TPP: The Thing Sanders, Trump, and Clinton Agree On. It’s That Bad

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/03/25/thing-sanders-trump-clinton-agree-bad/

One issue unites three U.S. presidential candidates from quite different positions on the political spectrum. Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders all oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The TPP is a trade and investment agreement between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations now awaiting an up-or-down vote by the U.S. Congress. Trump says it’s a bad deal for the United States. Clinton says it will cost jobs and lower labor, food safety, and environmental standards. Sanders says it is a corporate assault on democracy.

Trump is right: It’s a bad deal. But he’s wrong that it’s bad only for the United States. It’s actually bad for all of the 12 countries. Clinton is right that it will cost jobs and lower standards, but she’s wrong that the problem is failing to set the bar high enough.

Only Sanders names the most essential reason we must reject the TPP: It is an all-out corporate assault on democracy. Its approval would empower corporations to further hamstring efforts by any member nation to address the potentially terminal environmental, social, and economic threats of our time.

International agreements like the TPP are a corporate lobbyist’s dream. Here is the playbook for creating them.
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[DJ13]

1. Clinton is likely just saying what she thinks voters want to hear

If she became President I have no doubt she would push TPP once again.

[eridani]

2. Possibly, but what is significant is that she knows she'd better oppose it if she wants--

--any support from grassroots labor or environmental activists.

[Hydra]

4. For right now

If she wins the nomination, I expect her to talk all about how she is going to get that "Gold standard" she used to talk about out of it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

13. +1

Sadly, she will follow the will of her donor corporation bosses.

[Angel Martin]

3. yeah, Clinton sure is against the TPP

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/15/politics/45-times-secretary-clinton-pushed-the-trade-bill-she-now-opposes/

[Arugula Latte]

7. She disgusts me...Oh, I guess I'm "sexist" -- even though I'm a woman who'd like

a woman president. I'd prefer a liberal woman, though, not some corrupt corporate shill like Hill.

[BillZBubb]

5. If you think Hillary opposes the TPP, i've got a bridge in Brooklyn you'd like to buy.

If she gets the nomination, she'll "evolve" back to supporting TPP faster than a speeding bullet.

[Jenny_92808]

6. Yep!

You got that right!

[Arizona Roadrunner]

8. TPP

Bernie has pointed out Clinton's statements of support for the companies in India bringing contract H-1b employees to the USA and Michigan. He also should say this is why we need to see what she told Goldman-Sachs for the $675,000. How much support did she give them? After all, Goldman-Sachs probably tax deducted the "expense" and therefore we have standing to ask what did we get for either paying more taxes or getting less services as a result of the deduction.

Also, she is "currently" against TPP. However the US Chamber of Commerce has put out a message to it's membership that after the election, they are sure she will find reasons to be "currently" in favor of TPP

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/02/chamber-of-commerce-chief-tom-donohue.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/chamber-of-commerce-

Also, say goodbye to minimum wage increases by State and Local governments. All a corporation will do is declare that a raise in minimum wages will adversely effect their profits. How many State and Local governments can afford such a fight by corporations using the TPP ISDS dispute resolution process designed by and for multi-national corporations? You will now have corporations able to use this dispute resolution process to sue all levels and forms of governments. They can also just threaten to use said process which will "discourage" defenders due to the legal costa etc..Does this sound like giving up governmental sovereignty for corporate profits? Follow the money.....

[romanic]

9. Sanders surely, Trump....maybe

but Clinton I seriously think is lying about not supporting it.

[Albertoo]

10. I stand by Obama, the TPP is right

Import taxes are just a cost paid for by the consumer.
What is the value added to the economy of import tax controllers? What do they make?
Cotton growers in Africa suffer directly from western tariffs.
Just bring the tax walls down and get back to producing goods people want.
Basic economic law, Say's Law: produce, demand will take care of itself.

[AZ Progressive]

11. So you are ok with multinational corporations effectively having super government powers?

What patriotic American you are....

[pampango]

12. Resolving trade disputes using arbitration has been around since FDR. What other way is there?

He knew that the 'old system' did not work. In the old system, when country A had a trade dispute with country B, the government of country A would determine that B was at fault and country B's government would determine that it was A's fault. (National governments are not well known for admitting, "Yeah, country B, we here in country A really screwed up on this one. You are right. We will punish ourselves so that we learn a lesson on how to handle trade affairs between our two countries." Country A's politicians can imagine the 30-second ads that would proliferate during the next primary and/or general election.) Each country would punish the other with tariffs, fines, quotas, etc. and trade would fall apart.

FDR wanted to promote trade, not see it fall apart over and over as it had before is presidency, so he came up with a new trade dispute resolution system - multilateral panels to minimize the role of nationalism and make the decisions more objective.

The existence of arbitration is not 'undemocratic'. Arbitration exists in many parts of our society. In order to be effective, any agreement - whether it's related to trade, climate change, immigration or anything else - between countries has to have a strong enforcement mechanism which includes a fair way to resolve disputes that arise when one country does not abide by the agreement is signed. A climate change agreement, no matter how beautifully written, is only as effective if it is enforceable against countries that break it.

The problem with TPP's arbitration, as with any agreement between countries potentially, is twofold. One is the nature of the rules that arbitration enforces. If these rules were pro-environment, pro-labor, pro-business regulation, etc. then strong arbitration would be essential to an enforceable liberal agreement. (That is why the Trades Union Congress in the UK wants the country to stay in the EU in order to enforce pro-labor rights rules that are a part of EU membership.) The problem with TPP is not the existence of arbitration but the rules in enforces. Second is the mechanism that by which arbitration operates - who the arbitrators are, how they are chosen, how they conduct business, etc.

Any trade dispute resolution system is going to be flawed to some extent. The arbitration system that currently governs disputes between would-be TPP countries - the WTO, NAFTA, etc. - are certainly flawed in many respects. OTOH, FDR believed that a trade dispute resolution system that did not include some kind of arbitration was fundamentally flawed as well. So it is not that arbitration is evil. But we do need to constantly work to improve how it works in trade disputes - both in terms of the overall rules that arbitration enforces and in how the process operates.

[eridani]

14. More delusional nonsense about how TPP has something to do with tariffs

5 of 29 articles actually do--the others are about giving corporations the power to overthrow the decisions of elected governments.


New Study Confirms: Private 'Trade' Courts Serve the Ultra-Wealthy

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/01/new-study-confirms-private-trade-courts-serve-ultra-wealthy

A new study confirms what many activists have suspected for a long time: The private courts set up by international “trade” deals heavily favor billionaires and giant corporations, and they do so at the expense of governments and people.

Smaller companies and less-wealthy individuals don’t benefit nearly as much from these private courts as the extremely rich and powerful do. Other interested parties – whether they’re governments, children, working people, or the planet itself – are unable to benefit from these private courts at all.

The “investor-state dispute settlement” process, or ISDS, is built into treaties like NAFTA and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It allows foreign investors to sue participating governments if they do anything that harms their investment in that nation. Corporations can sue governments through this process, but governments can’t sue corporations.

As Todd Tucker pointed out in The Washington Post, a “wide range of policies can be challenged” under ISDS: “Argentina has had its macroeconomic policies challenged, Australia its anti-smoking efforts, [and] Costa Rica its environmental preservation laws.”

Suits are not brought through a normal, public court process. Instead, they are heard before private panels of arbitrators, often made up of attorneys who represent corporations as part of their practice. These hearings are conducted under rules set up by independent arbitration bodies that include the International Chamber of Commerce.

[pampango]

15. Well it has 'something' to do with tariffs. "5 of 29 articles actually do", as you say. But

you are right it is about much more than just trade and tariffs.

The solutions to the problem of the bias in existing trade courts towards the wealthy would seem to be 1) to go back to the pre-FDR days when every country unilaterally resolved trade disputes in its own favor, 2) restructuring the the dispute resolution process to include labor, human rights and environmental standards and the arbitration panels themselves so that they enforce these standards fairly or 3) do nothing and continue to complain about the WTO and NAFTA.

Trump and many, many others prefer the 'every-country-for-itself', stick it to the Mexicans, the Muslims, the Chinese, etc., protect "us" from "them". I am not sure that FDR and Truman would be in that back-to-the-future camp. FDR because he introduced the concept of international arbitration in trade disputes and Truman because he negotiated the agreement that did that. (Only to see it killed by a republican congress that saw it as a threat to 'national sovereignty'.)

Do we go 'back-to-the-future' of Coolidge/Hoover's unilateralism on trade, raise tariffs on our own and dare other countries to do anything about it? (That did not work well for CC and HH but, history meaning nothing to republicans, tariffs - like 'trickle-down economics - will surely work this time.)

Do we just leave the WTO and NAFTA in charge of enforcing trade rules and continue to complain about them? Or do we negotiate new agreements (not TPP) that include enforceable (if not using trade courts then enforced how?) labor, human rights and environmental standards? When the ILWU endorsed Bernie it expressed the belief than he would negotiate "better trade agreements". I agree with them.

[eridani]

16. No corporation should ever have the right to overrule an elected government, period.

I have no problem with agreeing to reduce tariffs, but I have a problem with 1% thugs attacking environmental and labor protections to boost their profits.

[pampango]

17. Elected governments that do not live up to promises on labor rights and the environment

should be overruled. That is what the EU does and is why British unions don't want the UK to leave the EU.

You are certainly right that corporations should not have the right to overrule elected government or sue to protect or boost profits. That is true even if they are American companies operating in the US, much less a foreign company operating n the US or an American company operating in another country.

If elected governments wish to agree among themselves to give equal treatment to each other's businesses and goods (the same labor laws, environmental restrictions, etc), as European countries do, that is fine. And countries that don't live up to their commitments on labor rights and environmental standards or fair treatment in general should be overruled. G

[eridani]

18. Labor and environmental protections in all trade agreements have totally sucked

No more of this shit!

[pampango]

19. They have, except for the EU, but if you give up on international agreements to achieve

labor and environmental protections, how do you get there?

[eridani]

20. For starters, accept nothing but the EU model n/t

[pampango]

21. Agree with you there. And it would drive the right crazy both here and in Europe.

The right is trying to dismantle the EU over there and, of course, would howl bloody murder here if it looked like effective labor and environment laws would become the law of the land.

[Katashi_itto]

22. Hillary against TPP? LOLOLOLOL yeah until about 5 secs after she is sworn in.

The one thing Clintons are good at is selling the country out on shitty trade deals