Obama's "Secrecy Pact" document for Trans-Pacific Trade Talks has been leaked!

[Better Believe It]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 18, 2011

Recently Revealed ‘Secrecy Pact’ for Trans-Pacific Trade Talks Belies Obama Administration Promises of Transparency in Trade
U.S. Groups Escalate Demands for Access to Trans-Pacific Trade Texts as Global Push for Transparency Builds on Eve of Talks

After a leaked document revealed that the Obama administration signed a special pact to keep all documents relating to Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations secret, a broad array of U.S. groups – including Public Citizen – joined their global counterparts today in demanding an end to the secrecy surrounding the controversial negotiations.

Twenty-two U.S. labor, consumer, faith, environmental and human rights organizations – including the AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, Presbyterian Church (USA) and Public Citizen – sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk calling on the U.S. government to implement the administration’s transparency pledges, to take the lead in ending the recently revealed secrecy pact and to release Trans-Pacific FTA negotiating texts. Groups in other participating countries sent similar letters to their governments.

“The fact that negotiators have gone out of their way to execute a special secrecy agreement has made a lot of people wonder just what exactly they are so afraid the press, the public and Congress would see if there was openness,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “While executives from hundreds of corporations have been named ‘official trade advisors’ by the Obama administration and given access to the texts, the people whose lives would be most affected may never get to see what our negotiators are bargaining for – and bargaining away – until it’s all over.”

Trans-Pacific FTA talks have taken place behind closed doors, and none of the draft texts has been released despite President Barack Obama’s promises that the Trans-Pacific FTA will usher in a new era of transparency in trade agreement negotiations and result in a “high-standard, 21st century agreement.” Two-thirds of all House Democrats just voted against Obama on FTAs he submitted that had been negotiated in secret by the previous administration. A greater percentage of House Democrats opposed Obama on the passage of these trade pacts than on any other legislation since he took office.

“Given that texts are released by the World Trade Organization and other negotiating venues in which these countries participate – and after years of Obama administration pledges that its trade policymaking would be open and inclusive – it is really outrageous that they signed a special pact to keep the content of these talks that will affect so many peoples’ lives totally secret,” said Wallach.

Today’s letter comes after an effort earlier this year to obtain access to negotiating texts. Obama administration officials never responded to the past demands, which also were made by major Democratic base organizations. In February, scores of civil society groups in five of the nine countries involved in the negotiations launched a coordinated “release the text” campaign with letters to their trade ministries. Parliamentarians in some countries have become involved in combating the secrecy surrounding the talks. It was not until the September negotiating round in Chicago that negotiators admitted that in May 2010 they had signed a secrecy agreement that would keep all negotiating documents secret for four years after the talks conclude.

“With numerous negotiating texts now established in addition to the investment and financial services chapters, the relevance and urgency of our request has only increased,” the letter said.


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Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts.

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/10/18-8


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This is the full text of the letter:

The Honorable Ron Kirk
United States Trade Representative
600 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20508
October 18, 2011

Dear Ambassador Kirk:

In February of this year, organizations representing millions of Americans wrote to you requesting
that you make the negotiations on the prospective Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) more
transparent than past U.S. trade negotiations. The letter noted that significant improvements in
access to information and relevant texts were necessary if the Obama administration intends for
Trans-Pacific FTA negotiations to result in a “new, high-standard, 21st century trade agreement.”

While we applaud your efforts to be more inclusive than the previous Administration, particularly
with respect to reaching out to Congress and non-business stakeholders, the requested transparency,
particularly with regard to Trans-Pacific FTA negotiating texts, has not occurred. We understand
that the Trans-Pacific FTA negotiating parties have apparently signed a confidentiality agreement,
which reverses recent progress in making negotiations more open and providing access to
documents to facilitate informed input by more diverse parties.

In our prior letter, we cited the examples of new public access to negotiating documents that were
provided in the context of negotiations at the World Trade Organization and for the Anti-
Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Rather than continuing with this improved access, it appears that
a Memorandum of Understanding dated March 4, 2010, which is referenced in the text of a leaked
draft Intellectual Property chapter tabled by the United States government, commits the countries
not to declassify documents related to the negotiations for ‘Four years from entry into force of the
TPP agreement or, if no agreement enters into force, four years from the close of the negotiations.’

Just as the Trans-Pacific FTA negotiating parties agreed to this heightened secrecy last year, at the
pending October 2011 Lima, Peru negotiating session, they can agree to restore the rights of their
citizens, press and legislators to know what policies are being considered in these talks. Our past
letter noted your personal commitment to having the most transparent Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative ever and requested U.S. leadership to propose that our negotiating partners agree to
make publicly available the draft investment and financial service texts and release other draft texts
as they are created. The letter further urged U.S. leadership to propose creating a joint FTA website
to facilitate enhanced transparency and to make available information about upcoming rounds (time,
place, issues to be considered) and contact information for key negotiating personnel, as well as all
white papers, draft texts, offers and counter-offers, trade and other data, press statements and
declarations in the FTA process.

The letter described the benefits of such improvements, while highlighting that the broad scope of
these negotiations necessitated a high level of public access to documents and opportunities for
informed comment. The rules that these talks may establish would be binding on each signatory
country with respect to what policies that country may establish or maintain domestically relating to
medicine prices, tobacco control, food and product safety and other health issues; regulation of
banks and other financial services firms operating in signatory countries; land use, development and
other investment policies; and even whether taxpayers can set labor, environmental and other
standards to shape how their tax dollars may be spent in government procurement decisions. That so
many domestic non-trade policy areas would be directly affected by these “trade” negotiations
highlights why it is untenable for such rules to be established under the current U.S. trade advisory
regime. This system allows 700-plus official industry trade advisors to have full access to
negotiating texts while the public, press and most in Congress are denied equal information. It is
worth noting that fewer than 40 representatives in the entire U.S. trade advisory system represent
non-industry interests, many of whom are the union representatives concentrated on one committee.

Government leaders of Australia, Chile, Malaysia, and New Zealand received similar letters calling
for improved transparency and participation from their trade unions, environmental, faith and social
justice organizations, and other civil society groups. Copies of these letters also were hand
delivered to each delegation during the negotiating round in Santiago.

With numerous negotiating texts now established in addition to the investment and financial
services chapters, the relevance and urgency of our request has only increased. Moreover, while we
appreciate the opportunities you have provided for civil society, including the opportunity for
stakeholders to make presentations to delegates at the recent Chicago Round, without access to the
actual texts being discussed in these talks, the effective input and informed participation of civil
society is largely thwarted. As we have learned from prior negotiations, an independent set of eyes
can be critical – finding potential missteps not immediately apparent to our negotiating team or its
official advisors.

At the stakeholder briefing in Chicago on September 2011, the Chair of the Chicago round,
Assistant USTR Barbara Weisel, was asked if the Memorandum of Understanding could be
released. She said the parties will have to consider such a request together. We urge U.S.
representatives to take leadership at the Lima round to obtain agreement from all parties to release
the Memorandum of Understanding so that we can better understand the rationale for the extreme
level of secrecy it implements. In addition, we respectfully reiterate our earlier demands for access
to negotiating texts, and other relevant documents so that we may help you ensure that these
negotiations do indeed deliver a new 21st Century model agreement that broadly benefits people in
the involved countries.

Yours sincerely,

AFL-CIO
Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH)
Citizens Trade Campaign
Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach
Communication Workers of America
Friends of the Earth
Holy Cross International Justice Office

http://www.citizen.org/documents/us-transparency-letter-2011.pdf

[tblue]

1. Gee. I wonder why he'd want this kept secret.

He drives me to distraction, our president.

[Angry Dragon]

2. TRANSPARENCY

The Hubble would have trouble finding things in this administration

[ixion]

3. Every new FTA hurts our job market. Every single one.

and it seems that Obama is quite fond of making them. :grr: