What DO you call it when democracy is broken at the behest of business?

[GoneFishin]

46. Holy shit. "TPP gives corporate lawyers the ability to preempt “non-tariff barriers” to trade"

"TPP gives corporate lawyers the ability to preempt “non-tariff barriers” to trade"

The term "non-tariff barrier" is important because it reminds us that TPP has very little to do with trade and everything to do with stopping the government (in this context we the people) from creating rules to keep the corporations from cheating and endangering workers or destroying the planet (faster than it is). For other countries, constraints on their tariffs would be a non-starter because some of them actually use tariffs effectively to protect their industries (otherwise known as bariffs and terriers, but I diverge).

So they have tipped their hand. The thing that might have actually increased U.S. exports to other countries, lower tariffs, was explicitly circumvented by this term. At the same time, it does nothing to slow imports of competing goods because the tariff system for imports into the U.S. has not been used to protect our industries as is demonstrated by the flight from the U.S. of about 5,000 factories a year.