All Discussions Tagged 'TPP' - 12160 Social Network2024-03-28T11:02:21Zhttps://12160.info/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=TPP&feed=yes&xn_auth=noI Am Jason The Son Of AKA Anonymoustag:12160.info,2017-05-04:2649739:Topic:16813262017-05-04T00:24:03.184ZAka Anonymoushttps://12160.info/profile/AkaAnonymous
<p> I Am Jason The Son Of AKA Anonymous, my dad has died, it was his wish for me to continue his work. I will do my best, and it will be up to the guy who runs this site, if I am allowed to stay.</p>
<p> Let me tell you about my dad, he was very intelligent, elite within his own rights. As he grew older, he lost his edge with age. Mom said he became to caring for the rights of others, and he let go of a fight he was winning, because of us. He feared for our lives.</p>
<p> England is a cold and…</p>
<p> I Am Jason The Son Of AKA Anonymous, my dad has died, it was his wish for me to continue his work. I will do my best, and it will be up to the guy who runs this site, if I am allowed to stay.</p>
<p> Let me tell you about my dad, he was very intelligent, elite within his own rights. As he grew older, he lost his edge with age. Mom said he became to caring for the rights of others, and he let go of a fight he was winning, because of us. He feared for our lives.</p>
<p> England is a cold and controlling country, which has reached in and all most taken all of the Sovereignty Right to Americans, through The United States Constitution. Soon you may lose all your rights to the UK's UN Agendas.</p>
<p> This was sent to my dad, I looked at it for over a hour, tell me how I should explain to Americans that England now controls 40% of the World ?</p>
<p> This was posted by a Mr. Hank Jordan,</p>
<h1>Its Not Over: Transpacific Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) (TPA) Exposed</h1>
<p>The TPA Legislation, that Ted Cruz helped organize for and voted for, was approved, but a secret back door vote took place and <strong>Passed</strong>, a secret deal, behind doors of the <strong>Obama Administration</strong> took place. The following below is the 3 known so called Treaties also called Laws Of The Land, Like NAFTA and Obamacare, is a stepping stone against the Sovereignty and Rights of the American People according to God and the United States Constitution.</p>
<p> Now what I do not understand, what will Donald Trump do with the New Laws Of The Land, that was stated, TPP was not approved by Congress. Seeing how the UN UK now claims sovereignty over America and Americans. The vote took place, a digital world connected to the White House In Washington DC and the UN.</p>
<p> Ted Cruz, Obama, and many others betrayed America, the fight has only started.</p>
<p><a href="https://api.ning.com:/files/zuNdr-kLfKXbVSiEyaLM6xxUSqhRDLizfnmO8DyumQ-k4Dhp0yaIr1NGbT6A5vYZpwmA59Wz5Ql0b1tc6Ez2hNWjhHURELCI/GettyImages184060277.jpg" target="_self"><img src="https://api.ning.com:/files/zuNdr-kLfKXbVSiEyaLM6xxUSqhRDLizfnmO8DyumQ-k4Dhp0yaIr1NGbT6A5vYZpwmA59Wz5Ql0b1tc6Ez2hNWjhHURELCI/GettyImages184060277.jpg?width=750" class="align-center" width="750"/></a><a href="https://api.ning.com:/files/zuNdr-kLfKVLA*n5Ap0NGbaQziRSwvgpciCr*zerOMVVX5IECzM7OukoZmktZ8kZRSlMdBJDXcVKoEmyR2oxH0MvBJkC7ErJ/treaty400x224.png" target="_self"><img src="https://api.ning.com:/files/zuNdr-kLfKVLA*n5Ap0NGbaQziRSwvgpciCr*zerOMVVX5IECzM7OukoZmktZ8kZRSlMdBJDXcVKoEmyR2oxH0MvBJkC7ErJ/treaty400x224.png" class="align-left" width="400"/></a></p>
<p>TISA The Treaty Was Approved, still pending on TPP.</p>
<p>TTIP Approved- Pending.........</p>
<div class="_cwc"><div class="_sgd"><div class="_qgd"><b>Signed</b>: TBA</div>
<div class="_pgd"><b>Drafted</b>: TBA</div>
</div>
<div class="_WQd"><div class="_qgd"><b>Effective</b>: Not yet in force</div>
</div>
</div>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p>Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) <b>Signed</b>: 4 February 2016; 14 months ago</p>
<p><b>Drafted</b>: 5 October 2015; 18 months ago</p>
<div class="_qgd"><b>Effective</b>: Not yet in enforcement</div>
<p>English (prevailing in the case pending issues)</p>
<p>The <b>Trans-Pacific Partnership</b> (<b>TPP</b>), or the <b>Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement</b> (<b>TPPA</b>), is a <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_agreement" title="Trade agreement">trade agreement</a> between <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia" title="Australia">Australia</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei" title="Brunei">Brunei</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada" title="Canada">Canada</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile" title="Chile">Chile</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan" title="Japan">Japan</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia" title="Malaysia">Malaysia</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico" title="Mexico">Mexico</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand" title="New Zealand">New Zealand</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru" title="Peru">Peru</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore" title="Singapore">Singapore</a>, the <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States">United States</a> (until 23 January 2017) and <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam" title="Vietnam">Vietnam</a>.</p>
<p>The finalized proposal was signed on 4 February 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand, concluding seven years of negotiations. It currently cannot be ratified due to U.S. withdrawal from the agreement on 23 January 2017. The former Obama administration claimed that the agreement aimed to "promote economic growth; support the creation and retention of jobs; enhance innovation, productivity and competitiveness; raise living standards; reduce poverty in the signatories' countries; and promote transparency, good governance, and enhanced labor and environmental protections." The TPP contains measures to lower both <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-tariff_barriers_to_trade" title="Non-tariff barriers to trade">non-tariff</a> and tariff <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_barriers" class="mw-redirect" title="Trade barriers">barriers to trade</a>, and establish an <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor-state_dispute_settlement" title="Investor-state dispute settlement">investor-state dispute settlement</a> (ISDS) mechanism.</p>
<p>The TPP began as an expansion of the <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Strategic_Economic_Partnership_Agreement" title="Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement">Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement</a> (TPSEP or P4) signed by <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei" title="Brunei">Brunei</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile" title="Chile">Chile</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand" title="New Zealand">New Zealand</a>, and <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore" title="Singapore">Singapore</a> in 2005. Beginning in 2008, additional countries joined the discussion for a broader agreement: <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia" title="Australia">Australia</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada" title="Canada">Canada</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan" title="Japan">Japan</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia" title="Malaysia">Malaysia</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico" title="Mexico">Mexico</a>, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru" title="Peru">Peru</a>, the <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States">United States</a>, and <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam" title="Vietnam">Vietnam</a>, bringing the total number of countries participating in the negotiations to twelve. Current trade agreements between participating countries, such as the <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement" title="North American Free Trade Agreement">North American Free Trade Agreement</a>, will be reduced to those provisions that do not conflict with the TPP or provide greater trade liberalization than the TPP.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#cite_note-9">[9]</a></sup> The Obama administration considered the TPP a companion agreement to the proposed <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership" title="Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership">Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership</a> (TTIP), a broadly similar agreement between the U.S. and the <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union" title="European Union">European Union</a>.</p>
<p>TISA, TTIP and TPP continue to be negotiated in secret, as <a rel="nofollow" href="https://wikileaks.org/tisa/#September%2015,%202016%20Publication" target="_blank">WikiLeaks</a> recently released a new leak from the updated <strong>TISA (Trade in Services Agreement) </strong>core text and annexes. If you want to know what TISA means in 7 words, it’s this: total privatization and commodification of public services.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, <strong>once something is privatized, it becomes very difficult to ever get it back into the public hands</strong>. Of the <strong>3 T-Treaties</strong>, TISA is the largest, encompassing 24 countries (including blocs such as the EU) which produce over 2/3 of global GDP, yet has received the least attention.</p>
<p>Protests against the <strong>TTIP</strong> (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, negotiated primarily between the US and EU) have been strong, to the point where several European government officials have publicly stated that the treaty doesn’t look like it will pass. Protests have also been strong against the <strong>TPP</strong> (Trans Pacific Partnership, negotiated primarily among the US, Japan, Canada, Australia and other Pacific nations).</p>
<p>Since the worldwide economy is shifting from being product-based to being service-based, TISA has the potential to become one of the most important economics treaties on Earth. Already, according to 2015 figures from the World Bank, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.SRV.TETC.ZS" target="_blank">service industries account for</a> 78% of US GDP and 74% of EU GDP. Together, the 3 T-Treaties promise to cement massive control in the hands of the international <strong>corporatocracy</strong>, disempowering sovereign states and preventing governments from setting laws, regulations and policy to protect their nations, markets and people.</p>
<h3>All About the Corporatocracy</h3>
<p>It’s laughable to hear politicians defend TISA and the other treaties by trying to claim they will be good for jobs or the economy. For most people in TISA, TTIP and TPP affected nations, the results will be disastrous, as discussed in <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/how-tpp-will-affect-you/" target="_blank">How the TPP is Going to Affect You.</a> The aim of these treaties is to open up markets for multinational corporations to exploit new labor and consumer markets – with less governmental regulation than before. These treaties give the corporatocracy the power to force down wages. This <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/sites/default/files/Memo-Proposed%20TISA%20March%202014.pdf" target="_blank">article</a> talks about the proposed TISA agreement:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The “disciplines,” or treaty rules, would provide foreign services providers free access to domestic markets at “no less favorable” conditions than domestic suppliers and would restrict governments’ ability to regulate services. This would essentially change the regulation of many public and privatized or commercial services from serving the public interest to serving the profit interests of private, foreign corporations.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You may not like tyrannical governments, but tyrannical corporations are even worse, because at least a government can be petitioned, replaced or overthrown; private corporations answer to no one except their shareholders. The point of government is protect the rights of its citizens, which includes regulating creatures like corporations who are created for the sole purpose of making as much money as possible above anything else. TISA, TTIP and TPP all gut the ability of national governments to enact laws to protect their land and citizens from marauding foreign multinationals. It’s corporate hegemony, pure and simple.</p>
<p><strong>TISA, TTIP and TPP would disallow GMO and country-of-origin labelin</strong>g, would essentially make Google, Facebook and any website owner a “copyright cop”, and would even require all signatory states to make their national laws conform (and be subordinate to) the ones in these treaties!</p>
<h3>ISDS<strong> (Investor State Dispute Settlement)</strong>: Parallel Legal System in All 3 T-Treaties</h3>
<p>Much has already been written about <strong>the ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement)</strong>, but for those who don’t know, the <strong>ISDS is a parallel legal system that only multinationals have access to.</strong> People, local companies and even national governments do not have access to it. The ISDS tribunal is staffed (of course) with corporate lawyers. ISDS even gives corporations the power to get legal damages in “expected profit”. The way it is written, a Vietnamese phone company, for example, could bring its company (with its workers paying its wages) into the US, could set up business there, and could sue if the local, state or national government tried to stop them.</p>
<h3>Opposition to TISA, TTIP and TPP Growing</h3>
<p>Despite the secrecy surrounding TISA, TTIP and TPP, the public and nations states alike have gained enough knowledge of them to mount widespread opposition. Recently (and surprisingly) <a rel="nofollow" href="http://commondreams.org/news/2016/09/16/tpp-ropes-its-corporate-power-vs-people-power-capitol-hill" target="_blank">Vietnam refused to ratify the TPP</a>, even though some considered it would benefit greatly from the clauses dealing with wage rates. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of thousands of people protested the TTIP in Germany. The French Government has opposed the deal (French Prime Minister Manuel Valls demanded a finish to the talks) and German Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister <a rel="nofollow" href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/611ff828b5ed44d5ad56ab46e0781e52/german-economy-minister-says-eu-us-trade-talks-have-failed" target="_blank">Sigmar Gabriel</a> revealed that TTIP negotiations had basically failed. He stated:</p>
<blockquote><p>“In my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it … Europeans must not give in to (the Americans’) demands.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those American demands he is referring to are things like Europeans accepting hormone-filled beef and chlorine-filled chicken. Europe’s food standards are much higher than those of the US, which has been more influenced and corrupted by <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/big-pharma-big-agra-mergers-synthetic-agenda/" target="_blank">Big Agra and Big Biotech</a> (and their toxic array of pesticides and GMOs) more than the EU. In the US, around 70% of supermarket food is GMO and around 90% of beef is made using growth hormones, whereas the GMO rate in the EU is way lower, and hormone-fed beef is banned.</p>
<div style="width: 461px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/TISA-economic-warfare-against-BRICS.jpg"><img src="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/TISA-economic-warfare-against-BRICS-300x165.jpg" alt="" height="248" width="451"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">TISA, TTIP and TTP: calculated economic warfare against the BRICS nations.</p>
</div>
<h3>3 T-Treaties: Economic Warfare Against BRICS</h3>
<p>As much as TISA, TTIP and TTP embolden multinational corporations, the 3 T-Treaties also serve another agenda: the geopolitical plan for the US and allies to isolate the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). To understand this, you need to realize that the so-called New World Order is very much an Anglo-American-Zionist dominated agenda. It’s all about the push towards global governance or world government, by centralizing power in every area of life: political, military, educational, financial and more. TISA, TTIP and TPP represent nothing less than <strong>economic warfare</strong> against BRICS.</p>
<p><strong>TTIP forges ties with the EU and surrounding nations, but deliberately excludes Russia. TPP forges ties with Japan, other Pacific nations and some South American nations, but deliberately excludes China, India and Brazil.</strong> TISA forges ties with countries all over the world (sort of a combination of TTIP and TPP) but none of them are the 5 BRICS countries. <strong>The plan is obvious: isolate, ostracize and weaken any nation which dares to challenge US supremacy</strong>. This goes hand-in-hand with US military agenda (the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/pivot-to-asia-militarization-of-pacific/" target="_blank">Pivot to Asia</a>) which aims to inflict the same kind of weakening in a military sense.</p>
<h3><a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/power-grab.jpg"><img class="alignleft" src="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/power-grab-300x225.jpg" alt="power grab" height="225" width="300"/></a></h3>
<h3>Conclusion: TISA, TTIP and TTP are a Colossal Power Grab</h3>
<p>TISA, TTIP and TTP are an attempt to rewrite the playing rules for a massive amount of the world economy, bring financial pressure to bear down upon the perceived opponents and enemies of the US, consolidate more power for the corporatocracy, open up new markets for exploitation without regulation, and make the public even more powerless against Big Money. These 3 T-Treaties (and others like them such as CETA being negotiated between Canada and the EU) must be first brought out of secrecy and under scrutiny. They remove sovereignty and decision-making ability away from the local and regional level. It’s yet more <strong>centralization of power</strong> – the overriding theme of the New World Order agenda. That reason alone is hopefully sufficient for anyone unsure about these T-Treaties, and new to the sphere of conspiracy research, to regard them with a large dose of distrust.</p>
<p><em><strong>Makia Freeman</strong> is the editor of alternative news / independent media site <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/" target="_blank">The Freedom Articles</a> and senior researcher at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://toolsforfreedom.com/" target="_blank">ToolsForFreedom.com</a> (<a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.facebook.com/toolsforfreedom" target="_blank">FaceBook</a> here), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.</em></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span style="font-size: small;">Sources:</span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="https://wikileaks.org/tisa/#September%2015,%202016%20Publication">https://wikileaks.org/tisa/#September%2015,%202016%20Publication</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.SRV.TETC.ZS">http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.SRV.TETC.ZS</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/how-tpp-will-affect-you/">http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/how-tpp-will-affect-you/</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/sites/default/files/Memo-Proposed%20TISA%20March%202014.pdf">http://www.ourworldisnotforsale.org/sites/default/files/Memo-Propos...</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="http://commondreams.org/news/2016/09/16/tpp-ropes-its-corporate-power-vs-people-power-capitol-hill">http://commondreams.org/news/2016/09/16/tpp-ropes-its-corporate-pow...</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/611ff828b5ed44d5ad56ab46e0781e52/german-economy-minister-says-eu-us-trade-talks-have-failed">http://bigstory.ap.org/article/611ff828b5ed44d5ad56ab46e0781e52/ger...</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/big-pharma-big-agra-mergers-synthetic-agenda/">http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/big-pharma-big-agra-mer...</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/pivot-to-asia-militarization-of-pacific/">http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/pivot-to-asia-militariz...</a></span></p>
<div class="copyright">The original source of this article is <a rel="nofollow" href="http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/tisa-ttip-ttp-hegemony-corporatocracy/" target="_blank">The Freedom Articles</a></div>
<div class="copyright"></div> TTIP, TiSA & TPP Renamed Properlytag:12160.info,2015-07-13:2649739:Topic:15753522015-07-13T16:54:44.750ZModern Feudal Serfhttps://12160.info/profile/FeudalSerf870
<p style="text-align: center;"><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334892?profile=original"><img style="padding: 5px;" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334892?profile=original" width="426"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334892?profile=original"><img style="padding: 5px;" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334892?profile=original" width="426"/></a></p> Now We Know Why Huge TPP Trade Deal Is Kept Secret From The Publictag:12160.info,2015-07-01:2649739:Topic:15721462015-07-01T16:49:56.157ZCentral Scrutinizerhttps://12160.info/profile/H0llyw00d
<p>A key section of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has been leaked to the public. <em>The New York Times</em> has a major story on the contents of the leaked chapter, and it’s as bad as many of us feared.</p>
<p>Now we know why the corporations and the Obama administration want the TPP, a huge “trade” agreement being negotiated between the United States and 11 other countries, kept secret from the public until it’s too late to stop it.</p>
<p>The section of the TPP…</p>
<p>A key section of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has been leaked to the public. <em>The New York Times</em> has a major story on the contents of the leaked chapter, and it’s as bad as many of us feared.</p>
<p>Now we know why the corporations and the Obama administration want the TPP, a huge “trade” agreement being negotiated between the United States and 11 other countries, kept secret from the public until it’s too late to stop it.</p>
<p>The section of the TPP that has leaked is the “Investment” chapter that includes investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses. WikiLeaks has <a href="https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment">the text and analysis</a>, and the <em>Times</em> has the story, in “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/business/trans-pacific-partnership-seen-as-door-for-foreign-suits-against-us.html?ref=business&_r=1">Trans-Pacific Partnership Seen as Door for Foreign Suits Against U.S.</a>“:</p>
<p><a href="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/obama2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-39918" src="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/obama2.jpg" alt="obama" width="768" height="432"/></a></p>
<blockquote><p>An ambitious 12-nation trade accord pushed by President Obama would allow foreign corporations to sue the United States government for actions that undermine their investment “expectations” and hurt their business, according to a classified document.</p>
<p>The Trans-Pacific Partnership — a cornerstone of Mr. Obama’s remaining economic agenda — would grant broad powers to multinational companies operating in North America, South America and Asia. Under the accord, still under negotiation but nearing completion, companies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings — federal, state or local — before tribunals organized under the World Bank or the United Nations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/press.html">WikiLeaks analysis</a> explains that this lets firms “sue” governments to obtain taxpayer compensation for loss of “expected future profits.”</p>
<p>Let that sink in for a moment: “[C]ompanies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings — federal, state or local — before tribunals….” And they can collect not just for lost property or seized assets; they can collect if laws or regulations interfere with these giant companies’ ability to collect what they claim are “expected future profits.”</p>
<p>The <em>Times</em>‘ report explains that this clause also “giv[es] greater priority to protecting corporate interests than promoting free trade and competition that benefits consumers.”</p>
<p>The tribunals that adjudicate these cases will be made up of private-sector (<em>i.e.</em>, corporate) attorneys. These attorneys will rotate between serving <em>on</em> the tribunals and representing corporations that bring cases to be heard <em>by</em> the tribunals. This is a conflict of interest because the attorneys serving on the tribunals will have tremendous incentive to rule for the corporations if they want to continue to get lucrative corporate business.</p>
<p><strong>The Corporate Influence Over the TPP</strong></p>
<p>Largely ignored by the media — until now — the TPP has been in a negotiation process for more than five years. The TPP has 29 “chapters” covering various issues, but only five of these chapters cover what would normally be considered “trade.” It is a “docking” agreement, which means that any country in the region (<em>e.g.</em>, China) can add themselves to the agreement just by signing on.</p>
<p>These negotiations have been conducted in secret, but more than 500 corporate “trade advisors” have access to the text of the agreement. Many of the negotiators themselves are past (and/or likely expect to be future) corporate attorneys or executives. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, for example, “received <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/202241309/Froman">over $4 million</a> as part of multiple exit payments when he left Citigroup to join the Obama administration,” according to a report, “<a href="http://www.republicreport.org/2014/big-banks-tpp/">Obama Admin’s TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks</a>,” by investigative journalist Lee Fang.</p>
<p>This one-sided process has been causing concern among representatives of many of the key “stakeholder” groups that have been excluded from the negotiating process. Labor unions, environmental groups, consumer groups, health groups, and food-safety groups, as well as LGBT, democracy, faith, and other “stakeholders” who have been denied a seat at the TPP negotiating table, have feared that the process would produce an agreement that tilts the democracy/plutocracy power balance even further in the direction of corporations and billionaires than it is now.</p>
<p><strong>ISDS Tilts Playing Field to Corporations</strong></p>
<p>AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking March 18 at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, compared the extraordinary ability of corporations to sue governments to the lack of redress when labor organizers are murdered to explain how ISDS tilts the playing field to corporations over other stakeholders:</p>
<blockquote><p>ISDS is just a fancy way to give corporations a special legal system that circumvents democratically accountable laws and courts.</p>
<p>ISDS allows corporations to directly challenge almost any law or regulation based on ill-defined concepts such as “fair and equitable treatment.” In contrast, all provisions for enforcing labor rights in the TPP require action by member governments — neither workers nor unions can enforce the labor rights provisions on their own even by suing in national courts.</p>
<p>I’m not just talking theory here. In the first three years of the Labor Action Plan in Colombia, 73 trade unionists were murdered for trying to organize workers. These are men and women just like you and me who were killed for trying to exercise their rights under the law and speak in a collective voice. That’s terrible, and yet these trade deals have been completely ineffective in addressing this injustice. And the U.S. government has taken no official “trade” action in response. Anyone with a lick of common sense can tell you that not only are these killings a human rights catastrophe, they are driving down wages and workplace standards in Colombia — and in every country that trades with Colombia.</p>
<p>But here’s the thing: unlike the clunky labor provisions, which require workers to wait for government action, these ISDS provisions can be used immediately by multinational firms to challenge efforts by TPP member countries to develop a modern regulatory state in key areas. ISDS tilts the playing field away from democracy, from workers and consumers, and toward big business and multinational investors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In sum, if corporations feel they have been denied “expected” profits by a government regulation, ISDS lets them circumvent a country’s courts and go to an international corporate tribunal with their grievance. But if labor organizers are murdered, workers and their families have nowhere to go.</p>
<p>This shows the extent to which the playing field gets tilted. The same imbalance exists between corporate interests and the interests represented by environmental groups, consumer groups and all other non-corporate stakeholders: a special channel for corporations, and a brick wall for the interests of the rest of us.</p>
<p><strong>Advantage: Foreign Firms</strong></p>
<p>While ISDS would give American multinational corporations tremendous powers over other governments, it places non-U.S. corporations (and, of course, non-U.S. subsidiaries of American multinational corporations) at a tremendous advantage over U.S. firms by giving only them — not U.S.-based firms — this right to challenge U.S. laws and regulations.</p>
<p>Global Trade Watch <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/tpp-investment-leak-2015-release.pdf">explains this advantage</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The TPP would grant foreign investors and firms operating here expansive new substantive and procedural rights and privileges not available to U.S. firms under U.S. law, allowing foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. policies, court orders and government actions that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms. … The text allows foreign investors to demand compensation for claims of “indirect expropriation” that apply to much wider categories of property than those to which similar rights apply in U.S. law.</p>
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<p>The TPP is the largest trade agreement in history, involving more than 40 percent of the world’s GDP. One way President Obama and the Chamber of Commerce sell the TPP is by saying it will change everything and will rewrite the rules for doing business for the 21st century. This leak shows us that they are right about the TPP changing everything and rewriting the rules. But the leak shows that the people and organizations opposing the TPP were right too, because the changes give corporations vast new powers to overrule democratic governments.</p>
<p><strong>Origins of ISDS</strong></p>
<p>This ISDS mechanism originates from a time when investors in wealthy, developed countries wanted to invest in projects in unstable “third-world,” “banana-republic”-style countries but worried that dictators or revolutionary governments could decide to seize their property — a refinery, railroad or factory — leaving them with no recourse. So before investing, the target country agrees that in the case of disputes, a tribunal is set up outside and beyond the reach of the country’s justice system (courts where the judge is a brother or other crony of the dictator, for example), providing recourse in the event of unjust seizure of property. This would make investment less risky.</p>
<p>However, under agreements like the TPP, these provisions apply to and override the laws of modern, stable, developed countries with democratic governance and fair court systems. The corporate representatives negotiating modern trade agreements see such democratically run governments as “burdensome” and chaotic, introducing “uncertainties” and “interfering” or “meddling” with the corporate order. As one<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/08/13/more-philip-morris-style-cases-is-the-very-point-of-the-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership/">supporter of these ISDS provisions put it</a>, they protect corporations from “the waves of madness that occasionally flit through the population.”</p>
<p><strong>Secret and Rushed</strong></p>
<p>It is understandable that the giant, multinational corporations want the TPP kept secret and want Congress to pass “fast-track” trade-promotion authority that requires Congress to pass the TPP within 90 “session” days after the agreement is made public. Fast track sets up a rushed process that does not give the public time to read, understand, analyze and consider the ramifications of it — never mind time to effectively organize opposition. This is because, as U.S Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/179885/elizabeth-warren-reveals-inside-details-trade-talks">pointed out</a>, “supporters of the deal say to me, ‘They have to be secret, because if the American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed.'” Warren continued:</p>
<blockquote><p>Think about that. Real people, people whose jobs are at stake, small-business owners who don’t want to compete with overseas companies that dump their waste in rivers and hire workers for a dollar a day — those people, people without an army of lobbyists — they would be opposed. I believe if people across this country would be opposed to a particular trade agreement, then maybe that trade agreement should not happen.</p>
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<p>Fast track also prevents members of Congress from amending (<em>i.e.</em>, fixing) flaws that might be found in the agreement even in the limited time available to comprehend and analyze the agreement. With the expected massive corporate public-relations campaign that will occur as the agreement comes up for a vote, this sets up a rushed process where the Congress becomes more concerned with <a href="http://ourfuture.org/20141217/citibank-budget-push-and-fast-track-for-trade-deals-same-process">not “killing the whole agreement” than with getting it right</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Reaction</strong></p>
<p>Larry Cohen, the president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), <a href="http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/leaked_investor_chapter_of_tpp_worse_than_imagined">says the leak shows</a>that the TPP is “worse than imagined”:</p>
<blockquote><p>The 56 pages of the Investor chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are worse than imagined and must be a wake up call for our nation. Amazingly, this chapter is sealed for four years after either adoption or rejection of the TPP. Everything we read and learn makes “Fast Track” authority unimaginable. It’s secrecy on top of secrecy.</p>
<p>The TPP is shaping up to be an exercise in words about citizen rights that are not enforceable versus expanded corporate rights to sue governments for supposed diminishment of corporate profits. Section B of the leaked chapter documents new provisions of Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), the secret tribunal process that is above national law or courts.</p>
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<p>U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) released the following statement:</p>
<blockquote><p>It appears that the investor state provision being considered as part of TPP will still amount to a corporate handout at the expense of consumers despite the assurances of our negotiators. We need strong language to prevent multinational corporations — like Big Tobacco — from using trade agreements to challenge health and safety laws.</p>
<p>It’s telling when Members of Congress and their staff have an easier time accessing national security documents than proposed trade deals, but if I were negotiating this deal I suppose I wouldn’t want people to see it either. Trade agreements should lift American workers and their counterparts abroad, rather than creating a race to the bottom.</p>
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<p>From the Wikileaks <a href="https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/">statement</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Julian Assange, WikiLeaks editor said: “The TPP has developed in secret an unaccountable supranational court for multinationals to sue states. This system is a challenge to parliamentary and judicial sovereignty. Similar tribunals have already been shown to chill the adoption of sane environmental protection, public health and public transport policies.”</p>
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<p>Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has <a href="http://citizen.org/documents/tpp-investment-leak-2015.pdf">this analysis of the leaked text</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The leaked text provides stark warnings about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring without press, public or policymaker oversight. It reveals that TPP negotiators already have agreed to many radical terms that would give foreign investors expansive new substantive and procedural rights and privileges not available to domestic firms under domestic law.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/now-we-know-why-huge-tpp_b_6956540.html" target="_blank">Dave Johnson</a></p>
</blockquote> Revealed Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The TPPtag:12160.info,2015-06-10:2649739:Topic:15650802015-06-10T09:42:31.499ZCentral Scrutinizerhttps://12160.info/profile/H0llyw00d
<p></p>
<p>Back in 2013, we wrote about a FOIA lawsuit that was filed by William New at IP Watch. After trying to find out more information on the TPP by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and being told that they were classified as “national security information” (no, seriously), New teamed up with Yale’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic …</p>
<p></p>
<p>Back in 2013, we wrote about a FOIA lawsuit that was filed by William New at IP Watch. After trying to find out more information on the TPP by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and being told that they were classified as “national security information” (no, seriously), New teamed up with Yale’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131220/01464625648/ustr-sued-failing-to-reveal-tpp-details-response-to-foia-request.shtml">to sue</a>. As part of that lawsuit, the USTR has now released a bunch of internal emails concerning TPP negotiations, and IP Watch has a full writeup showing <a href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-show-close-industry-involvement-in-tpp-negotiations/" target="_blank">how industry lobbyists influenced the TPP agreement</a>, to the point that one is even openly celebrating that the USTR version copied his own text word for word.</p>
<div class="postbody"><blockquote><p><i>What is striking in the emails is not that government negotiators seek expertise and advice from leading industry figures. But the emails reveal a close-knit relationship between negotiators and the industry advisors that is likely unmatched by any other stakeholders.</i></p>
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<p>The article highlights numerous examples of what appear to be very chummy relationships between the USTR and the “cleared advisors” from places like the RIAA, the MPAA and the ESA. They regularly share text and have very informal discussions, scheduling phone calls and get togethers to further discuss. This really isn’t <i>that</i> surprising, given that the USTR is somewhat infamous for its<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131127/02452925386/ustrs-revolving-door-with-copyright-patent-maximalists-removes-all-credibility.shtml">revolving door with lobbyists</a> who work on these issues. In fact, one of the main USTR officials in the emails that IP Watch got is Stan McCoy, who was the long term lead negotiator on “intellectual property” issues. But he’s no longer at the USTR — he now <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140422/06011926988/revolving-door-mpaa-hires-chief-ustr-negotiator-behind-acta-tpps-ip-chapter.shtml">works for the MPAA</a>.</p>
<p>You can read through the emails, embedded below, which show a very, very chummy relationship, which is quite different from how the USTR seems to act with people who are actually more concerned about what’s in the TPP (and I can use personal experience on that…). Of course, you’ll notice that the USTR still went heavy on the black ink budget, so most of the useful stuff is redacted. Often entire emails other than the salutation and signature line are redacted.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most incredible, is the email from Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official, where DeLisi raves that he’s just looked over the latest text, and is gleeful to see that the the rules that have been agreed up on are “our rules” (i.e., the lobbyists’), even to the point that he (somewhat confusingly) insists “someone owes USTR a royalty payment.” While it appears he’s got the whole royalty system backwards (you’d think an “IP advisor” would know better…) the point is pretty clear: the lobbyists wrote the rules, and the USTR just put them into the agreement. Weisel’s response? “Well there’s a bit of good news…”</p>
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<center><a href="https://imgur.com/kH3odf1"><img class=" aligncenter" src="http://i.imgur.com/kH3odf1.jpg" alt="" width="560"/></a></center>
In a follow-up email, DeLisi states: “I looked at the rules much more carefully over the weekend. There is no doubt, this is our template.” And then, of course, the rest is redacted:<p></p>
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<center><a href="https://imgur.com/DXn9x3E"><img class=" aligncenter" src="http://i.imgur.com/DXn9x3E.png" alt="" width="560"/></a></center>
It’s no surprise that this is happening. Of course when you have industry and government groups set up to be regular “advisors” on certain text (and there’s a big revolving door between the two sides), you’d expect the relationship to be chummy and sociable. And it shouldn’t be surprising to then see the USTR take the lobbyists “template” and stick it right into the agreement. That’s how all of this works, after all. But considering that the agreement is a secret agreement that the public and experts outside of those lobbyist “advisors” are not allowed to see, you have to wonder how it’s even remotely possible for the USTR to have a full and fair picture of what those rules are likely to do or the impact on the public.</div>
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<div class="postbody"><a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150605/11483831239/revealed-emails-show-how-industry-lobbyists-basically-wrote-tpp.shtml" target="_blank">Mike Masnick</a><span>)</span></div> What "Transparent" Really Means to the Obamastag:12160.info,2015-06-09:2649739:Topic:15648652015-06-09T14:41:55.954ZModern Feudal Serfhttps://12160.info/profile/FeudalSerf870
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334355?profile=original"><img class="align-center" style="padding: 15px;" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334355?profile=original" width="427"/></a></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334355?profile=original"><img class="align-center" style="padding: 15px;" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1800334355?profile=original" width="427"/></a></p> 10 Reasons Why You Should Oppose TPP and TTIPtag:12160.info,2015-06-08:2649739:Topic:15645562015-06-08T14:49:42.115ZCentral Scrutinizerhttps://12160.info/profile/H0llyw00d
<div class="itemHeader"><h2 class="itemTitle">10 Reasons Why You Should Oppose TPP and TTIP</h2>
<span class="itemAuthor">Written by <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/itemlist/user/53-williamfjasper" rel="author">William F. Jasper…</a></span></div>
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<div class="itemHeader"><h2 class="itemTitle">10 Reasons Why You Should Oppose TPP and TTIP</h2>
<span class="itemAuthor">Written by <a rel="author" href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/itemlist/user/53-williamfjasper">William F. Jasper</a></span></div>
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<div class="itemFullText"><p>The U.S. Senate’s passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation on May 22 means that the TPA bill (also known as “Fast Track”) will soon be up for a vote in the House of Representatives. If the House follows suit and approves it, we can be certain that President Obama and his Republican supporters in Congress will move for expedited action on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), both of which, Obama has stated, are top priorities of his administration.</p>
<p>These twin, trans-oceanic agreements are massive schemes that propose a very radical transformation of the global politico-economic system, with revolutionary integration and convergence of the major Atlantic and Pacific nations. The TPP <em>currently</em> includes 12 Pacific Rim member states (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam), but is expected to expand to include more nations, including Communist China.</p>
<p>The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) proposes to begin “deep and comprehensive” integration between the 28 member states of the European Union and the United States. Over the course of the past several years, we have published many articles detailing the dangers posed by these (still officially secret) agreements. We are bringing together here, in abbreviated form, 10 of those reasons why every American — whether identifying as Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, Tea Party, liberal, conservative, or constitutionalist — should oppose both of these proposals.</p>
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<p><strong>1: Sovereignty will be lost.</strong></p>
<p>The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership constitute an all-out assault on, and an existential threat to, America’s sovereignty and independence.</p>
<p>Even if all of the glowing economic predictions and rosy job promises of the TPP/TTIP promoters were true — and as we show below, there are many good reasons to disbelieve this prosperity propaganda — would it really be worth sacrificing our national sovereignty and independence for these purported benefits? Would it be worth sacrificing our liberty and our Constitution? Would it be worth subjecting ourselves and our posterity to the rule of international bureaucrats and judges? Those are not idle, speculative questions; they go to the core of what the TPP and TTIP are all about.</p>
<p>Modern Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs, such as NAFTA, TPP, and TTIP) have become so comprehensive and complex (see below) that they guarantee conflict — both among the nations that are party to the agreement, as well as between private parties and the various nation-state parties. Resolving the conflict means resorting to adjudication. As with NAFTA, the TPP and TTIP create conflict resolution tribunals (courts) that claim the authority to overrule national, state, and local laws, as well as national and state courts and national and state constitutions. Additionally, PTA members often opt to appeal their cases to the World Trade Organization tribunal, which claims global judicial authority. In practice, this amounts, virtually, to legislating globally from the bench, striking down laws and ordering revisions. This is not merely a theoretical threat, it is already happening. Most recently, the WTO appellate tribunal ruled against the United States in a NAFTA suit brought by Canada and Mexico that claimed the U.S. Country Of Origin Labeling (COOL) law, which requires foreign meat to be labeled as such, is an unfair and illegal trade practice. The WTO’s May 18 ruling was the fourth time in three years that the global court had ruled against COOL, even though U.S. courts had ruled that COOL is legal. Faced with WTO penalties and threats of retaliation, the U.S. Congress is now considering repeal of COOL, and American consumers may soon lose the ability to discover if the meat at the grocery store (or the fast food burger/taco joint) is U.S.-raised, or from Mexico, Brazil, or China.</p>
<p>The WTO COOL case is a harbinger of more to come. The TPP and TTIP would exempt foreign corporations from our laws and regulations, placing the resolution of any disputes regarding those matters in the hands of an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunal or the WTO. Besides unconstitutionally creating another international judicial authority higher than our own courts and legislature, the agreements will put American businesses (particularly small and medium-size businesses geared primarily for our domestic market) at a serious competitive disadvantage. Foreign firms could operate here unburdened by the costly and onerous regulatory shackles that are crippling and destroying American free enterprise.</p>
<p><strong>2: The TPP and TTIP are “living,” “evolving” agreements.</strong></p>
<p>On November 12, 2011, the leaders of the TPP nations endorsed the TPP “Trade Ministers’ Report to Leaders,” which states, <em>inter alia</em>: “We have agreed to develop the TPP as a living agreement.... Therefore, the TPP teams are establishing a structure, institutions, and processes that allow the agreement to evolve.... We envision a continuing joint work program, including new commitments.”</p>
<p>The Congressional Research Service, in a March 20, 2015 study entitled “The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Negotiations and Issues for Congress,” notes: “The TPP has been envisaged as a ‘living agreement,’ one that is both open to new members willing to sign up to its commitments and open to addressing new issues as they evolve.”</p>
<p>Likewise, the TTIP promoters push the “living” document theme. In February of this year, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) issued a report entitled, “A Fresh Start for TTIP,” which declares, “The [TTIP] negotiators should agree on standard harmonisation where it can be easily achieved … and should set up an inclusive process of regulatory convergence to allow TTIP to become a living agreement which harmonises further standards later on.”</p>
<p>Dr. Alberto Alemanno, the Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law at HEC Paris, writes that “unlike any previous trade arrangement, TTIP is set to become a ‘living agreement’, whose obligations will continuously be added without the need to re-open the initial international treaty nor to modify each others’ institutional frameworks. Thus, should the regulators identify areas for convergence … their agreed commitments … will become legally binding through a sectoral annex.”</p>
<p>The TPP/TTIP architects are drawing from the “success” of the European Union. In the development of the European Union — from its origin as the European Coal and Steel Community to the Common Market to the European Community to, finally, the EU — this subversive mutational process has been referred to as “broadening and deepening.” Broadening (or “widening”) refers to the constant expansion through addition of new member-states; deepening refers to the constant creation of new supranational institutional structures and continuous expansion and usurpation by regional authorities of powers and jurisdiction that previously were exercised by national, state, and local governments. The “living,” “evolving” treaties and agreements of the EU have eviscerated the national sovereignty of the EU member-states and increasingly subjugated them to unaccountable rulers in Brussels under the rubric of “integration,” “harmonization,” “an ever closer union,” “convergence,” “pooled sovereignty,” “interdependence,” and “comprehensive cooperation.”</p>
<p><strong>3: It’s being planned in secret.</strong></p>
<p>The Obama administration has audaciously claimed that the TPP and TTIP processes are “completely transparent,” and President Obama has publicly claimed to be peeved by charges (false charges, he says) that there is any secrecy involved. But the president is talking utter nonsense, if facts mean anything. It is a fact that after more than three years of (secret) negotiations, the administration still has not made the draft texts of either of the agreements available to the public. It is a fact that the only texts the public has had access to are those that have been “illegally” leaked. It is a fact that elected members of the U.S. Congress are only allowed to see the text under severely restricted conditions: They must go to a special room, must leave their cellphones behind, may not make any copies, are monitored while in the room, and before leaving must surrender all notes they have taken. On the other hand, it is also a fact that private “cleared” representatives of, for example, pharmaceutical companies, Hollywood studios, Wall Street, and other corporate interests are given passwords to access the documents online at their leisure: no restrictions, inconvenience, or humiliation for these privileged elites.</p>
<p>This secrecy charge is not merely some invention of right-wing Republicans; it comes also from progressives of Obama’s party: Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Florida Representative Alan Grayson, Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, California Representative George Miller, and many others. If there is nothing to hide, why does the administration insist on shrouding the entire process in secrecy, and then ludicrously pretend they are being totally open and transparent?</p>
<p><strong>4: The TPP and TTIP are not about “free trade.”</strong></p>
<p>Historically, the “free trade” debate has centered on reducing or eliminating tariffs (taxes on imports). But U.S. tariffs are already at historic lows. If the TTIP and TPP were truly about free trade and tariffs, they could be written in a few pages. But they, purportedly, are hundreds of pages long. This is because they deal with what the globalization lobby calls “non-tariff barriers to trade,” which can be just about anything and everything. Here are some of the things the U.S. Trade Representative’s website lists as matters that are covered by the TTIP: “Agricultural Market Access, Competition, Cross-Border Services, Customs and Trade Facilitation, Electronic Commerce and Telecommunications, Energy and Raw Materials, Environment Financial Services, Government Procurement, Intellectual Property Rights, Investment, Labor, … Rules of Origin, Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures, Sectoral Annexes/Regulatory Cooperation, Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises, State-Owned Enterprises, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Textiles, Trade Remedies.”</p>
<p>And remember, as discussed above in number two, since these are “living,” “evolving” agreements, virtually anything may be added for consideration in the future. No less an authority than WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has remarked on the revolutionary nature of TTIP. “Authorities in Europe and America have given the impression that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is just another trade agreement,” he said. “In fact, the proposed agreement is a different beast.” Lamy noted that “80 per cent of these negotiations deal with a realm of regulatory convergence.” Lamy, who previously worked as an official in the French government and the EU bureaucracy, knows about convergence, since he helped steer the process in the EU. “Convergence” in EU parlance has come to mean iron-fisted centralized authority running roughshod over national and local laws and customs.</p>
<p>Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics, told the Italian Parliament last year during testimony regarding the TTIP, “This is not a free trade agreement and you should not sign it.” While this writer might disagree with Dr. Stiglitz on a number of other important economic matters, he is certainly correct on this point and his warning should be heeded. According to WikiLeaks, only five chapters of the purported 29 chapters in the TPP deal with matters that are considered traditional trade issues.</p>
<p><strong>5: It is an immigration Trojan Horse.</strong></p>
<p>The Obama administration, infamous for promising to use all executive means possible (whether constitutional or not) to grant amnesty to illegals and to expand legal immigration, is using the TPP/TTIP to replace our immigration system with EU-style mass “migration.” The still-secret agreements contain provisions for eviscerating our border controls, according to insiders who have studied them. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes an entire chapter on immigration,” Curtis Ellis, executive director of the American Jobs Alliance, remarked in an April 13, 2015 post for <em>The Hill</em>. “It is a Trojan horse for Obama’s immigration agenda. House members who were ready to defund the Department of Homeland Security to stop President Obama’s executive action on immigration must not give him TPA [Fast Track], which he will use to ensure his immigration actions are locked in when he leaves office.”</p>
<p>Critics point to the fact that President Obama has boasted of greatly expanding the L-1 “temporary guest worker” program to allow corporations to bring hundreds of thousands of workers into the United States while we are suffering extremely high unemployment. Moreover, Obama has already used a pseudo “free trade” agreement with South Korea to expand the L-1 program with that country.</p>
<p>We can take some guidance as to where this could lead from the EU, which the TPP/TTIP architects approvingly cite as their model. Restricted by EU court rulings, EU member states have found it virtually impossible to restrict “migration” and even extremely difficult to control the deluge of “welfare tourism” that is bankrupting many of their social services.</p>
<p><strong>6: It merges America with China/Russia.</strong></p>
<p>One of the overarching arguments repeatedly used by TPP promoters is that we <em>must</em> complete and adopt the TPP or Communist China will pre-empt us with its own trade pact. Likewise, they argue that we must approve the TTIP to keep Russia in check. The short answer to this is that the TPP/TTIP proponents are being totally disingenuous because most of the leading architects of the agreements have been on record for years in favor of admitting both China and Russia to the regional/global trade regimes. China is already a member of the U.S.-created Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and has been integrally involved in the talks aimed at transforming APEC into a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). The TPP is a key “steppingstone” in that process, according to the APEC/FTAAP architects. An important source on this matter is the pro-TPP book <em>Understanding the Trans-Pacific Partnership</em> published in 2013 by the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), one of the premier global think tanks that has played an especially important role in promoting the WTO, IMF, United Nations, and so-called free trade agreements, including NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP, and FTAAP. According to the PIIE book, “The TPP is regarded as an interim arrangement or stepping stone toward a broader, region-wide Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).... TPP negotiators are … also planning and constructing the trade pact with a view toward future linkages with other APEC members, including and<em> especially China</em>.” (Emphasis added.)</p>
<p>Russia is also an APEC member and could be expected to be included in the FTAAP, which the Obama administration has been quietly developing alongside the TPP. As far back as 2010, the administration posted on the White House website an APEC press release of November 13, 2010 announcing: “Based on the results of this work, we have agreed that now is the time for APEC to translate FTAAP from an aspirational to a more concrete vision. To that end, we instruct APEC to take concrete steps toward realization of an FTAAP, which is a major instrument to further APEC’s Regional Economic Integration (REI) agenda.” Once that is achieved, both China and Russia will likely be full FTAAP members.</p>
<p><strong>7: Could the TPP/TTIP be used to foist gun control on Americans?</strong></p>
<p>This is not an “out there” question; it should be a genuine concern of all who treasure the Second Amendment. Constitutional champion Michael Hammond, the longtime executive director of the Senate Steering Committee, has warned that “there is ample time to insert firearms import bans (with the force of statutory law)” into the TPP and/or TTIP. “Barack Obama has been rabid in his zeal to destroy the Second Amendment community,” Hammond notes. “Over and over again, he has experimented with a wide variety of schemes to ban guns by regulatory fiat: eliminating credit, banning ammunition, compiling a gun registry, encouraging state bans, reclassifying common guns, banning the import of guns, and so forth. Hammond, who is now general counsel for the Gun Owners of America, notes that despite Obama’s notorious anti-gun record, the Republican “leadership” in Congress “didn’t see fit to even purport to prohibit the Obama administration from using a trade agreement to impose a statutory gun import ban.”</p>
<p><strong>8: The jobs and prosperity myth</strong></p>
<p>As with NAFTA and every other pseudo-free trade agreement, there are many politicians, lobbyists, and think tanks making pie-in-the-sky claims that TPP and TTIP will usher in new prosperity and a wave of good-paying jobs. We’ve been there before. In 1993, the Peterson Institute for International Economics released its influential study, “NAFTA: An Assessment,” which predicted that “with NAFTA, U.S. exports to Mexico will continue to outstrip Mexican exports to the United States, leading to a U.S. trade surplus with Mexico of about $7 (billion) to $9 billion annually by 1995.” It also predicted that the U.S. trade surplus with Mexico would increase to $12 billion annually between 2000 and 2010. The actual result was quite different.</p>
<p>In 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, the United States had a $1.66 billion trade surplus with Mexico; by 1995, the first year after NAFTA had entered into force, that changed to a <em>$15.8 billion deficit</em>. By 2000, that annual deficit had soared to $24.5 billion, and by 2007 it hit $74.7 billion. For 2014, our trade deficit with Mexico dipped to <em>only</em> $53.8 billion. In 1993, the year before NAFTA, we imported around 225,000 cars and trucks from Mexico. By 2005, our imports of Mexican-made vehicles had tripled to 700,000 vehicles annually, and in 2012, Mexico’s export of vehicles to the United States surpassed 1.4 million. Chrysler, Ford, and GM transferred major production facilities (and jobs) from the United States to Mexico. Our trade deficits with Canada have followed a similar path since adoption of NAFTA.</p>
<p>The PIIE authors and other pseudo-free trade propagandists had cherry-picked data and simply invented statistics to fraudulently sell their product: NAFTA. If they were car salesmen, they would have gone to jail for fraud and misrepresentation. Instead, they are back doing the same thing, concocting rosy statistics to sell the TPP and TTIP.</p>
<p><strong>9: The TPP and TTIP are corporatist schemes.</strong></p>
<p>Unfortunately, some of the loudest critics on this score are notorious leftists who regularly parade against capitalism. Republican leaders have been able to use that fact as a reason to disregard the compelling evidence that these criticisms of TPP/TTIP are solidly based. First of all, it is important to note that in most cases the big, international mega-corporations long ago ceased to consider themselves American companies and also long ago ceased to favor free enterprise capitalism: They are corporate welfare drones, the masters of government bailouts, government loans, government subsidies, government contracts. They are little different from the giant State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) or “private” corporations owned by communist princelings and commissars in China and Russia.</p>
<p>This is especially evident in the lineup of globalist corporations behind the TPP/TTIP: Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Unilever, Chevron, Caterpillar, UPS, Walmart, Chase, Citi — and a bevy of Big Business coalitions: Global Business Dialogue, Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Transatlantic Policy Network, Atlantic Council, and more. These are “crony capitalists,” not free enterprise capitalists; they prefer to use the power of government rather than innovation, risk, and excellence to prosper. Many of these corporations and associations have their representatives working directly with the TPP/TTIP negotiators, and they are the “cleared” elites that get privileged access to the documents you and I don’t get to see, and our elected representatives only access under extreme controls.</p>
<p><strong>10: The TPP and TTIP are regional transitions in the push toward a world government.</strong></p>
<p>Unquestionably, one of the most important organizations pushing the TPP and TTIP is the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, the uber-think tank that has been promoting schemes for world government for nearly a century. In a 2006 op-ed entitled “State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era,” CFR President Richard Haass declared that we must “rethink” and “redefine” sovereignty because “new mechanisms are needed for regional and global governance” and “states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies.” Due to globalization, said Haass, “sovereignty is not only becoming weaker in reality, but … it needs to become weaker.” According to the CFR chief, we must choose between “an international system of either world government or anarchy.”</p>
<p>The CFR fully supports the trans-oceanic political and economic “integration” and “convergence” plans of the TPP and TTIP. It works closely with the Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN), which says its mission is “to promote and assist the convergence of EU/US Government policies.” The TPN’s 1995 “Partnership Project” called for combining NATO with a merged EU-U.S. “in a single political framework by early in the next century.” In its 2008 report <em>Completing the Transatlantic Market</em>, the TPN went further, revealing that “the process of creating a Transatlantic Market will be an integral step in the evolution toward an eventual Transatlantic Partnership Agreement embracing the economic, political, and strategic totality of the EU-US relationship.” “Totality” — did you catch that?</p>
<p>This is what former French Premier Edouard Balladur was aiming at with his 2007 book entitled <em>A Union of the West</em>, which received the expected send-off at the <em>New York Times</em> and other “enlightened” voices of the globalist media choir. According to Balladur the new partnership must be “a new alliance between Europe and America, and even more — a true union.” And that is what the TPP/TTIP schemers are truly attempting to put over.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This article is an example of the exclusive content that's available only by subscribing to our print magazine. Twice a month get in-depth features covering the political gamut: education, candidate profiles, immigration, healthcare, foreign policy, guns, etc. <a href="https://www.jbs.org/shop-tna/subscriptions" target="_blank">Digital as well as print options are available!</a></em></p>
<p><em>Related article:</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/21011-7-reasons-why-trade-promotion-authority-fast-track-must-be-defeated">7 Reasons Why Trade Promotion Authority/Fast Track Must Be Defeated</a></p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/21010-10-reasons-why-you-should-oppose-obamatrade" target="_blank">SOURCE</a></p>
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</div> The TPP, Monsanto, Rockefeller, Trilateral Commission, Brzezinskitag:12160.info,2015-05-31:2649739:Topic:15621142015-05-31T13:31:34.154ZCentral Scrutinizerhttps://12160.info/profile/H0llyw00d
<p></p>
<br />
<h1 class="article-title">The TPP, Monsanto, Rockefeller, Trilateral Commission, Brzezinski</h1>
<div class="byline-single"><span class="post-info single-meta-author"> </span><span class="post-info single-meta-date">05/30/2015</span></div>
<br />
<div class="entry-content"><p> All hands on deck for global, economic, corporate dictatorship.</p>
<p>There are dots to connect here. They’re real, and they’re spectacular.</p>
<p>Let me begin with a brief exchange from a 1978 interview, conducted…</p>
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<p></p>
<br />
<h1 class="article-title">The TPP, Monsanto, Rockefeller, Trilateral Commission, Brzezinski</h1>
<div class="byline-single"><span class="post-info single-meta-author"> </span><span class="post-info single-meta-date">05/30/2015</span></div>
<br />
<div class="entry-content"><p> All hands on deck for global, economic, corporate dictatorship.</p>
<p>There are dots to connect here. They’re real, and they’re spectacular.</p>
<p>Let me begin with a brief exchange from a 1978 interview, conducted by reporter Jeremiah Novak. He was speaking with two American members of the Trilateral Commission (TC), a group founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and his intellectual flunkey, Zbigniew Brzezinski. <span id="more-134032"></span></p>
<p>NOVAK: Yes, but why doesn’t President Carter come out with it and tell the American people that [US] economic and political power is being coordinated by a [Trilateral Commission] committee made up of Henry Owen and six others? After all, if [US] policy is being made on a multinational level, the people should know.</p>
<p>RICHARD COOPER [Trilateral Commission member]: President Carter and Secretary of State Vance have constantly alluded to this in their speeches.</p>
<p>KARL KAISER [Trilateral Commission member]: It just hasn’t become an issue.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0896081036/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0896081036&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwnomorefake-20" target="_blank"><em>“Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management,”</em></a> ed. by Holly Sklar, 1980. South End Press, Boston. Pages 192-3.</p>
<p>This through-the-looking-glass moment summed up the casual arrogance of Trilateral members: <em>of course</em> US government policy was in the hands of Trilateralists; what else would you expect?</p>
<p>US government policy most certainly covers the area of international trade—and Cooper and Kaiser were foreshadowing blockbuster trade treaties to come: e.g., NAFTA, GATT (which established the World Trade Organization), CAFTA, and now, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is being negotiated in secret among 12 nations responsible for a major amount of world trade and world GDP.</p>
<p><a href="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Brzezinski.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-47247" src="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Brzezinski-580x326.jpg" alt="Brzezinski" width="580" height="326"/></a></p>
<p>Here are two key Trilateral quotes that reflect this global outlook—by which I mean a world dominated by mega-corporations:</p>
<p><em>“The nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.”</em> — Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1969.</p>
<p>Brzezinski was <a href="https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/corporate-gods-obama-remember-why-we-hired-you-ram-the-tpp-through/" target="_blank">Obama’s foreign policy mentor</a> after Obama won the Presidency in 2008.</p>
<p>Any doubt on the question of Trilateral Commission goals is answered by David Rockefeller himself, the founder of the TC, in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-David-Rockefeller/dp/0812969731" target="_blank"><i>Memoirs</i></a> (2003):</p>
<p><em>“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”</em></p>
<p>“Integrated global political and economic structure” means: domination of populations via giant corporations.</p>
<p>Here is the payoff. The current US Trade Representative (appointed by Obama in 2013), who is responsible for negotiating the TPP with 11 other nations, <a href="http://nomorefakenews.com/dir666/tc-list-2011.pdf" target="_blank">is Michael Froman, a former member of the Trilateral Commission</a>. Don’t let the word “former” fool you. TC members resign when they take positions in the Executive Branch of government. And when they serve in vital positions, such as US Trade Representative, they aren’t there by accident. They’re TC operatives with a specific agenda.</p>
<p><a href="https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/a-fantasy-that-explains-globalism/" target="_blank">The TPP IS a major item on the Trilateral to-do list</a>. Make no mistake about it.</p>
<p>Let’s move along to Monsanto, one of those mega-corporations the Trilateralists fervently favor.</p>
<p>From 2001 to 2008, a man named Islam Siddiqui was a staunch US lobbyist for, and vice president of, CropLife America. Siddiqui represented Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta—the biggest and most aggressive biotech GMO corporations in the world.</p>
<p>On October 21, 2011, Siddiqui’s new appointment (by Obama) was confirmed. He became the federal government’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator, and served in that position until he resigned on December 12, 2013. During his tenure, Siddiqui, Monsanto’s man, was up to his ears in negotiating the TPP.</p>
<p>On April 22, 2009, Siddiqui had addressed the press in a US State Dept. briefing <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-gives-key-agriculture-post-to-monsanto-man/18499" target="_blank">disingenuously titled “Green Revolution”</a>:</p>
<p><em>“What we need now in the 21st century is another revolution… you would not do it just by conventional breeding. You need to have use of 21st century technologies, including biotechnology, genetic [GMO] technology… And these molecules, which are being used (inaudible), they are state-of-the-art technologies, using molecular biology. Especially in chemicals [pesticides], they have less harsh footprint on the environment, they are more green, in terms of the adverse effects and ecological effects. They are also tested more thoroughly.”</em></p>
<p>Siddiqui is a disinformation pro. For example, the most widely used pesticide in the world, deployed in conjunction with Monsanto’s GMO crops, was tested so “thoroughly” for safety <a href="https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/roundup-cancer-link-30000-doctorshealth-professionals-agree/" target="_blank">that it is now declared a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization</a>. You may have heard of it: Roundup.</p>
<p>Siddiqui’s tenure negotiating US interests in the TPP surely favored big biotech, and all the companies who make their living selling GMO crop-seeds and pesticides.</p>
<p>The predicted outcome of the TPP vis-à-vis GMOs? It’s obvious. Nations who resist the importation of GMO food crops will be sued, in private tribunals, for interfering with “free trade.”</p>
<p>This is the future writ large, unless the TPP is derailed.</p>
<p>Consider the local movement in Hawaii’s Maui County, where in the last election, citizens voted to block long-standing Monsanto/Dow experimentation with GMOs and their attendant pesticides, until an independent investigation could assess the health effects of those reckless open-air activities.</p>
<p>Monsanto immediately sued to suspend the force of the vote, successfully obtained an injunction, and the case has been hung up in federal court ever since.</p>
<p>Under the TPP, all successful local community actions against GMOs and their pesticides, anywhere in the 12-member countries, would be viewed per se as obstructions to free trade; and <a href="https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/nomorefakenews-exclusive-lawyers-emails-revealed-in-the-monsanto-vs-maui-lawsuit/" target="_blank">instead of engaging in a public and messy court battle</a>, corporations could simply sue (or threaten to sue) the offending member country in a private tribunal, automatically defeat the local communities, and win a cash judgment.</p>
<p>Attempts to label GMOs, and previous laws allowing labeling in various countries, could be arbitrarily canceled.</p>
<hr/><p>Consider the recent astounding action of US Trade Representatives in Europe. Using yet another disastrous trade treaty under negotiation, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), US Trade Reps pressured the European Union (EU) to modify its stance on pesticides.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/22/eu-dropped-pesticide-laws-due-to-us-pressure-over-ttip-documents-reveal" target="_blank">The Guardian (May 22, 2015) headline and tag says it all</a>:</p>
<p><em>“EU dropped pesticide laws due to US pressure over TTIP, documents show… US trade officials pushed EU to shelve action on endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility to facilitate TTIP free trade deal”.</em></p>
<p>Note: this repressive and criminal action didn’t even involve a treaty that had been ratified. The pressure was all about the so-called positive economic impact the TTIP would have, when passed, for Europe. And in the face of that money benefit, and the threat of its removal (by ditching the TTIP negotiations), who would dare curb the import and use of chemicals that achieve something as “minor” as disrupting human endocrine systems and causing male infertility and cancer?</p>
<p>This is the sort of judgment we can look forward to, if and when the TTP and the TTIP are ratified.</p>
<p><strong>This is the face of corporate Globalism. This is the face of the Globalist Trilateral Commission.</strong></p>
<p>Recently, US Senator Jeff Sessions broke the code of silence on what is in the forbidden-to-be-disclosed TPP Treaty. <a href="http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2015/5/sessions-sends-letter-to-obama-on-trade-pact-make-living-agreement-provision-public-before-fast-track-vote" target="_blank">His most pungent revelation concerned “living agreements.”</a>Thus giving new meaning to the term bait-and-switch.</p>
<p>Living agreements are arbitrary changes that can be made to the treaty, by Presidential fiat, without consulting Congress, after the treaty has been ratified.</p>
<p>That’s right. In other words, the treaty is the treaty until it isn’t, until it’s something more, something different, something worse, something that empowers mega-corporations to a greater degree than previously negotiated.</p>
<p>Because those corporations, those Monsantos and Dows and Syngentas, wouldn’t want to miss a trick, wouldn’t want to forego suddenly realizing how they can exert even more dominance, would they?</p>
<p>Barbara Chicherio offers a powerful clue about what’s to come if the TPP is ratified (<a href="http://occupy-monsanto.com/guest-post-trans-pacific-partnership-and-monsanto/" target="_blank">“Trans-Pacific Partnership and Monsanto,”</a> occupy-monsanto.com):</p>
<p><em>“Trade agreements have a history of displacing small farmers and destroying local food economies. Ten years following the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) 1.5 million Mexican farmers became bankrupt because they could not compete with the highly subsidized US corn entering the Mexican market.</em></p>
<p><em>“In the same 10 years Mexico went from a country virtually producing all of its own corn to a country that now imports at least half of this food staple. Mexican consumers are now paying higher prices for Monsanto’s GMO corn.”</em></p>
<p>It isn’t just GMOs. Suppose a US pharmaceutical company decides to export a new drug to Japan or Australia or Canada, all members of the TPP. And suppose the drug is highly toxic. And suppose the governments of those nations object. The US company could sue, win a huge $$ judgment, and force the export to go through anyway.</p>
<p>As I’ve written in previous articles, <a href="https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/what-law-says-the-text-of-the-tpp-must-remain-secret/" target="_blank">the details of the TPP negotiations and the text of the TPP are secret</a>. Government officials in the member nations are not allowed to know all the details of the treaty, nor are they permitted to reveal what they know to the public.</p>
<p>This is an oligarchic dictatorship of corporations on a global scale. Along with a purposeful dumb-show, played out by government officials: “I don’t even know much about what’s in the trade treaty. And if I did, I couldn’t tell you.” So far, Senator Sessions is the only exception.</p>
<p>Those people who still believe that One World United, delivered to us by the powers-that-be, will lead to a better life for all, need to put that fairy tale away and see the underlying framework and the underlying betrayal.</p>
<p>The Globalist/Trilateral Community aims to destroy the rights and power of all communities, and ultimately, destroy all people who still have a grip on the word freedom.</p>
<p>This is the grinning nightmare descending in the long night, professing to help us all, claiming to know the details of better living through chemistry, asserting that trade treaties couldn’t harm a flea…and television news assures us that, at worst, this is just another he-said he-said debate, nothing to worry about, be happy, march forward, eyes closed, mouths shut, mind quiet.</p>
<p>The author of three explosive collections, <a href="http://marketplace.mybigcommerce.com/the-matrix-revealed-vol-1-cd-by-jon-rappoport-mega-info/" target="_blank">THE MATRIX REVEALED</a>, <a href="http://marketplace.mybigcommerce.com/exit-from-the-matrix/" target="_blank">EXIT FROM THE MATRIX</a>, and<a href="http://marketplace.mybigcommerce.com/power-outside-the-matrix/" target="_blank">POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX</a>, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29<sup>th</sup> District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails <a href="http://j.mp/1HvKCU1" target="_blank">here</a>or his OutsideTheRealityMachine emails <a href="http://j.mp/1SfPuzL" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/the-tpp-monsanto-rockefeller-trilateral-commission-brzezinski/134032#more-134032" target="_blank">Jon Rappoport</a></p>
</div> The 10 biggest lies you’ve been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnershiptag:12160.info,2015-05-15:2649739:Topic:15578212015-05-15T22:26:50.197ZCentral Scrutinizerhttps://12160.info/profile/H0llyw00d
<h1>The 10 biggest lies you’ve been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnership</h1>
<p>Iron Sheik</p>
<p>Today, the Senate;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/us/politics/obama-pushing-skeptical-legislators-hard-on-pacific-trade-deal.html" target="_blank">makes a critical test vote</a> on the Obama Administration’s trade agenda, kicking off a process that the White House hopes to end with the signing of an agreement between 12 nations called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In preparation…</p>
<h1>The 10 biggest lies you’ve been told about the Trans-Pacific Partnership</h1>
<p>Iron Sheik</p>
<p>Today, the Senate;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/us/politics/obama-pushing-skeptical-legislators-hard-on-pacific-trade-deal.html" target="_blank">makes a critical test vote</a> on the Obama Administration’s trade agenda, kicking off a process that the White House hopes to end with the signing of an agreement between 12 nations called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In preparation for this vote, President Obama has been deliberately antagonizing his critics, mostly liberal Democrats. Senator Elizabeth Warren is “a politician, like everybody else,” <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-obama-is-happy-to-fight-elizabeth-warren-on-118537612596.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma" target="_blank">Obama said Friday</a> to Yahoo News, who has “got a voice that she wants to get out there,” framing her concerns as insincere self-aggrandizement. Those concerns, Obama added, are “absolutely wrong.”</p>
<div class="entry-content"><p>This is not the first time that <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-obama-is-happy-to-fight-elizabeth-warren-on-118537612596.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma" target="_blank">Obama</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/obama-aides-elizabeth-warren-trade-117703.html#ixzz3ZSRazWOo" target="_blank">his aides</a> have depicted opposition on trade as deliberate misinformation designed to stir up a left-leaning political base, or generate campaign contributions; my favorite is the claim that Warren is merely trying to energize a non-existent <a href="http://runwarrenrun.org/" target="_blank">Presidential campaign</a>.</p>
<p>It’s beneath the dignity of the Presidency to so aggressively paint opponents as not just wrong on the facts, but hiding the truth on purpose. Warren <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/11/elizabeth-warren-fires-back-at-obama-heres-what-theyre-really-fighting-about/" target="_blank">has responded</a> without using the same indecorous tactics. Unfortunately, I don’t have the same self-control. So by way of response, here are ten moments where the President or his subordinates have lied – call it “misled” or “offered half-truths” or whatever; but I’m in an ornery mood so let’s just say lied – about his trade agenda:</p>
<p>1. <strong>40 PERCENT</strong>: The President and his team have repeatedly described TPP as a deal involving <a href="https://ustr.gov/tpp/overview-of-the-TPP" target="_blank">nearly 40 percent of global GDP</a>. This tells only part of the story. First of all, the U.S. by itself represents 22 percent of global GDP; a bill naming a post office would involve that much. Second, we already have free trade agreements with six TPP partners – Canada, Mexico, Australia, Singapore, Chile and Peru – and between them and us, that’s 80 percent of the total GDP in this deal. The vast majority of the rest is represented by Japan, where the average applied tariff is a skinny 1.2 percent, per the <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TM.TAX.MRCH.WM.AR.ZS" target="_blank">World Bank</a>.</p>
<p>You can see this paragraph in graphic form <a href="http://daviddayen.tumblr.com/post/118708311201?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma" target="_blank">here</a>. The point is that saying TPP is about “40 percent of GDP” intimates that it would massively change the ability to export without tariffs. In reality it would have virtually no significance in opening new markets. To the extent that there’s a barrier in global trade today, it comes from <a href="http://ourfuture.org/20140622/what-is-currency-manipulation" target="_blank">currency manipulation</a> by countries wanting to keep their exports cheap. The TPP has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/11/the-strong-dollar-is-hurting-u-s-manufacturing-theres-a-lesson-in-there-for-the-tpp/" target="_blank">no currency provisions</a>.</p>
<p>2. <strong>JOB CREATION</strong>: Saying, as the White House has, that the deal would support “<a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/american-alliances-international-cooperation-by-john-f--kerry-2015-01#4bxmfbYemSPg1fzI.99" target="_blank">an additional 650,000 jobs</a>” is not true. This figure came from a hypothetical calculation of a <a href="http://bookstore.piie.com/book-store/6642.html" target="_blank">report</a> by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which the Institute itself said was an incorrect way to use their data. “We don’t believe that trade agreements change the labor force in the long run,” said Peter Petri, author of the report, in a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/01/30/the-obama-administrations-illusionary-job-gains-from-the-trans-pacific-partnership/" target="_blank">fact check</a> of the claim.</p>
<p>The deal is actually more about building up barriers than taking them down. Much of TPP is devoted to <a href="http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-problem-of-protectionism-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership" target="_blank">increasing copyright and patent protections</a> for prescription drugs and Hollywood media content. As economist <a href="http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-problem-of-protectionism-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership" target="_blank">Dean Baker</a> notes, this is protectionist, and will raise prices for drugs, movies and music here and abroad.</p>
<p>3. <strong>EXPORTS ONLY</strong>: The Administration constantly discusses trade as solely a question of U.S. exports. A recent <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/cea_trade_report_final_non-embargoed_v2.pdf" target="_blank">Council of Economic Advisors report</a> touts: Exporters pay higher wages, and export industry growth translates into higher average earnings. But the Economic Policy Institute points out that this <a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/cea-report-is-simply-not-that-relevant-to-current-trade-policy-debates/" target="_blank">ignores imports</a>, and therefore the <a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/first-quarter-gdp-likely-negative-trade-deficit-soars.html" target="_blank">ballooning trade deficit</a>, which weighs down economic growth and wages. Talking about trade without discussing both imports and exports is like relaying the score of a ballgame by saying “Dodgers 4.” It is literally a half-truth. Recent trade deals have in fact <a href="http://www.brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/brown-statement-following-presidents-visit-to-nike-facility" target="_blank">increased the trade deficit</a>, such as the agreement with South Korea. Senator Sherrod Brown notes that the deal has only increased exports by $1 billion since 2011, while increasing imports by $12 billion, costing America 75,000 jobs.</p>
<p>4. <strong>MOST PROGRESSIVE</strong>: Obama has called TPP “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/28/politics/obama-abe-trade-trans-pacific-partnership/" target="_blank">the most progressive trade deal in history</a>.” First of all, so did <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121670/obamas-tpp-arguments-mimic-gores-nafta-defense" target="_blank">Bill Clinton and Al Gore</a>, when talking about NAFTA in 1993. Second, there’s reason to believe TPP doesn’t even clear a low bar for progressive trade deals. The Sierra Club, based on a leaked TPP environmental chapter, said that the <a href="http://action.sierraclub.org/site/DocServer/TPP_Enviro_Analysis.pdf?docID=14842" target="_blank">deal is weaker</a> than <a href="https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/factsheets/2007/asset_upload_file127_11319.pdf">the landmark “May 10 agreement”</a> for deals with Peru, Panama and Colombia, struck in 2007. Key Democrats who devised labor and environmental standards for those agreements, like Rep. Sander Levin, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-sander-/an-open-letter-to-progres_b_7257776.html" target="_blank">believe</a> that TPP falls short. Even if the chapters were up to par, consistent <a href="http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/05/10/op-ed-lets-see-a-trans-pacific-partnership-that-respects-workers-rights" target="_blank">lack of enforcement</a> of the rules makes them ineffective. The U.S. Trade Representative has actually claimed the Colombia free trade agreement is positive because only one trade unionist in the country is being <a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/u-s-trade-rep-office-helpfully-explains-28-trade-unionists-murdered-colombia-last-year.html" target="_blank">murdered every other week</a>. Labor groups can only ask the White House to enforce labor rights violations, and for the past several years, the Administration <a href="http://www.ticotimes.net/2015/05/10/op-ed-lets-see-a-trans-pacific-partnership-that-respects-workers-rights" target="_blank">simply hasn’t</a>. So when Obama says violators of TPP will face “meaningful consequences,” based on the Administration’s prior enforcement, he’s lying.</p>
<p>5. <strong>CHANGING LAWS</strong>: On the controversial topic of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), where corporations can sue sovereign governments for monetary damages for violating trade agreements that hurt the company’s “expected future profits,” the White House has engaged in a shell game. They <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/05/08/obama_democratic_critics_of_free_trade_policy_are_wrong.html" target="_blank">say</a>, “No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.” But the point of a corporation suing the United States or any trade partner is to put enough financial pressure on a government to force them to alter the law themselves. So ISDS doesn’t “cause” a change in law only in the narrowest sense. Even third-party countries have curtailed regulations in reaction to ISDS rulings, as <a href="http://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2015/03/investor-state-dispute-settlement-rule-of-law-or-law-of-the-jungle/" target="_blank">New Zealand did</a> with their cigarette packaging law, awaiting the outcome of a dispute between the tobacco industry and Australia (a <a href="http://doaneline.com/opinion/article_3d66aa66-b7da-11e4-9dce-8f3f114c5b69.html" target="_blank">suit that continues</a> despite an initial victory for Australia).</p>
<p>6. <strong>NEVER LOST</strong>: The White House assumes that the only thing America cares about with ISDS is the upsetting of our own laws. So they’ve stressed that the U.S. has <a href="http://www.railrode.net/wp-admin/v" target="_blank">never lost an ISDS case</a>. This is irrelevant. What ISDS does is offer bailout insurance policy to multinational corporations. If they run into discrimination or regulatory squeezing by a foreign government, they can use an extra-judicial process to recoup their investment. Workers screwed over by trade agreements have no ability to sue governments; only corporations get this privilege.</p>
<p>The United States attracts businesses through our relative rule of law. When that insurance is granted to countries like Vietnam and Malaysia, it weakens our competitive advantage, and makes it simple for countries to outsource their operations. Their investment is protected, as is their ability to exploit cheap labor. This makes it impossible for America to compete.</p>
<p>7. <strong>WEAKENING DODD-FRANK</strong>: Obama reacted strongly to Senator Warren’s charge that a future President could overturn financial regulations or other rules through trade deals. “I’d have to be pretty stupid,” <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-obama-is-happy-to-fight-elizabeth-warren-on-118537612596.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma" target="_blank">Obama told Yahoo News</a>, to “sign a provision that would unravel” signature achievements like Dodd-Frank. I suppose he is, then, because modern trade agreements often seek to “harmonize” regulations, effectively setting a regulatory ceiling. This harmonization could, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/11/elizabeth-warren-fires-back-at-obama-heres-what-theyre-really-fighting-about/" target="_blank">as Warren says</a>, “punch holes in Dodd-Frank without directly repealing it,” by forcing regulators to roll back capital or leverage requirements.</p>
<p>European negotiators want a trade agreement with the U.S. called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to include a chapter “harmonizing” financial regulations. So far the Obama Administration has rejected this, while admitting the potential for regulatory harm. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/obama-aides-elizabeth-warren-trade-117703.html" target="_blank">told Congress</a> in December 2013, “Normally in a trade agreement, the pressure is to lower standards” on regulations, “and that’s something that we just think is not acceptable.” A future President might find it acceptable, and today’s vote on “fast-track” authority would give trade deals an expedited process, with no amendments or filibusters by Congress, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-05/warren-says-dodd-frank-will-be-casualty-of-fast-track-trade-bill?cmpid=yhoo" target="_blank">for six years</a>, outlasting the current Administration. Scott Walker or Jeb Bush may decide it’s perfectly appropriate to undermine regulations in trade deals.</p>
<p><a href="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Leaders_of_TPP_member_states.jpg"><img class=" size-medium wp-image-39940 aligncenter" src="http://govtslaves.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Leaders_of_TPP_member_states-580x294.jpg" alt="Leaders_of_TPP_member_states" width="580" height="294"/></a></p>
<p>8. <strong>STOPPING CHINA</strong>: President Obama frequently casts TPP as a way to “contain” China. “If we don’t write the rules for trade around the world, guess what, China will,” <a href="http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/08/obama-says-trade-deal-lets-us-write-the-rules-not-china/26970847/" target="_blank">he said on Friday</a>. This is so facile as to be totally meaningless. China is a major Pacific Rim economy, and will have a presence regardless of our actions. As former Clinton Defense Department official Chas Freeman <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/why-tpp-is-high-risk-low-reward-117658.html#.VVDpjFbTEpH" target="_blank">writes</a>, “China has been and will remain an inseparable part of China’s success story.” Plus, as <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/04/21/obamas_deal_with_the_devil_the_dangerous_treaty_that_has_him_teaming_with_the_gop/" target="_blank">I’ve written in Salon</a>, weak “rule of origin” guidelines could allow China to import goods into TPP member countries without any tariffs, while freed from following any TPP regulations.</p>
<p>9. <strong>SECRET DEAL</strong>: Obama has angrily dismissed the notion that TPP is a “secret” deal, saying that everyone will have public access to the TPP text for at least 60 days before a final vote. This is not the point opponents are making. The vote on fast track would severely limit Congressional input into the deal. And right now, members of Congress can <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/secrecy-eroding-support-for-trade-pact-critics-say-117581.html#ixzz3ZAKixRFj" target="_blank">only see the text in a secure room</a>, without being able to bring staffers or take notes, or even talk about specifics in public. That makes the deal effectively secret during the fast track vote. “The president has only committed to letting the public see this deal after Congress votes to authorize fast track,” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/05/11/elizabeth-warren-fires-back-at-obama-heres-what-theyre-really-fighting-about/" target="_blank">Warren told Greg Sargent</a>. The President wants to filibuster-proof the bill in secret, then employ pretend transparency on TPP after that.</p>
<p>10. <strong>JUST A POLITICIAN</strong>: This idea from Obama that everybody opposing fast-track is acting like a mere “politician,” aside from demonizing the concept of representing constituents, neglects the fact that he’s a politician too. His interest in building a legacy, when practically nothing else has the potential to pass Congress the next two years, is a political interest. His possible interest in rewarding campaign contributors who would benefit from TPP is also political, or his desire to earn the respect of the Very Serious People who always support trade deals. Since Obama has a large platform and will not <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/us/politics/obama-calls-elizabeth-warren-absolutely-wrong-on-trans-pacific-trade-deal.html?_r=0" target="_blank">publicly debate any opponent</a> on trade, he can float above it all, acting like a principled soul only wanting to better the country rather than a transactional <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_heeler" target="_blank">ward heeler</a>. This may be the biggest lie, that Obama’s somehow superior to everyone else in this debate.</p>
<p><a href="http://govtslaves.info/the-10-biggest-lies-youve-been-told-about-the-trans-pacific-partnership/" target="_blank">STORY</a></p>
</div> The Trans-Pacific Partnership Will "Significantly" Restrict Online Freedomstag:12160.info,2014-03-21:2649739:Topic:14373322014-03-21T23:58:22.180ZTarahttps://12160.info/profile/Tara
<p>In October, Senate Finance Committee chairmen Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Max Baucus <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/congress-could-shut-public-out-of-internet-regulation-treaty-talks" target="_blank">called on Congress to fast-track legislation</a> that would give President Obama's trade representative, Michael Froman, power to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a broad-reaching, …</p>
<p>In October, Senate Finance Committee chairmen Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Max Baucus <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/congress-could-shut-public-out-of-internet-regulation-treaty-talks" target="_blank">called on Congress to fast-track legislation</a> that would give President Obama's trade representative, Michael Froman, power to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a broad-reaching, <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/congress-could-shut-public-out-of-internet-regulation-treaty-talks" target="_blank">secretive</a> trade agreement that, among other things, would <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-a-free-trade-agreement-aims-to-regulate-the-internet" target="_blank">create new internet regulations</a> that concern open internet activists.</p>
<p>Today, 25 tech companies, including Reddit, Automattic (WordPress.com), Imgur, and Boing Boing, sent an <a href="http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/letter/" target="_blank">open letter</a> to Sen. Ron Wyden urging him to oppose any form of a TPP fast track.</p>
<p>After thanking Sen. Wyden for his staunch defense of "users and online rights," and congratulating him on his appointment as Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, the coalition wrote, "These highly secretive, supranational agreements are reported to include provisions that vastly expand on any reasonable definition of 'trade,' including provisions that impact patents, copyright, and privacy in ways that constrain legitimate online activity and innovation." </p>
<p>Of particular concern to tech companies are Froman's copyright enforcement proposals. "Dozens of digital rights organizations and tens of thousands of individuals have raised alarm over provisions that would bind treaty signatories to inflexible digital regulations that undermine free speech," they wrote. "Based on the fate of recent similar measures, it is virtually certain that such proposals would face serious scrutiny if proposed at the domestic level or via a more transparent process."</p>
<p>"Anticipated elements such as harsher criminal penalties for minor, non-commercial copyright infringements, a 'take-down and ask questions later' approach to pages and content alleged to breach copyright, and the possibility of Internet providers having to disclose personal information to authorities without safeguards for privacy will chill innovation and significantly restrict users' freedoms online," they added.</p>
<p>As noted in Motherboard's <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/congress-could-shut-public-out-of-internet-regulation-treaty-talks" target="_blank">past TPP coverage</a>, Congress has the constitutional power to debate trade agreements. In the fast tracked TPP negotiations, Congress would be shut out, as would stakeholders and the individuals who actually helped build the internet's infrastructure. Diplomats, politicians, and select corporations would instead secretly settle on the language and regulations contained in the trade agreement. </p>
<blockquote><h3 style="font-size: 18pt;"><em>"You know that legislation is really, really bad when it's opposed by major tech companies as well as nearly every labor, environmental, and Internet freedom group in the country."</em></h3>
<p><em>More Here: <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-trans-pacific-partnership-will-significantly-restrict-online-freedoms">http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-trans-pacific-partnership-will-significantly-restrict-online-freedoms</a></em></p>
</blockquote> Obama Sells Out Our Environment for a Trade Deal - TPP - and Unfettered Rights to Corporationstag:12160.info,2014-01-18:2649739:Topic:13953042014-01-18T10:35:51.143Z14300https://12160.info/profile/14300
<p class="meta">Jan 15, 2014</p>
<h1>Obama Sells Out Our Environment for a Trade Deal - TPP - and Unfettered Rights to Corporations</h1>
<address class="byline"><a href="http://www.thewire.com/authors/danielle-wiener-bronner/"><span><span>Danielle Wiener-Bronner…</span></span></a></address>
<p class="meta">Jan 15, 2014</p>
<h1>Obama Sells Out Our Environment for a Trade Deal - TPP - and Unfettered Rights to Corporations</h1>
<address class="byline"><a href="http://www.thewire.com/authors/danielle-wiener-bronner/"><span><span>Danielle Wiener-Bronner</span></span></a><a class="facebook-share-button vertical" href="https://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?%20app_id=192759427473466&display=popup&link=http%3A//www.thewire.com/global/2014/01/obama-trades-environment-trade-deal/357026/&redirect_uri=http%3A//www.thewire.com/global/2014/01/obama-trades-environment-trade-deal/357026/"> </a></address>
<p class="facebook"><a href="http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/01/obama-trades-environment-trade-deal/357026/">http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/01/obama-trades-environment-trade-deal/357026/</a></p>
<p><img title="Obama Trades the Environment for a Trade Deal" alt="Image REUTERS/Dado Ruvic" src="http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/upload/wire/2014/01/15/RTX16PS2/lead_large.jpg"/> A woman walks during heavy smog in the central Bosnian town of Kakanj, December 20, 2013. <span class="credit">( REUTERS/DADO RUVIC)</span><br/><br/></p>
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<div class="content"><p>The Obama administration could be selling out environmental protections in order to cement a complex international trade deal, according to new documents revealed on Wednesday by WikiLeaks. <span style="line-height: 1.66em;">Today, the whistle-blowing organization published the Environment Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a bilateral agreement that has been in the works since 2010 — confirming critics' fears that the plan will be bad news for the planet. </span></p>
<img alt="" src="http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/2014/01/tpp/96bbd2e74.png"/>via <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P-4_Countries_162E.svg">Wikimedia Commons</a>.<br/>
<p>The TPP <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/12/11/qa-explaining-the-trans-pacific-partnership-talks/?KEYWORDS=TPP">would establish a trade agreement</a> between 12 countries — the U.S., Japan and a number of other Pacific Rim nations<span>.</span></p>
<p><span>An expansion of the 2005 </span>Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, the TPP aims to promote free trade between more nations in a move that would ideally boost each country's economy.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The trade negotiations were cloaked in secrecy, however, until WikiLeaks published the deal's Intellectual Property chapter back in November.</strong></span></p>
<p>At the time, IT specialists voiced concern that the provisions would boost corporate interests over individual rights, much like the disputed anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA that <a href="http://www.thewire.com/technology/2012/01/senate-caves-pipa-delaying-vote/47654/">were ultimately shut down</a>. </p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Now, WikiLeaks has unveiled the proposed environmental chapter, and says the Obama Administration's environmental demands are weak: </strong></span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.66em;">When compared against other TPP chapters, the Environment Chapter is noteworthy for its absence of mandated clauses or meaningful enforcement measures.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.66em;">The dispute settlement mechanisms it creates are cooperative instead of binding; <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>there are no required</strong> <strong>penalties and no proposed criminal sanctions.</strong></span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.66em;">With the exception of fisheries, trade in 'environmental' goods and the disputed inclusion of other multilateral agreements, the Chapter appears to function as a public relations exercise.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program director Ilana Solomon told</strong> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/politics/administration-is-seen-as-retreating-on-environment-in-talks-on-pacific-trade.html"><em>The New York Times</em></a> that the draft deal, if confirmed, would undo environmental protections enacted by the U.S.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Solomon said, "it rolls back key standards set by Congress to ensure that the environment chapters are legally enforceable, in the same way the commercial parts of free-trade agreements are." </strong></span></p>
<p><span>According to the <em>Times</em>, the draft agreement is different from other recent international trade deals <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>because the language used in the</strong> <strong>environmental section is not legally binding.</strong></span></span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Since 2007's "May 10 Agreement" between Senate Democrats and George W. Bush, free-trade deals have included strict environmental provisions</strong></span>.</span></p>
<p><span>Regulators say this round is different because because a bilateral trade among 12 countries is, naturally, more complicated than a two-way deal. The <em>Times </em>reports:</span></p>
<blockquote><p class="story-body-text story-content">The report indicates that the United States has been pushing for tough environmental provisions, particularly legally binding language that would provide for sanctions against participating countries for environmental violations.</p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The United States is also insisting that the nations follow existing global environmental treaties. <span style="line-height: 1.66em;">But many of those proposals </span>are opposed by most or all of the other Pacific Rim nations</strong></span><span style="line-height: 1.66em;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong> working on the deal, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Peru</strong></span>.</span></p>
<p class="story-body-text story-content"><strong><span style="line-height: 1.66em;">Developing Asian countries, in particular, have long resisted outside efforts to enforce strong environmental controls, arguing that they could hurt their growing economies. </span></strong></p>
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<p><strong>Environmental groups had suspected that the chapter would be problematic.</strong></p>
<p><strong>The <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement.aspx">Sierra Club warned on its website</a> that the fact that the TPP had been developing under wraps was a red flag, noting that <span style="text-decoration: underline;">the public has been shut out of important decisions: "</span></strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>600 corporate advisors have access to the negotiating text while the public — even Members of Congress — are being kept in the dark</strong>."</span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Specifically, the Sierra Club feared the TPP would give "UNFETTETRED RIGHTS TO CORPORATIONS" and promote fracking:</strong></span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The TPP may allow for significantly increased exports of liquefied natural gas without the careful study or adequate protections necessary to safeguard the American public.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>This would mean an increase of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the dirty and violent process that dislodges gas deposits from shale rock formations.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>It would also likely cause an increase in natural gas and electricity prices, impacting consumers, manufacturers, workers, and increasing the use of dirty coal power.</strong></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>The WikiLeaks document shows that the U.S. is easing up on pollution and logging regulations, and walking back opposition to the controversial shark-finning practice, in which poachers mine sharks for their fins and leave them in the ocean to die.</strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The weakened environmental standards may be pushed through as Obama scrambles to close the deal</span>, which officials had hoped would be completed by 2013, as part of an Asia pivot designed to show America's commitment to the continent. </strong></p>
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<h3 class="content">Related</h3>
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<li><a class="related-link" href="http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/01/warped-world-map-shows-global-warmings-biggest-offenders/357145/">This Warped World Map Shows Global Warming's Biggest Offenders</a></li>
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