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TPP

100 Groups Call For Transparent Negotiations On Trade Deal

Ahead of next week's key meeting between the United States and 13 Asian and Australiasian nations, more than 100 civil society groups told the Biden administration on Friday that transparent negotiations and increased public input are necessary to prevent an embryonic trade deal from being perceived as the latest iteration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "We share your goal of creating a new model for U.S. trade policy that prioritizes the interests of working people, communities of color, the environment, consumers, and family farmers instead of just big corporations," the coalition wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden. "The launch of your administration's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) may be a test case for what this model looks like and what it can achieve."

The TPP Was All But Dead, DC Think Tanks Are Urging Biden To Bring It Back

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was dead and buried. But now, with the imminent arrival of the new Biden administration, many of the most influential policy groups in Washington are quietly trying to resurrect it. Writing for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), Joshua Eisenman, the organization’s Senior Fellow in China Studies, argues that it is “time to revisit the TPP,” which has now been rebranded as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).  Last month, China signed a far-reaching trade agreement with most of the countries of south and east Asia, as well as Australia and New Zealand.

China And 14 Nations Ready To Sign World’s Largest Trade Deal

China is expected to sign a mega regional trade deal with 14 other countries in the Asia-Pacific region this weekend, wrapping up a major agreement before the next United States administration comes into office, Chinese officials said on Wednesday. Leaders from China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are expected sign the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as they meet via teleconference on Sunday, according to Chinese officials.

Take Action Now

This week we urge you to take action in three areas. First, everyone should come out for antiwar actions as the Trump administration and Pentagon, with the silent acquiescence of congressional Democrats are escalating the war in Syria. At the same time the occupiers of Palestine, Israel , continue to murder nonviolent protesters. And, the Trump administration has put in place a war cabinet with a record military budget. Second, we urge you to help us stop the Trans Pacific Partnership. We need to reawaken the movement of movements that stopped President Obama to now stop President Trump. We have a lot of power in an election year and every elected official should be speaking out against the TPP. Finally, Health Over Profit for Everyone, our single payer campaign, finished its first action camp with a protest at Senator Sanders' office. We urge you to join us in urging Sanders to introduce an improved Medicare for all bill in the 2019 legislative session.

#TPPBetrayal Tell Trump No TPP

Tell Trump: Don’t Revive the TPP Trump promised he would end this terrible trade deal and got elected because he

Trump Instructs Top Advisors To Consider Re-joining TPP

Donald Trump has instructed United States Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, and National Economic Advisor, Larry Kudlow, to review re-joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) according to declarations given by Senator Ben Sasse to reporters after leaving a meeting on trade that Trump had with lawmakers and governors from farming states just a few hours ago.

Activists Cement Their Feet In Concrete To Protest CPTPP Signing

A last-ditch effort to stop the CPTPP has seen protesters cement themselves in concrete as well as dumping pillows and soft toys outside MP’s offices. The CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership) deal will be signed in Chile on Thursday (Chile time), but activists aren’t giving up the fight. Christchurch Direct Action Group members stood in a wooden box cementing their feet into concrete outside Labour MP Ruth Dyson’s office in Christchurch on Thursday afternoon. Earlier in the day pillows and soft toys were dumped outisde Jacinda Ardern’s electorate office in Auckland. The Auckland TPP Action Group dumped dozens of pillows, soft dog toys and homemade rats outside the Prime Minister’s office in Mt Albert, Auckland. Messages written on the pillows include ’Aotearoa is not for sale’, ’Protect Aotearoa and our ecological assets’ and ’It’s our children’s future! We must protect it!’

The TPP Has Been Signed, We Need to Build Power

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was signed this Thursday, March 8th by the eleven countries that remained in negotiations after the United States abandoned the deal. The agreement, re-marketed as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), will set standards in more than 13 percent of the global economy, a total of $10 trillion in gross domestic product. The TPP’s signing shows that the trade model the Obama administration had sought will remain in the global panorama and that the signing governments of Asia and the Pacific still have hope that the United States could potentially join. The lobbying effort for the United States to reconsider joining the TPP has continued amongst legislators and industry leaders alike. 

In Memory Of Zahara Heckscher

All of us at Public Citizen lift up in loving memory our dear friend and peaceful warrior Zahara Heckscher, who passed away on February 24 at the age of 53, after her years-long battle with breast cancer. Among her many talents as a writer, poet, teacher and facilitator, Zahara was a fierce, creative and committed activist. As she valiantly battled advanced breast cancer, she became determined to fight for all patients to have access to the cutting-edge cancer medicines that extended her life. When she learned that prescription drug companies were using the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations to lock in extended monopolies that threatened access to affordable medicines, Zahara became a passionate trade justice advocate on behalf of cancer patients around the world.

Day 7 Of Countdown To Launch: Carlos Martinez

By Popular Resistance. Carlos Martinez began shooting for his local newspaper at the age of 15 years in Houston, Texas. He worked his way up to being the Chief Photographer and Photo Editor for El Dia. Now, Carlos uses his media skills for social change, particularly when it comes to taking on corporations that profit from unhealthy foods. He is a power house behind the Occupy food movement that grew from the Occupy Wall Street movement and has been exposing the truth behind our food system ever since. Carlos joined forces with Popular Resistance in 2016 when he organized a rally against the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) after several years of attending our national TPP calls.

Day 8 Of Countdown To Launch: Daniel Cooper Bermudez

By Daniel Cooper Bermudez. Trade for People and Planet is a campaign created by Popular Resistance, an organization that has been fighting for justice since 2013 with roots growing far before then. Popular Resistance is designed to operate from the two-prong strategy: create and resist. This is how Trade forPeople and Planet was born. Years of fighting the Trans-Pacific Partnership resulted in wide swaths of the general population putting pressure on the US government to pull out of the deal. Through Popular Resistance’s “Flush The TPP” campaign, hundreds of people protested through petitions, protests, marches, lobby days, direct action… we did whatever we could to stop the deal. And it worked.

TPP Now ‘Comprehensive & Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership’

By Staff of Flush The TPP - On November 11th, the TPP-11 countries announced reaching an agreement on reforms that have been negotiated since the United States exited the deal. The most evident one is its new name which is meant to appease world-wide criticism as one of the worst trade deals for the people ever negotiated. They now want to call it the ‘Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership’ or CPTPP. We are well aware of how world leaders are intentionally trying to avoid easy to remember acronyms due to the brand-busting campaigns that have caused the global opposition to corporate trade deals. Re-branding it as a progressive deal cannot hide what remains behind the deal, such as the ISDS. An official announcement declared that “Ministers are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the core elements of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.” This reformed deal eliminated 20 sections of the original TPP text, including provisions related to pharmaceutical products, patent protection, copyright and intellectual property. However, the agreement is still far from progressive and far from being signed as Canada is insisting it will not be pressured into a deal that is not good for Canadians. An analysis of the deal by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) welcomes the suspension of the Intellectual Property provisions, which were amongst the most dangerous of the provisions in the original TPP deal.

The Third Track: Trade That Builds Our Economy Anew

By Staff of IATP - President Trump is playing high stakes poker in the NAFTA talks, with his US Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, at the helm. Laura Dawson, director of the Wilson Centre’s Canada Centre published an op-ed on 11 October in which she suggests there are two tracks to the NAFTA talks – one is moving ahead with the “easy consensus” (i.e. tracking new issues that gained prominence in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations), while the other, driven by Trump’s tweets and America First Agenda, is putting the whole enterprise at risk with incendiary statements and impossible demands. The agenda moving ahead for NAFTA reform seeks regulatory harmonization (to the lowest standard), longer monopolies on technology through tighter patent controls, and an extension of foreign investor rights over domestic legislation. It is an agenda much of the U.S. business community is squarely behind, and Canada’s and Mexico’s business communities, too. That agenda was moving along, its path likely smoothed by the fact that many of the negotiators knew one another from the TPP talks. NAFTA empowers an economics many civil society organizations have resisted for decades, whether trade unions, farm organizations, environmentalists, women’s organizations or church groups.

Protesters Demand End To Corporate Courts, Transparency In NAFTA

By Daniel Cooper Bermudez for Trade for People and Planet. Arlington, VA - Official negotiators were met by protesters demanding that the deal do away with the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a system of tribunals through which multi-national corporations have sued governments for millions of dollars for implementing stronger labor and environmental standards, and to implement transparent and participatory practices in the deal’s remaking. Activists stood in front of the Sheraton in Arlington, Virginia – where negotiations are taking place from October 11-15 – with a giant Trump puppet and signs that read “Democracy not Corporatocracy” and “Transparency: Release the Text!”

Newsletter – No #NAFTA2, Yes To Trade For People & Planet

By Daniel Cooper Bermudez. The Trump administration is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico in secret, just as President Obama did with the TPP. Over the past two decades, NAFTA has resulted in workers losing their jobs and being replaced by machinery, ruined family farms throughout the continent, displaced communities and privatized social services, environmental disasters like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a widespread attack on labor rights and unions. This week, we explain our opposition to NAFTA2 and put forward a strategy to remake trade so it is no longer corporate-driven trade for the profits of a few, but people-driven trade to benefit all and protect the planet.
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