June 21, 2012. Washington. Negotiated in secret but now exposed as a “corporate power tool of the 1%”, TPP grants powers to corporations that supersede all laws and rights of citizens. TPP FTA (TPPA): Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement subordinates nations (and people) to corporations. From VVV Public Relations.
Details of President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal were leaked last week. Image courtesy of VVV PR.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership ‘free trade’ agreement [TPP/TPPA] is a stealthy policy being pressed by corporate America, a dream of the 1 percent, [and a realization of George Bush Sr.’s vision of a “New World Order”] 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.
Under the agreement currently being advocated by the Obama administration, American corporations would continue to be subject to domestic laws and regulations on the environment, banking and other issues. But foreign corporations operating within the U.S. [including foreign subsidiaries of domestic corporations] would be permitted to appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings to an international tribunal. That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings. The terms run contrary to campaign promises issued by Obama and the Democratic Party during the 2008 campaign.
A leaked draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) investment chapter has been published online by Citizens Trade Campaign, the same coalition that first published TPP proposals from the United States on intellectual property, regulatory coherence and drug formularies in late 2011. Draft texts are said to exist for some 26 separate chapters, none of which have ever been officially released by trade negotiators for public review.
Despite the White House’s efforts to keep [the] proposed free trade agreement concealed from the public – and even Congress – an excerpt from the TPP leaked Wednesday [6/13/2012] reveals that President Obama is prepared to bow to multinational corporations… According to the leaked excerpt, the Obama administration has been considering TPP provisions that would allow foreign corporations operating within the United States to appeal regulations on the environment and banking that would be forced on American-owned businesses with no chance of reprieve. While the United States could be sanctioned for failing to impose regulations on American-run businesses, multinational corporations are practically encouraged to do as much because the TPP outlines a clear avenue to file an appeal. If one of the eight Pacific nations chooses to do as much, their plea would be heard by an international tribunal that could overrule US law.
Trade officials from the U.S. and eight Pacific Rim nations – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam – are in intensive, closed door negotiations to sign [the] Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ‘Free Trade’ Agreement by summer 2012. Every Pacific Rim nation from China and Russia to Indonesia and Mexico could eventually be included. There are draft texts for [the pact’s 26] chapters, most of which have nothing to do with trade, but rather impose limits on domestic food safety, health, environmental, and other policies. The governments won’t release the texts to the public. But 600 U.S. corporate ‘trade advisors’ have full access.
Although the TPP has been branded a ‘trade’ agreement, the leaked text of the pact’s Investment Chapter shows that the TPP would:
- limit how U.S. federal and state officials could regulate foreign firms operating within U.S. boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms;
- extend the incentives for U.S. firms to offshore investment and jobs to lower-wage countries;
- establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt U.S. courts and laws, directly sue the U.S. government before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for financial, health, environmental, land use and other laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges; and
- allow foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. financial or environmental regulations that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms.
Public Interest Analysis of the Leaked Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Investment Text:
The Actual Leaked Text – Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement (FTA):
NO MORE LEFT. NO MORE RIGHT. TIME TO UNITE. STAND AND FIGHT!
IronBoltBruce via VVV PR ( http://veritasvirtualvengeance.com | @vvvpr )
Related Image: http://veritasvirtualvengeance.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/tppa_tpp.jpg
Related Video: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc
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The above article is from VVV Public Relations.
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