Most of the pact is focused on strengthening intellectual property laws to help US software and entertainment companies, along with Big Pharma, increase their hefty profits, and to aid multinationals by permitting the greatly increased use of secret, conflict-ridden arbitration panels that allow foreign investors to sue governments over laws that they contend reduced potential future profits.
Unbelievably, the TPP gives privileges to foreign companies that are not available to domestic companies. A quote from Elizabeth Warren's Washington Post op-ed: The TPP
"would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with TPP, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages."
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