We've nothing to gain from US trade deal (Australia)

[FarCenter]

March 22, 2010

WHY is the Rudd government entering into new free trade negotiations with the Obama administration? Australia has nothing to gain except a further erosion of our sovereignty and Barack Obama lacks authority from Congress to undertake a binding agreement.

The US wants to open up the rest of the world to US investors on a privileged basis, sanctioned by binding international agreements, and backed up by domestic laws (including criminal laws to protect intellectual property rights). In this, Obama is carrying on the trade policies of previous administrations.

The first attempt at opening capital markets at the expense of national governments was the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which the US tried to negotiate in secret through the OECD in 1997. This failed because the French government revolted and the issue was made public by Canadian NGOs.

The US tried again to resurrect the agreement through the World Trade Organisation. This failed due to a revolt by developing countries at the 1999 WTO summit, reinforced by riots in the streets of Seattle.

One way or another, the US has been trying to shape the world along the lines of the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico, even though this agreement is electoral poison in all three countries.

<SNIP>http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/weve-nothing-to-gain-from-us-trade-deal-20100321-qo2v.html

[DJ13]

1. Yep

Obama was elected on a promise to abandon the Bush administration's free trade strategy and even roll back some of the more obnoxious provisions in the North American template for the rest of the world.

But it seems that Obama is in thrall to Wall Street. The Ralph Nader-inspired public interest watchdog the Public Citizen published a paper opposing the latest Trojan horse for US financial interests — the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement between the US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, Brunei, Peru and Vietnam, for which negotiations began in Melbourne last week.

Negotiating another NAFTA-style free trade agreement is exactly the opposite of the trade reform agenda to which Obama committed in the presidential election.