Fast Track to a Bad Deal

[n2doc]

A beast of a trade pact is lumbering, claws outstretched, towards American small business owners, consumers and workers, and it’s not clear if anyone can stop it. The beast is called the “Trans Pacific Partnership” or TPP.

Behind the lofty language of partnership, and the stated goal of stimulating trade worldwide, it aims to strengthen multinationals at the expense of nearly everyone else. Most importantly, and most dangerously, the pact undermines the power of governments everywhere to encourage local entrepreneurship, protect consumer health and assets, and preserve clean air and water.

The Trans Pacific Partnership has been negotiated largely in secret by representatives from major multinational corporations. No drafts have been released. Involvement by the U.S. government has been closely-held, even though Congress must ultimately vote on the treaty. Only the Obama administration’s Office of the U.S. Trade Representative knows the details. Even your senator or representative has little insight and less input into the discussions.

The pact threatens our economic security in two ways. The first threat involves the particulars contained in it, which have not been officially disclosed (but portions have been leaked). It's a grab-bag of special interest provisions: Pharmaceutical companies want greater leverage to prevent third world countries from making affordable generic drugs. Content companies — the media giants — want to extend copyright provisions out to 120 years in some cases. Tobacco companies want to limit countries’ ability to run anti-smoking campaigns. (For more info on such issues, see my earlier posts on the pact here and here.)

more

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2015/02/17/fast-track-for-the-trans-pacific-partnership-is-a-bad-deal

[WillyT]

1. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[djean111]

2. Another rec - it is disheartening to this this POS will be defended merely because Hillary

had a hand in it.

[n2doc]

3. Well, our president supports it too

And I think I see more people influenced by that then by HRC's support. Unfortunately. See the poll results in the linked article. Does anyone think that a majority of dems would support this POS if Romney were president?

[djean111]

4. I don't mention Obama because his support, while malodorous, is something that we cannot

do anything about. He doesn't care, really, what the 99% think about it. And he doesn't need money/votes from the 99% any more, either.

It is Hillary's input to the TPP and her enthusiasm about it (not talking about it lately, of course) that prevent me from supporting her. I was a fan when she ran against Obama. I voted for her then, in the primary. Now - nope.

Judging from the opinions that Grayson and Warren and Sanders have about the TTP, I find it hard to think the rest of the Dems would support this POS if Romney were president. Except for the DINOs, of course. LOTS of them oozing around.

[Hoyt]

5. More hyperbole. Obama does not support a bad deal, but he does recognize we need to be involved

in trade agreements. He won't get fast-track in all likelihood. We'll have plenty of opportunity to read it and decide when the final agreement is reached, if it is even finalized. Congress will too.

I'm still convinced Obama will not endorse a final agreement that sells us down the river. I know there are plenty who thought he'd gut Social Security, push the pipeline, work against net neutrality, etc., but he hasn't.

I believe him when he responded to Matt Yglesias the other day by saying:

"Where Americans have a legitimate reason to be concerned is that in part this rise has taken place on the backs of an international system in which China wasn't carrying its own weight or following the rules of the road and we were, and in some cases we got the short end of the stick. This is part of the debate that we're having right now in terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal that, you know, we've been negotiating. There are a lot of people who look at the last 20 years and say, 'Why would we want another trade deal that hasn't been good for American workers? It allowed outsourcing of American companies locating jobs in low-wage China and then selling it back to Walmart. And, yes, we got cheaper sneakers, but we also lost all our jobs.'"

"And my argument is two-fold. Number one: precisely because that horse is out of the barn, the issue we're trying to deal with right now is, can we make for a higher bar on labor, on environmental standards, et cetera, in that region and write a set of rules where it's fairer, because right now it's not fair, and if you want to improve it, that means we need a new trading regime. We can't just rely on the old one because the old one isn't working for us."

"But the second reason it's important is because the countries we're negotiating with are the same countries that China is trying to negotiate with. And if we don't write the rules out there, China's going to write the rules. And the geopolitical implications of China writing the rules for trade or maritime law or any kind of commercial activity almost inevitably means that we will be cut out or we will be deeply disadvantaged. Our businesses will be disadvantaged, our workers will be disadvantaged. So when I hear, when I talk to labor organizations, I say, right now, we've been hugely disadvantaged. Why would we want to maintain the status quo? If we can organize a new trade deal in which a country like Vietnam for the first time recognizes labor rights and those are enforceable, that's a big deal. It doesn't mean that we're still not going to see wage differentials between us and them, but they're already selling here for the most part. And what we have the opportunity to do is to set long-term trends that keep us in the game in a place that we've got to be. . . . . . ."

http://www.vox.com/a/barack-obama-interview-vox-conversation/obama-foreign-policy-transcript

Again, I'll wait till there is something formal to review. Merely wanting to see if one can negotiate an agreement that helps us and other countries is not a conspiracy, especially when those other countries have to approve it too.

[JEB]

6. Corporate multi nationals

have shit in the soup too many times. I ain't gonna eat it.

[Populist_Prole]

7. K&R. This is bad bad bad and must be stopped

Doing nothing is better than doing something bad.

Good news is if they don't get "fast track", it likely won't pass due to deserved scrutiny.

[pampango]

8. Outside of Washington only liberal Democrats support 'fast track'.

And only Democrats think TPP is a good thing.