Friday, May 31, 2013

The Trans Pacific Partnership a blow to democracy.



It's time to get the word out on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade agreement that is being negotiated by representative of 12 Pacific Rim countries including the United States.  But describing  it this way doesn't quite do justice to the anti-democratic nature of this type of trade agreement. The so-called representatives are not elected they are appointed, their meetings are secret and in addition to the government official involved representatives from more than 600 corporations are there to help write the rules of the new economy . Without public conversation about the potential trade agreement and its negotiations they become even more secretive.

Like a variety of trade agreements before it, again for  this one the negotiators are pushing for Congress to grant fast track authority to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). This would mean that once an agreement was reached it would be brought to Congress for an up or down vote, no negotiations. When 11 other countries all agree to enter into a trade agreement the peer pressure on Congress gets intense. 

Trade watchdogs see the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) an attempt to take up where the World Trade Organization (WTO) failed. Just a reminder about why and how the World Trade Organization talks came to a stand still: In 1999 the WTO met in Seattle, and it encountered streets filled with demonstrations. Seemingly out of nowhere, but really built from long campaigns of hard work by small grassroots organizations across the country, thousands of labor, environmental and human rights activist took to the streets of Seattle to critique the process and the product that was being proposed. Things got heated up and cops with tear gas and nightsticks made it onto the news this gave smaller and poorer countries the courage to stand up to Bill Clinton and the rest of the corporate globalist. Although future talks tried to avoid American shores, the wind and the will had been taken out of the WTO sails.

After trade talks by the World Trade Organization stalled the United States government decided to pursue smaller trade agreements, a number of bilateral agreements were reached. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) moves beyond bilateral agreements to a broader framework. What only two years ago was nine country now is 12. More countries are interested in joining. As a larger agreement, its impact promises to be more ominous than those of the smaller bilateral free trade accords. We would be right to be suspicious of the economic claims that advocates for such trade agreements make. The North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA was supposed to create jobs, but evaluations of the economic effects of NAFTA showed that the trend was in the opposite, job loss in the United States and job loss in Mexico.

Beyond the economic concerns, the broader issue is that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)poses tremendous threats to our already shakey democracy. Local laws can become subordinate to demands of international corporations through trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). We saw this with NAFTA as Canada and Mexico had the opportunity to challenge any law that they found to be a barrier to free trade. The classic example was a case where California had band a particularly toxic fuel additive that was showing up in the environment, unfortunately the maker of the additive was a Canadian corporation, by the rules of NAFTA the Corporation was able to sue California and overturn this law as a barrier to free trade.

In Michigan progressives are well aware that emergency manager law usurps democratic power and we see the results of this amounting to the undermining of workers’ rights, and a sellout of public assets. So-called free trade agreements, are even more antidemocratic emergency manager law undermines democracy one town at a time, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) promises to do that for 12 or more countries all at once. So far this agreement has mostly maintained secrecy and invisibility. It's time to bring it out of the shadows.  We need to see it, critique it, and prevent it.  The fact that it hasn't gotten more visibility is reflective of a media that is under strict corporate control. But that means it’s up to us to get the word out. It’s up to us to hold on to our democracy, to build it stronger.

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