risk investment, would be protected
against the threat of other countries’ passing new environmental
or regulatory costs.
- TPP’s protections against loss of “intellectual property”
would reassure investors about building in Vietnam, where the
majority of college grads are in math and science. Such concerns are
currently a major disincentive for IT or research work in Vietnam,
as its intellectual property practices are far looser than those in
the U.S.
Through arm-twisting and over the objections of the unions who’d
worked to get him elected, Bill Clinton pushed through NAFTA in 1993.
But by the early 2000s, “free trade” had a track record.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas would have extended NAFTA to
31 more countries in the hemisphere. Some Latin American countries,
notably Brazil, said no. Big protests were held in Quebec City in
2001 and in Miami in 2003, and the FTAA died.
To stop fast track and the TPP, Citizens Trade Campaign suggests
three actions: Contact your Congressperson and urge a “no” vote.
Spread the word widely about the TPP, through all channels. And if
TPP negotiations are held in North America,
mobilize
to greet the bargainers—à la Seattle 1999.
See Expose the TPP.
The Citizens Trade Campaign
site has fact sheets, monthly briefings, and more. See a
video interview on “Democracy Now!”
Examiner – by Roz Zurko
