“The TPP is a massive, controversial ‘free trade’ agreement currently being pushed by big corporations and negotiated behind closed doors by officials from the United States and 11 other countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam [and probably later, China will sign on].
“And U.S. TPP negotiators literally used the 2011 Korea FTA [Free Trade Agreement] – under which [US] exports have fallen and [US] trade deficits have surged [and 85,000 US jobs have been lost] – as the template for the TPP.
“We only know about the TPP’s threats thanks to leaks – the public is not allowed to see the draft TPP text. Even members of Congress, after being denied the text for years, are now only provided limited access. Meanwhile, more than 500 official corporate ‘trade advisors’ have special access. The TPP has been under negotiation for six years, and the Obama administration wants to sign the deal this year…”
Yes, secret deal. The public is not permitted to see what is in it. We only know some of what’s in it because of several partial leaks.
Obama wants Congress to fast-track the TPP with a strict up or down vote: no amendments permitted; no filibustering; the final vote must take place within 90 days of the TPP’s introduction on the floor of Congress; no Committee vetting first.
This is your transparent President.
From what we can glean about the TPP so far, these will be some of its effects (consider how each effect can impact employment in the United States:
offshoring more US jobs; inviting more corporate pollution; importing more foods (unsafe, incompletely unlabeled); outlawing restrictions on GMO foods while expanding mega-corporate agriculture; encouragement granted to Wall Street to multiply the same kinds of insane investments that crashed markets eight years ago; US federal contracts to private companies will be forced to take competitive bids from any corporation in any TPP member country.”
True, but at least it’s business friendly.