The Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty Is the Complete Opposite of "Free Trade"

[marmar]

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty Is the Complete Opposite of "Free Trade"

Tuesday, 19 November 2013 13:48
By Mark Weisbrot, The Guardian | Op-Ed


The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement among 12 governments, touted as one of the largest "free trade" agreements in US history, is running into difficulties as the public learns more about it. Last week 151 Democrats and 23 Republicans (pdf) in the House of Representatives signed letters to the US chief negotiators expressing opposition to a "fast track" procedure for voting on the proposed agreement. This procedure would limit the congressional role and debate over an agreement already negotiated and signed by the executive branch, which the Congress would have to vote up or down without amendments.

Most Americans couldn't tell you what "fast track" means, but if they knew what it entails they would certainly be against it. As one of the country's leading trade law experts and probably the foremost authority on Fast Track, Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, put it:

(Fast track) authorized executive-branch officials to set US policy on non-tariff, and indeed not-trade, issues in the context of 'trade' negotiations.

This means that fast track, which first began under Nixon in 1974, was not only a usurpation of the US Congress' constitutional authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations".

It also gave the executive branch – which is generally much less accountable to public pressure than the Congress – a means of negating and pre-empting important legislation by our elected representatives. Laws to protect the environment, food safety, consumers (from monopoly pricing), and other public interest concerns can now be traded away in "trade" negotiations. And US law must be made to conform to the treaty. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20143-the-trans-pacific-partnership-treaty-is-the-complete-opposite-of-free-trade

[AzDar]

1. K & R

[silvershadow]

2. The corporate consolidation of power/theft of democracies continues unabated. nt

[votesparks]

3. Where are the DINO defenders?

Crickets.

[abelenkpe]

4. K&R

[BelgianMadCow]

5. Cross-posting at the TPP repository in the progressive media group

thanks for the thread marmar!

[Baitball Blogger]

6. How the world keeps changing.

And the only certainty is that the players want to keep changing the rules to improve their lot. Free Trade didn't work because the economy collapsed, and now they want to form their monopolies so that the next time the economy collapses, they can keep on truckin despite the damage they're causing.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. I guess you missed out on the great failure of Wall Street and deregulation.

Of the many things that went wrong, there was this one in particular that involved repackaging bad mortgage loans and reselling them. Free Market was a failure.

Enjoy your stay.

[TBF]

13. Define "works" -

The Walton family loves it I'm sure - as they now are the richest family in the country & have more money than 40% of the entire country put together. For the rest of us not working so hot ...

[Enthusiast]

7. Voice your opposition to the TPP POS!

[pa28]

8. This is the most damning and concise editorial I've read on the topic yet.

And, of course, it's from the Guardian. You would never read anything like this in the New York Times or the Washington Post.

[xchrom]

9. du rec.

[Fumesucker]

10. ...

[marmar]

14. Awesome.