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Robert Kuttner: Trade Deals from Hell
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/trade-deals-from-hell_b_5705929.htmlThe latest reports from Europe indicate that the continent is slipping back into recession. The U.S. is doing only slightly better, with positive economic growth but scant progress on the jobs front, and no growth in the earnings of the vast majority of Americans.
Meanwhile, global climate change continues to worsen, producing unprecedented policy conundrums of how to reconcile the very survival of the planet with improved living standards for the world's impoverished billions and for most Americans, whose real incomes have declined since the year 2000.
Amid all of these serious challenges, what common strategies are top U.S. and European leaders pursuing? Why, a new trade and investment deal modeled on NAFTA, to make it harder for governments to regulate capitalism.
The proposed deal, known as T-TIP (for Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) would define well-established domestic policies as illegitimate restraints of "trade," including protections of workers, the environment, public health, and regulation of finance.
T-TIP reverts to the pre-Depression assumption that laissez-faire is the norm and any attempt to tame market forces is illegitimate. You would expect the far-right to propose this sort of end-run around national democracy, but center-left governments of Europe and North America are actively promoting T-TIP. That speaks volumes about who sets policy agendas.
These deals began in the early 1990s with NAFTA and its more recent spawn (supported by both the Bush and Clinton administrations), and also include a proposed Pacific trade and investment deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Meanwhile, global climate change continues to worsen, producing unprecedented policy conundrums of how to reconcile the very survival of the planet with improved living standards for the world's impoverished billions and for most Americans, whose real incomes have declined since the year 2000.
Amid all of these serious challenges, what common strategies are top U.S. and European leaders pursuing? Why, a new trade and investment deal modeled on NAFTA, to make it harder for governments to regulate capitalism.
The proposed deal, known as T-TIP (for Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) would define well-established domestic policies as illegitimate restraints of "trade," including protections of workers, the environment, public health, and regulation of finance.
T-TIP reverts to the pre-Depression assumption that laissez-faire is the norm and any attempt to tame market forces is illegitimate. You would expect the far-right to propose this sort of end-run around national democracy, but center-left governments of Europe and North America are actively promoting T-TIP. That speaks volumes about who sets policy agendas.
These deals began in the early 1990s with NAFTA and its more recent spawn (supported by both the Bush and Clinton administrations), and also include a proposed Pacific trade and investment deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
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