TAFTA

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.

Job Growth Claims From Trade Deals Debunked

February 25, 2014 Stuart Trew www.rabble.ca Educate! Free Trade Agreements, TAFTA

A recent German television news spot on the fledgling EU-U.S. Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership blows up the myth of massive job growth and higher wages from a free trade deal. (See video capture below with subtitles courtesy Corporate Europe Observatory.) Director of European trade policy, Karel De Gucht, is speechless (around minute 6:30) when presented with the findings of his own Commission report on the TTIP showing per annum GDP growth of only 0.05 per cent under the most "ambitious" (liberalized) result. "Let us interrupt (the interview)," he says, asking "Is that the study that we have commissioned? Can I see it?" The comical situation is depressingly familiar.

EU Rejecting Core Of TAFTA, Unwilling To Cede Protection

January 22, 2014 BBC News, www.bbc.co.uk Educate! Sovereignty, TAFTA

Last week 10 European NGOs issued a joint statement raising doubts about the TTIP's mechanism for legal disputes, called the "Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)". The statement said there was a risk the mechanism could "open the gates for multinationals and investors to sue EU member states if new environmental or health legislation is introduced that adversely affects their business prospects". It warned of a "chilling" effect - the fear that legislating in certain areas of public health or the environment could trigger expensive lawsuits with US companies.

Fact Sheet On Fast Track Bill & Why It Should Be Stopped

January 10, 2014 Staff, www.citizen.org Educate! Democracy, TAFTA, TPP

David Camp, Max Baucus and Orrin Hatch introduced the falsely named, Bi-Partisan Job-Creating Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014. Republicans were insisting that a Democrat co-sponsor the House Bill before it was introduced. They were unable to convince anyone on the Ways and Means Committee to sign on, so they went to the whole House and were unable to find a Democrat. So, the bill (HR/S 2014) is not bi-partisan. It is audacious of them to call it a 'job-creating' bill when NAFTA cost the US one million jobs, as has been true with every global trade bill. Here are some basic facts from Public Citizen, important details in the article. The Camp-Baucus Fast Track bill replicates the procedures included in the 2002 grant of Fast Track that expired in 2007. What is touted as “enhanced coordination with Congress” is actually the mere renaming of the Congressional Oversight Group from the 2002 Fast Track as “Congressional Advisory Groups on Negotiations,” while provisions ostensibly improving transparency merely formalize past practice. The Camp-Baucus bill faces long odds for approval in the 113th Congress. Fast Track is an anomaly. It has only been in effect for five of the past 19 years.

Trans Pacific Partnership Protest Interrupts Nancy Pelosi Event

December 30, 2013 Staff, www.inquisitr.com Resist! TAFTA, TPP

Trans Pacific Partnership protesters caused a bit of a disturbance at a gathering hosted by Nancy Pelosi. The House Minority Leader initiated the event in order to commemorate the first ever White House “Status of Women” report. A group comprised primarily of college student activists urged Pelosi to vote against the trade deal which some are calling a “NAFTA on steroids” move. The potential deal between the United States and Pacific Rim nations has been so closely guarded that Congress has reportedly been able to garner only a few details about the agreement.The free trade deal negotiations memos recently leaked to the media have swanned alarm among economists, labor unions, and environmental groups. The TPP involves 12 different nations and could give “radical new political powers” to international corporations, restrict banking regulations, and drive up the cost of prescription medicines, if predictions by opponents are accurate.

EU And US Threatened By Secret Trade Talks, ‘NSA’ Welcome

December 17, 2013 Magda Stockiewicz and Erich Pica, www.euobserver.com Educate! Environment, Finance and the Economy, TAFTA

Negotiations between the United States and European Union for a free trade agreement, which resume this week in Washington, represent one of the biggest threats we have seen in our lifetimes to progress towards this vision on our continents. The deal – known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – is billed as the biggest bilateral free trade agreement in history. It is being touted as a means to boost trade and create jobs, but in reality the US already has free trade with Europe, and vice versa. Tariffs are already low and the exchange of goods and services is robust. Our two organisations are both deeply concerned that the negotiating objectives for an agreement have little to do with free trade and everything to do with corporate power.

The Lies Behind This Trans-Atlantic Trade Deal

December 7, 2013 George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com Educate! Corporatism, Government, TAFTA

No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. A few days ago an internal document was leaked. This reveals that a "dedicated communications operation" is being "co-ordinated across the commission". It involves, to use the commission's chilling phrase, the "management of stakeholders, social media and transparency". Managing transparency should be adopted as its motto. The message is that the trade deal is about "delivering growth and jobs" and will not "undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment". Just one problem: it's not true. From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to "co-write" it.

Transatlantic Trade Deal Is A Full-Frontal Assault On Democracy

November 6, 2013 George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com Educate! Corporatism, Democracy, TAFTA, TPP

Remember that referendum about whether we should create a single market with the United States? You know, the one that asked whether corporations should have the power to strike down our laws? No, I don't either. The purpose of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is to remove the regulatory differences between the US and European nations. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. But I left out the most important issue: the remarkable ability it would grant big business to sue the living daylights out of governments which try to defend their citizens. It would allow a secretive panel of corporate lawyers to overrule the will of parliament and destroy our legal protections. Yet the defenders of our sovereignty say nothing. The mechanism through which this is achieved is known as investor-state dispute settlement. It's already being used in many parts of the world to kill regulations protecting people and the living planet. This is why there has been no attempt by the UK government to inform us about this monstrous assault on democracy, let alone consult us. This is why the Conservatives who huff and puff about sovereignty are silent. Wake up, people we're being shafted.

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