How Two Secretive Global Trade Deals Will Further Enrich the American Elite

From Al Jazeera English via AlterNet:

www.alternet.org...

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) and the US-European Union "Free Trade" Agreement are be negoitatied in secret. While I am no free-market yahoo, I do think these types of Trade Agreements (Nafta) are little more then legal cover to predatory business practises.

Some quote that I hope will encourage more interest.

The deals in questions, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP [4]) and the US-European Union "Free Trade" Agreement [5] are both being pushed as major openings to trade that will increase growth and create jobs. In fact, eliminating trade restrictions is a relatively small part of both agreements, since most tariffs and quotas have already been sharply reduced or eliminated.

Rather, these deals are about securing regulatory gains for major corporate interests. In some cases, such as increased patent and copyright protection, these deals are 180 degrees at odds with free trade. They are about increasing protectionist barriers.

All the arguments that trade economists make against tariffs and quotas apply to patent and copyright protection. The main difference is the order of magnitude. Tariffs and quotas might raise the price of various items by 20 or 30 percent. By contrast, patent and copyright protection is likely to raise the price of protected items 2,000 percent or even 20,000 percent above the free market price. Drugs that would sell for a few dollars per prescription in a free market would sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars when the government gives a drug company a patent monopoly.

There are also a wide variety of regulatory issues that are being pursued through these agreements in large part because there would be difficulty getting them accepted through the normal political process. For example, the sort of government mandated internet policing that was part of the shipwrecked Stop Online Piracy Act [6] is likely to reappear in one or both agreements.

And Most Important:

These are the sorts of restrictions that may appear in the TPP and US-EU Free Trade Agreement. The reason for using tentative language is that none of the specifics of the deal have yet been made public. The Obama administration is negotiating these pacts in secret. It has made almost nothing about the negotiating process public and has shared none of the proposed text with the relevant committees in Congress (Public Citizen [7] has posted information on the TPP based on leaked documents).

Incredibly, it has shared portions of the proposed TPP with the relevant industry groups. While elected representatives in Congress may not be able to find out anything about proposed rules on drug patents or restrictions on fracking, Pfizer and Merck will have the opportunity to weigh in on patent rules and the major oil and gas companies will help to draft language on fracking that serves their interests.

The idea is that once a deal is completed there will be enormous political pressure for Congress to approve it no matter what it contains. In addition to the campaign contributions that supporters of the deals will get from the special interest groups who stand to benefit, news outlets like the Washington Post will use both their news and opinion sections to bash members of Congress who oppose a deal. They will be endlessly portrayed as ignorant Neanderthals who do not understand economics.

reply to post by FyreByrd


When you’re doing something that wouldn’t pass the smell test you’re forced to do it secretively. This agreement certainly smells bad.

And Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Trade Watch, was quoted:

The dirty little secret about [the negotiation] is that it is not mainly about trade, but rather would target for elimination the strongest consumer, health, safety, privacy, environmental and other public interest policies on either side of the Atlantic.

The starkest evidence ... is the plan for it to include the infamous investor-state system that empowers individual corporations and investors to skirt domestic courts and laws and drag signatory governments to foreign tribunals.

link

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “free trade” agreement is a stealthy policy being pressed by corporate America, a dream of the 1 percent, that in one blow could:

*offshore millions of American jobs
*free the banksters from oversight,
*ban Buy America policies needed to create green jobs and rebuild our economy,
*decrease access to medicine,
*flood the U.S. with unsafe food and products,
*and empower corporations to attack our environmental and health safeguards

link

Where is the MSM? Why aren't they exposing the details? And why is Obama the biggest cheerleader for this agreement??

The biggest and dirtiest war going on in the world is the war againstYOU being waged by the corporate entities.
They will stop at nothing to gain control of all markets that serve human beings.

Watchout, another step toward globalism and something new brewing for the world to get their countries' economies in good working order again. World tribunals are a good way to eliminate another layer of useless management and cut costs. A smaller panel could be used to make decisions that our congresses and parliaments are being paid to make today. That thought should stir some interest among the decision makers we have working now. May be a need to streamline efficiency.