Free Trade Agreements

Protesters Cry Foul At Secrecy Around TPP Talks

July 12, 2014 Marie-Danielle Smith, www.ottawacitizen.com Resist! Free Trade Agreements, Protest, Secrecy, TPP

Protesters gathered outside the Delta Hotel in Ottawa Thursday morning where trade talks are underway among Trans-Pacific Partnership members. Protesters held signs that said, “secret deal being negotiated here” and “stop the TPP,” while the Raging Grannies, an Ottawa-based satirical singing group, performed outside the hotel. Canada is one of 12 countries involved in the talks, with meetings held behind closed doors. The Citizen reported Monday it was believed at least some of the talks were being held at the John G. Diefenbaker Building, where the government’s international trade offices are located. The Council of Canadians told the Citizen it believes there is too much secrecy around the talks, which were initially planned for Vancouver but moved to Ottawa at the last minute. Negotiators are meeting to discuss agreements on intellectual property, investment, state-owned enterprises and rules of origin.

TPP Flees 2,665 Miles To Avoid Protesters

July 4, 2014 Cory Doctorow, www.boingboing.net Resist! Canada, Free Trade Agreements, Protesters, TPP

What could make the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership process even less legit? Moving it at the last minute, under cover of darkness, from Vancouver to Ottawa, in order to avoid critics of the treaty and how it is being negotiated. The TPP is a secretive treaty that allows corporations to sue governments that enact environmental, health and governmental regulations that interfere with their profits. It also calls for vastly expanded Internet spying and censorship in the name of protecting copyright. Only trade negotiators and corporate lobbyists are allowed to see the drafts of the agreement (though plenty of these drafts have leaked) -- often times, members of Congress and Parliament are denied access to them, even though the agreement will set out legal obligations that these elected officials will be expected to meet. And while negotiators and interested civil society groups now know (unless it changes again) that the talks will be indeed be held in Ottawa, no other details have been revealed. Nobody -- not even negotiators coming to Canada next week for the talks -- have been told the location. Specific information about when negotiations on specific chapters will take place are being kept similarly under wraps.

Clinton Global Initiative For Rigged Corporate Trade

July 3, 2014 Michele Swenson, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Free Trade Agreements, Hillary Clinton, Inequality, NAFTA, TPP

NAFTA promoters in the '90s promised increased U.S. exports and jobs, with shrinking trade deficits. Senior Fellows of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), projected a NAFTA-induced trade surplus with Mexico, in turn, creating 170,000 new U.S. jobs by 1995. Within two years of NAFTA's passage, PIIE prognosticators readjusted their projection of new NAFTA-created jobs downward to "zero." The same group, created by billionaire corporate cheerleader Pete Peterson, is again forecasting increased exports and jobs if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is passed. Referencing 19 serious pre-NAFTA economic studies projecting zero net job loss if NAFTA were to pass, President Bill Clinton estimated the creation of 200,000 U.S. jobs within two years, and 1 million within five years, based on a projected export boom to Mexico. Twenty years after Clinton signed NAFTA into law, Global Trade Watch reports a 450 percent increase in the U.S. trade deficit, resulting in the export of almost one million jobs, and downward pressure on wages. In fact, the average annual U.S. agricultural trade deficit with Mexico and Canada ballooned to almost three times the pre-NAFTA level, to $975 million within two decades of NAFTA's passage, eliminating an estimated one million net U.S. jobs by 2004, reports the Economic Policy Institute.

Leaked Text Shows Trade Agreements Rolling Back Corporate Regulations

July 1, 2014 Carey L. Biron, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Corporatism, Free Trade Agreements, Regulation, Wikileaks

A leaked negotiating text is offering the public its first glimpse into global trade negotiations, led by the United States and European Union, for a new agreement on the international trade in services — data services, business services, financial services, insurance and the like. Civil society groups have been expressing concerns since the talks, around what is known as the Trade in Services Agreement, or TISA, began a year ago. Yet because the negotiations have been held in secret, watchdog groups have never been able to base their analyses on anything concrete. Now that they can, many are warning that the results appear to be even more problematic than they expected. “The leaked TISA text is worse than I could have imagined — it’s pretty shocking,” William Waring, a trade expert with Friends of the Earth U.S., a watchdog group, told MintPress News. “It goes to show that Mike Froman, the current U.S. Trade Representative and a wealthy former Wall Street banker, is trying to undercut existing and especially proposed regulatory safeguards put in place in the United States and around the world in response to the 2007 financial panic and the great recession that followed.”

US Desperate, Will Pay For TAFTA Support

June 25, 2014 Al Kamen, www.washingtonpost.com Educate! Free Trade Agreements, PR, TTIP

Some folks in Europe — farmers, consumer groups, enviros, privacy advocates and others — have strongly opposed the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that’s now being negotiated. Opposition in France and Italy had been strong. And now it seems the Germans are looking increasingly askance at the treaty. But the Obama administration,free-trade and business groups are pushing hard for an agreement. So the U.S. embassy in Berlin is enlisting treaty-supporting Germans — even offering cold, hard cash. “Are you pro-TTIP and angry at the negative coverage it’s been getting? Send us your ideas and we’ll support you!” the embassy, or “Botschaft,” said in a tweet in German on Friday. That’s right, the embassy’s public affairs section has launched project “T-TIP: Get Informed! Get Involved.” The section is “soliciting proposals” and offering grants of between $5,000 and $20,000 to German non-profits, “non-governmental organizations, think tanks and academic institutions” to get out the real “facts and figures” and to “combat misinformation.”

Groups Warn TAFTA Threatens Important Safeguards

May 22, 2014 Citizens Trade Campaign, www.citizenstrade.org Resist! Free Trade Agreements, Protest, TAFTA

A wide range of consumer, family farm, environmental, Internet freedom, labor and other organizations held a press event outside the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) negotiating summit in Arlington, Virginia on May 21, 2014 in order to expose the pact as more about deregulation than “trade” per se. “Corporations on both sides of the Atlantic view TAFTA as a means to prevent and dismantle safeguards that protect the quality air we breath, the water we drink and the food we feed our children — not to mention online privacy measures, financial reforms and more,” said Gynnie Robnett, coordinator of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards. “We can’t let this pact become a back-door means of deregulation.” The groups highlighted a number of consumer and environmental safeguards that corporations are targeting under TAFTA: “Everywhere we look the digital privacy rights of global citizens are under siege. TAFTA threatens to expand this threat by further entrenching the anti-consumer principles of a digital media environment of constant personal data collection and ubiquitous tracking,” said Joy Spencer, associate director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

Secret Trade Memo Calls For More Fracking and Offshore Drilling

May 20, 2014 Kate Sheppard and Zach Carter, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Fracking, Free Trade Agreements, TPP, TTIP

The European Union is pressing the Obama administration to expand U.S. fracking, offshore oil drilling and natural gas exploration under the terms of a secret negotiation text obtained by The Huffington Post. The controversial document is an early draft of energy policies that EU negotiators hope to see adopted under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal, which is currently being negotiated. The text was shared with American officials in September. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative declined to comment on the document. Environmental groups fear the broad language proposed for the deal would eliminate key restrictions on the export of crude oil and natural gas, fossil fuels that contribute to climate change. The document marks the first major bone of contention in the EU deal, amid an outcry from environmentalists over leaked terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a separate pact that the U.S. and 11 Pacific nations are also negotiating. "Exports of energy goods to the other Party shall be deemed automatically to comply with any conditions and tests foreseen in the Parties’ respective legislation for the granting of export licenses," the memo reads, defining "energy goods" as "coal, crude oil, oil products, natural gas, whether liquefied or not, and electrical energy." The U.S. government treats trade negotiation texts as classified information. Previous leaks concerning the EU deal have focused on lighter topics, including whether American cheesemakers can call their products "feta" or "parmesan."

240 Arrested During TTIP Protest Blocking European Business Summit

May 17, 2014 Revolution News, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Free Trade Agreements, Protest, TTIP

About 500 activists D1-20 Alliance, which brings together farmers, citizens, workers, unemployed or artists gathered Thursday morning in the center of Brussels. They marched to the Egmont Palace, home of the European Business Summit, via the Boulevard de Waterloo, hoping to block the summit. The police, backed by riot police, surrounded the protesters and made arrests. The police also used water-cannons. A total of 240 protesters were arrested administratively, said the spokesman of the police zone Brussels Capital Ixelles, Christian De Coninck. The mayors of the municipalities of Ixelles in Brussels had allowed a procession on the corner of Place Poelaert and Place du Luxembourg. The agreement was also signed with the CSPF and the CNE. The demonstrators did not comply with this agreement, however, as some of them tried to encircle the Egmont Palace where the summit was held, said Christian De Coninck. Those arrested Thursday morning will be released sometime in the afternoon.

The Free-Trade Regime: Oligarchy In Action

May 13, 2014 Staff, www.fpif.org Educate! Corporatism, Democracy, Free Trade Agreements

The United States is not really a democracy. That’s the (simplified) conclusion of a recent study from Princeton University. Instead, economic elites and special interest groups enjoy tremendous sway in Washington, while “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Let’s put this assertion to the test by looking at the concrete example of free trade agreements and their relation to democracy and national sovereignty. “Democracy” typically refers to a system of government in which people decide on the rules of their sovereign nation. In the true spirit of democracy and sovereignty, all spheres of policy — including the environment, trade, finance, intellectual property, and culture — must be subject to a fair political process and self-determination. In the modern, globalized world, the institutions of democracy and sovereignty exist in tension with another powerful institution: the global market and its free trade regimes. In one sense, the free-market system sustains democracy. It generates wealth and tempers the centralization of power — two preconditions for democracy. But in another sense, global free-market capitalism conflicts with democracy and sovereignty. This is particularly true for the “neoliberal” variety of capitalism, which has been on the rise since the 1980s. It one-sidedly promotes the principles of global deregulation, liberalization, privatization, and the rollback of the welfare state — all of which increase inequality and redistribute economic and political power to corporations and wealthy individuals.

Progressives Unite In Call Against ‘Horrific’ TPP

May 9, 2014 Lauren McCauley, www.commondreams.org Resist! Congress, Fair Trade, Free Trade Agreements, TPP

Braving thunder and rain, hundreds of protesters rallied outside of the Capitol building in Washington DC on Wednesdayto declare to the government that "the entire progressive movement is united" in the call to reject unjust trade deals and embrace an economy for all. "They say 'Fast Track!' We Say 'Fight Back!'" the group chanted, referring to recent efforts by President Obama to push through legislation to cement the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, or TPP, without congressional deliberation. Thus far, the details of the deal have been negotiated behind closed doors, with the only information made available to the public via leaks. Under the banner "Fair Trade is Not Free," a diverse coalition of environmental organizations, good government groups, farm groups, and over a dozen unions took part in the protest, carrying umbrellas and placards, which read: "Stop Secret Trade Deals." "Let's show Congress that the entire progressive movement is united in the fight for a 21st century global economy that works for everyone," declared the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which organized the rally. The TPP has been blasted by critics for undermining labor and environmental standards, as well as the open Internet. "The TPP is a horrific thing," said Kian Frederick, national field director for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "There's something for everyone to hate."

TPP: Stop The Secrecy!

April 29, 2014 Open Media, www.stopthesecrecy.net Resist! Free Trade Agreements, TPP

The TPP is huge: It covers 40% of the global economy and will overwrite national laws affecting people around the world.3 The worst of the TPP threatens everything we care about: democracy, jobs, health, the environment, and the Internet. That's why decision-makers are meeting in Asia under extreme secrecy and pushing 'Fast Track' laws to cement the plan into place. This is no way to make decisions in the 21st century. We need to raise a loud global call to expose this dangerous secrecy now. Every voice added now will make the Stop The Secrecy petition projected on buildings in Washington D.C. bigger and brighter. We need to make it as big as possible when Obama returns to Washington on April 30th.

TPP Unraveling?

April 28, 2014 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Resist! Free Trade Agreements, TPP

We've been very successful so far in stopping the first round of fast track in Congress, and we expect that that's going to be a dead issue, because election season is upon us. The next earliest time we expect it to come up would be in a lame-duck session in November. So in the meantime what communities are doing is they're passing resolutions at the local level, at the city level, at the county level, basically saying that if the TPP is signed into law, that it's a secret agreement, you know, it's an agreement that was passed using a non-democratic, non-transparent process that will actually change our laws at the community level so that we can't know what's in our food, we can't protect our environment, we can't buy American, all these things that are really important. And so, basically, these resolutions are saying we won't obey these illegal laws if they're passed, we're going to continue to protect ourselves. So that's a very important phase. It helps people to understand that TPP affects us right at home.

Trade Struggles On Both Sides Of The Atlantic

April 24, 2014 Systemic Disorder, www.systemicdisorder.wordpress.com Organize! Free Trade Agreements, TPP

The Democratic Party has responded to the resistance against ramming through new trade agreements by giving the process a new name. “Fast-track” has been rebranded as “smart-track” and, voilà, new packaging is supposed to make us forget the rotten hulk underneath the thin veneer. Don’t be fooled. The Obama administration and its Senate enablers are nowhere near giving up on its two gigantic trade deals, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Because the stealthy “fast track” route — special rules speeding trade legislation through Congress with little opportunity for debate and no possibility of amendments — is the only way these corporate wish lists can be enacted, a “rebranding” is in order. The new chair of the U.S. Senate’s Finance Committee, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, earlier this month, in a speech given to apparel-industry corporate executives, announced his intention to replace the “fast track” process with a “smart track” process. That is noteworthy because the Finance Committee has responsibility in the Senate for trade legislation. It also noteworthy because Senator Wyden has voted to approve the last five U.S. “free trade” agreements, going back to 2005.

Elites Discover So-Called ‘Free Trade’ Is Killing Economy, Middle Class

April 23, 2014 Dave Johnson, www.crooksandliars.com Educate! Free Trade Agreements, TPP

The New York Times editorial board finally gets it right about trade in its Sunday editorial, "This Time, Get Global Trade Right." Some excerpts: Many Americans have watched their neighbors lose good-paying jobs as their employers sent their livelihoods to China. Over the last 20 years, the United States has lost nearly five million manufacturing jobs. People in the Midwest, the "rust belt" and elsewhere noticed this a long time ago as people were laid off, "the plant" closed, the downtowns slowly boarded up and the rest of us felt pressure on wages and working hours. How many towns -- entire regions of the country -- are like this now? Have you even seen Detroit? "This page has long argued that removing barriers to trade benefits the economy and consumers, and some of those gains can be used to help the minority of people who lose their jobs because of increased imports," the editors write. "But those gains have not been as widespread as we hoped, and they have not been adequate to assist those who were harmed."

The Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Dishonesty Of Obama/AFL-CIO

April 17, 2014 Avi Chomsky, www.lawcha.org Resist! Colombia, Free Trade Agreements, Labor

When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he told the AFL-CIO convention that he would oppose the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement promoted by then-president Bush “because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” Labor advocates cheered. Once in office, though, Obama advocated for a Labor Action Plan to overcome what he saw as the obstacles to Congressional ratification of the Agreement. He and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos signed the LAP on April 7, 2011, and Congress ratified the FTA a year later. Colombian opposition to the agreement was always deeper and broader than that in the United States. Violence against unionists became the main opposition slogan in the US, but it was always a slender issue to base a campaign on. The argument implied that the FTA was overall a good idea that would benefit Colombians, and was used to pressure the government to improve its labor policies so it could get the FTA as a reward.

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