Another reason against the TPP

Text of the TPP

Now that the full text of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been released, the furor over it has increased. It looks as though it's worse than what had been revealed earlier. It gives the corporation the power to sue governments almost at will. For example, if a province puts a moratorium on fracking, corporations can sue; if a community tries to stop a coal mine, corporations can overrule them. It looks  like our food safety rules on labeling, pesticides, or additives are in jeopardy.

Further, from Chris Hedges:

The TPP removes legislative authority from Congress and the White House on a range of issues. Judicial power is often surrendered to three-person trade tribunals in which only corporations are permitted to sue. Workers, environmental and advocacy groups and labor unions are blocked from seeking redress in the proposed tribunals. The rights of corporations become sacrosanct. The rights of citizens are abolished.

A quote from Ralph Nader, “It allows corporations to bypass our three branches of government to impose enforceable sanctions by secret tribunals. These tribunals can declare our labor, consumer and environmental protections [to be] unlawful, non-tariff barriers subject to fines for noncompliance. The TPP establishes a transnational, autocratic system of enforceable governance in defiance of our domestic laws.”

It's a huge document, 5,544 pages to be agreed upon by 12 countries comprising nearly 40 percent of global output.

Why Congress should not approve the TPP

Stiglitz and Hersh on the TPP

Some excerpts from a paper at Project Syndicate: 

• You will hear much about the importance of the TPP for “free trade.” The reality is that this is an agreement to manage its members’ trade and investment relations – and to do so on behalf of each country’s most powerful business lobbies. Make no mistake: It is evident from the main outstanding issues, over which negotiators are still haggling, that the TPP is not about “free” trade.
• provisions in the TPP would restrain open competition and raise prices for consumers in the US and around the world
• Under these investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) systems, foreign investors gain new rights to sue national governments in binding private arbitration for regulations they see as diminishing the expected profitability of their investments.

Declassify the TPP

As we know, the Administration has gone to great lengths to keep the text of the TPP secret. In fact, it wants Congress to pass the "treaty" without actually reading the document. But Congress can, in fact, make the document public. The rules which established the Congressional committees on Intelligence authorize the chambers’ respective intelligence committees to vote to publicly disclose any information in the possession of the committee after concluding that the public interest would be served by such disclosure.

What's wrong with the TPP

Joe Firestone lists 23 reasons why the TPP should not be passed. He summarizes the problems with the TPP as follows:

The governing functions of the TPP regime would not be exercised with the consent of the governed. The combination of the vague definition of “investment,” the ISDS criminogenic tribunals, and the elevation of the principle of “expectation of profits” above the principles of “public purpose,” “consent of the governed,” and “separation of powers,” is tantamount to the overthrow of democracy, preserving its form in national level elections, but emptying its elections of meaningful content in mandating change and conferring legitimacy on national authorities.

And, further, the ISDS tribunals if in operation, would not exercise just powers, but only illegitimate power derived from the TPP agreement itself, negotiated in secret, passed without benefit of open debate based on the secret text of the TPP, and intended to remain secret for years after the TPP is signed. That makes TPP decision making, performed without the consent of the governed, tyranny, and makes those who want to pass the TPP guilty of conspiracy to create tyrannical rule of the few over the people of the United States and other TPP member nations.

A different view of the TPP

From the Sunday NY Times

Chapter 20

WikiLeaks has released another piece of the TPP. This is a chapter entitled "Advanced Investment". David Korten analyzed the chapter and summarized the points it makes:

• Favoring Local Ownership Is Prohibited
• Corporations Must Be Paid to Stop Polluting
• Three Lawyers Will Decide Who's Right in Secret Tribunals
• Speculative Money Must Remain Free
• Corporate Interests Come Before National Ones

Four Pinocchios

That's what Glenn Kessler awards to the Obama administration claim that the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] will add 650,000 jobs and provide $77 billion a year in real income to our economy. Kessler writes a fact checking column for the Washington Post and 4 Pinocchios is the worst score possible. While the numbers sound big, they represent only 0.4% increases in jobs and revenues.

Will any of our Senators act on this information?

The TPP and ISDS

The people behind the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) don't like to use the courts to settle disputes; the courts have appeals procedures and build up case law via precedent. They would rather use ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms), which allow companies to take governments to arbitration, where neither precedent nor appeals exist.

You should also know that the TPP would be incorporated as a U.S. law rather than as a treaty. As a law, it only needs a majority in both Houses of Congress. If it were to be offered for approval as a treaty, it would need a 2/3 majority in the Senate, with no House vote.

Yves Smith on TPP

If you read Smith's article - and you really should, you have to wonder how the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)has gotten so far. For example, minor point: this 'trade' deal has only five of its 29 chapters dealing with tariffs.

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."

More spin re TPP

Michael Forman, our Trade Representative, appeared before Congress last week to discuss his work. Two quotes from his testimony stand out for me. 

As we know, Obama wants to fast track the TPP, i.e., Congress would only have the capability of voting it up or down. There would be no changes. Here's Forman's comment on that point: "[Fast Track] puts Congress in the driver's seat to define U.S. negotiating objectives and priorities for trade agreements." I wonder how he defines 'driver's seat'.

One of Forman's talking points was the growth in the trade surplus. Vide: "You take all of our FTA partners as a whole, [and] we have a trade surplus. And that trade surplus has grown." But if you rely on the U.S. International Trade Commission, you'd find a $180 billion U.S. goods trade deficit with all free trade agreement (FTA) partners (in 2013, the latest year on record). In manufactured goods, the United States has a $51 billion manufacturing trade deficit with all FTA partners.

I guess Forman does not have a high opinion of Congress.

Basics of TPP

Another argument against the TPP

I've been agitating against the TPP for a couple of years now. It's amazing the number of negatives this ultra-secret proposed treaty will wreak on the U.S. Joe Stiglitz has another: the cost of drugs.

One possible way of bumping prices is to prevent or severely limit the availability of generics here. Consider one example of the price differential. Gilead Sciences charges us $84,000 for a drug it sells in India for about $8,400. A second way is via the government. The TPP could eliminate the government's ability to regulate drug prices.

How Obama can continue to push this un-American treaty is beyond me.

The TPP and the Internet

Uruguay may be doing the right thing

A few days ago I told you that I was impressed by Jose Mujica, the president of Uruguay. Now I've learned a little more about the country and am even more impressed.

It is South America's second smallest country yet has seen annual economic growth of 5.6% since 2004. Its per capita environmental footprint is low. The Happy Planet Index gives a high rating to the country. 

You'd have to say it's fairly liberal. It was the first nation to legalize marijuana.  It has also legalized gay marriage and prostitution. Naturally, it provides universal health care. And it has challenged the legitimacy of the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) trade agreements.

It is a welcoming nation. I spoke of its accepting Syrian refugees. Now it has also accepted the first six US prisoners resettled to South America from Guantánamo. 

Another reason to reject the TPP

Are Think Tanks Lobbyists?

There is more than a hint of that this is so. The NY Times has just published a study of the relationship between some foreign countries and some major American think tanks, such as the Brookings Institute. The paper says that there are "more than a dozen prominent Washington research groups [that] have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities".

The think tanks have not registered as lobbyists, although they have published papers and conducted seminars which appear to push a particular government's wishes, e.g. Japan's interest in the TPP. Such activities are probably in violation of our laws, specifically the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires groups that are paid by foreign governments with the intention of influencing public policy to register as “foreign agents” with the Justice Department.

In the past three years at least 64 foreign governments have given money to at least 28 think tanks. The Times claims that the contributions have totaled at least $92,000,000 over the past few years, the paper believes the amount is considerably higher.

Harbinger of TPP?

I've written about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) a few times. It is a proposed treaty favored by Obama. In my opinion - and that of many others - it is not good for this country. The example of Pacific Rim's attempt to mine in El Salvador is, I think, indicative of what will happen under TPP, except that there will be more legal arguments for Pacific Rim should TPP pass.

Pacific Rim seeks to mine gold in El Salvador and obtained license for preliminary mining explorations. However, after the license was granted, it came to light that full fledged mining will cause cyanide to enter the watershed of the Rio Lempa, which provides water to half the population of El Salvador. Thus, the government did not approve Pacific Rim's environmental impact assessment. In fact, three successive presidents have said no.

Pacific Rim has sued El Salvador before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, part of the World Bank Group in Washington. The company is asking for over $300 million or the right to mine. Current laws allow such a suit if they contend that government actions threaten their future profits. This case will be heard by arbitrators, not a judge. Legal precedents need not be followed. And everything will be private.

Stiglitz on the TPP - 2

Joe Stiglitz has another entry in his catalogue of why the TPP is bad for us. His fundamental point is that it benefits corporations by weakening regulations and does nothing for the middle and working classes.

He cites a couple of examples as to how corporations can use the agreement against us. One example is a current case in which Philip Morris has sued Uruguay, claiming that its antismoking regulations unfairly hurt profits, violating a bilateral trade treaty between Switzerland and Uruguay. A second possibility is where an American corporation creates a subsidiary in some Pacific Rim country, invest in the United States through that subsidiary, and then takes action against the United States government — getting rights as a “foreign” company that they would not have had as an American company. 

Again, why is Obama for the TPP?