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Trade

Top Democrat Denied Access To Trade Deals

February 14, 2015 Dana Liebelson, www.huffingtonpost.com , , , , ,
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, wants to view an unredacted copy of the proposed text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership(TTIP). He wants to bring his chief of staff, who has a top security clearance, and he wants to be able to take notes privately. He also wants to review documents that show the position of each country participating in the agreements, as well how the U.S. position has changed over the course of the negotiations. In a letter this week, Doggett accused Michael Froman, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), of avoiding his requests since January. "USTR has provided no legal justification for denying such Member and staff review," wrote Doggett. The text of TPP is treated as a state secret -- to a degree. Access to TPP texts is limited to members of Congress and staffers on the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee who have an official security clearance. Hundreds of corporate lobbyists and executives are also given access . . .

Rapid Response To Stop Fast Track And The TPP

February 13, 2015 Staff, www.popularesistance.org , ,
We need to organize quickly. President Obama and the new Congress are moving to pass Fast Track legislation which will permit the President to sign secret trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) before Congress sees them and restrict Congress from determining what impacts the TPP will have on our health, economy, communities and the planet. We know what previous trade agreements like NAFTA have done to outsource jobs and lower wages, block efforts to protect public health and increase our deficit. The TPP is a whole new breed. We call it "NAFTA on steroids." The reason the TPP has been negotiated in secret and is being pushed through Congress in this unconstitutional and undemocratic way is because it contains provisions that will give corporations even more power to determine our laws even down to the local level and remove our power to fight back. We aren't going to let that happen. We are working with our allies across the continent to stop Fast Track and the TPP.

Will New York City Be The Next ‘TPP-Free Zone’?

February 12, 2015 Stephanie Buhle, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
On Thursday Council Member Helen Rosenthal introduced a new resolution that opposes the President’s “fast-track” authority over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and declares New York City a “TPP-Free Zone.” The TPP, a free trade agreement being secretly negotiated between the United States federal government and eleven other Pacific Rim countries, will “eliminate tariffs and other barriers to goods and services trade and investment” among these countries. However leaked texts and news reports show that the TPP would significantly alter the balance of international power, reduce national, state and city sovereignty, and negatively impact domestic businesses, environmental and labor protections, food sanitation standards, and free access to the internet and low-cost medications.

Mobilized & Winning, Now It’s Time to Escalate

January 30, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , ,
Since the President’s State of the Union message where he announced his plan to push corporate trade agreements and seek Fast Track trade promotion authority, the movement against Fast Track, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and globalized trade has grown. Instead of the bump in support that Obama expected after the State of the Union, opposition has increased inside Congress and in the grass roots. This week Senator Grassley saidthat currently they don’t have 60 votes in support of Fast Track and therefore it could not pass a filibuster. If Wyden demands that Congress sees the text of the TPP and has true involvement in the negotiations before they are finalized, then he and Hatch will not reach agreement and the Republicans will have to go it alone. In the House there are even more challenges for Fast Track. Chuck Porcari of the Communication Workers (CWA) writes: “House Speaker John Boehner has said that the White House needs to deliver at least 50 House Democrats if Fast Track has any hopes of passing, especially now that the White House is trying to whip together 80 Democrats in the House and New Democrat Coalition is trying to cobble together at most 40 votes. . . . According to a story by Inside U.S. Trade, ‘one informed source questioned whether the New Democrats actually have an idea of which lawmakers will provide the 40 ‘yes’ votes they are seeking.’”

Activists Disrupt Hearing Over Fast Track For TPP

January 27, 2015 Cassidy Regan, www.popularrresistance.org , , ,
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman was greeted with protest at Tuesday's Senate and House Hearings on Capitol Hill, as people raised concerns about the President's trade agenda and "Fast Track" Trade Promotion Authority. Activists with signs and banners chanting "No TPP!" and "No Fast Track!" were escorted from the Senate Finance Committee hearing room shortly after the U.S. Trade Representative took the microphone. The legislation, which Obama requested from both parties during last week's State of the Union address, would limit congressional oversight of the Administration's free trade agreements and is widely opposed by hundreds of environmental, labor, public health, food safety, and faith groups nationwide.

Environmentalists Reject Obama’s Call For Expanded Trade Powers

January 24, 2015 Zach Carter, www.huffingtonpost.com , , , ,
Nearly 50 environmentalist organizations sent a letter Wednesday to every member of Congress, urging them to oppose granting President Barack Obama "fast-track" authority to pass new free trade deals. The letter, signed by the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and dozens of other groups, comes the morning after Obama pressed for that power in his State of the Union address. "Today’s trade agreements … are about much more than tariffs and quotas and have significant implications for our environment, public health, and global climate," the letter reads, drawing attention to "rules that would grant foreign corporations the right to sue governments, in private tribunals, over environmental, public health, and other laws and policies that corporations allege reduce the value of their investment."

Wake Up While There’s Still Time To Stop TPP

January 22, 2015 AbFeldman, www.rt.com/shows/redacted-tonight , , ,
Redacted Tonight explains the hard-to-digest Trans Pacific Partnership in a hilariously informative way that urges people to wake up and stop the TPP before it’s too late. Comedian Abby Feldman takes to the streets of Washington, DC, desperately trying to warn passersby of the secrecy, lack of congressional oversight, impending loss of sovereignty, and potential for serious damage that TPP poses - all while struggling to stay awake. We must act quickly to stop this global corporate coup that will control our laws to protect ourselves and our communities. An emergency protest is being held in New York City on Monday, January 26 at noon at the Sheraton on 7th Ave. and 53rd St. Click here for the Facebook event page. And we have created a rapid response team for actions.

Newsletter: Breaking The Spell Of The Corporate State

January 10, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The democracy crisis grows deeper. Analysis of the mid-term elections shows voting levels lower than the era of Andrew Jackson, when the requirement of owning property to vote was removed. People are rejecting both political parties as 42% of Americans are registered independents compared to 30% Democrats and 25% Republicans. Nozomi Hayase writes people are breaking the spell of the corporate state, recognizing the elites who govern are not smarter than the rest of us, that they fit the characteristics of psychopaths for their endless war, debt-ponzi schemes and that the ongoing financial crisis exposes their agenda of hoarding wealth for themselves. At the same time Hayase writes: “Civil disobedience against the corporate state demands that we disobey their commands and instead begin listening to our hearts that know what is right and wrong.”

Politics Of The Trans-Pacific Partnership

January 4, 2015 Andrew Levine, www.counterpunch.org , ,
There are signs too that there is increasing awareness that the declining fortunes of the vast majority are not just contingent side effects of neoliberal, “pro-growth,” economic policies that Democrats would reform away if only Republicans wouldn’t stop them. These policies are what neoliberalism is about, and promoting neoliberalism is what politicians these days do. Even within the Democratic base, the realization is dawning that Democrats, though not quite as blatant as Republicans, are just as culpable. They too do what their paymasters demand. It is also becoming harder than ever to deny that the trade policies that some Democrats, along with Republicans, have championed since the Bill Clinton days are a root cause of the discontent now rising to the surface. Despite the drivel emanating out of the White House, “free trade” is emphatically not good for nearly everybody. Quite the contrary, nearly everybody is now on to what neoliberal trade policies do.

China’s New Silk Road Threatens US Imperialism

January 1, 2015 Pepe Escobar, www.salon.com , , , ,
November 18, 2014: it’s a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China’s Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the first train carrying 82 containers of export goods weighing more than 1,000 tons left a massive warehouse complex heading for Madrid. It arrived on December 9th. Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, and finally Spain. Today, 90% of the global container trade still travels by ocean, and that’s what Beijing plans to change. Its embryonic, still relatively slow New Silk Road represents its first breakthrough in what is bound to be an overland trans-continental container trade revolution.

Hello Censorship If Secret TISA Pact Is Approved

December 28, 2014 Pete Dolack, www.systemicdisorder.wordpress.com , , ,
Internet privacy and net neutrality would become things of the past if the secret Trade In Services Agreement comes to fruition. And on this one, the secrecy exceeds even that shrouding the two better-known corporate giveaways, the Trans-Pacific and Transatlantic partnerships. Yet another tentacle in the octopus of multi-national corporations’ attempt to achieve dictatorial control, the Trade In Services Agreement (TISA) is intended to eliminate government regulations in the “professional services” such as accounting and engineering but goes well beyond that, proposing sweeping de-regulation of the Internet and the financial industry. Another snippet of TISA’s text has been leaked, this time by the freedom-of-information organization Associated Whistleblowing Press.

ICC Criticized For Failure To Prosecute Israel

November 7, 2014 Center For Constitutional Rights, www.ccrjustice.org , , , , ,
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following response to the news that the International Criminal Court (ICC) would not be opening a full investigation into the 2010 Israeli attack on a humanitarian flotilla to Gaza. Israeli forces killed nine people, including 18-year-old U.S. citizen Furkan Doğan who was shot several times as he was filming the 4:00 a.m. raid and then shot in the face at point blank range as he lay there wounded. It is outrageous that the ICC is refusing to prosecute Israeli officials despite acknowledging that there's a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed.

Top 10 Most Pernicious Investor-State Dispute Settlement Lawsuits

October 8, 2014 Lambert Strether, www.nakedcapitalism.com , ,
The Top Ten examples are taken from Public Citzen’s new report, “Myths and Omissions: Unpacking Obama Administration Defenses of Investor-State Corporate Privileges” [PDF]. I’m not focusing on the Obama administration’s defenses because anybody who’s been paying attention knows they’ll be bullshit anyhow; I think propagating the crazypants pernicious examples will be more effective as polemic. I’m also not going into the resolution of the cases; as anybody who’s every encountered a SLAPP suit knows, even bringing a suit that’s totally without merit can intimidate, if the player bringing the suit has deep pockets. And who has deeper pockets than international investors? So herewith, the list. Readers, regretfully I haven’t been able to rank them, because they are pernicious in so many dimensions at once. If you want to pick the worst, and the second-worst, then have at it!

Critical Moment To Stop Rigged Trade Agreements

August 10, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , ,
As elections get closer, Democratic Party leaders in Congress are getting the message out to inside-the-beltway activists groups that they are unifying to support giving President Obama some form of Fast Track. Recent letters from member of Congress to the President indicate support for trade with particular stipulations, but the overall message is to continue negotiating. Washington advocacy groups believe that they must also show support for Fast Track or they will find themselves without access or influence. Rather than kowtowing to the usual ‘on the table’ threat from the corrupt bi-partisan Congress, the movement needs to tell them that the only thing on the table is a complete transformation from the failed global trade that rigs profits for big business at the expense of the ecology of the planet and the necessities of the people. It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people.

Ten Reasons To Say ‘No’ To North Over Trade

August 5, 2014 Ravi Kanth Devarakonda and Phil Harris, www.ipsnews.net , , ,
India’s decisive stand last week not to adopt the protocol of amendment of the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) unless credible rules were in place for the development issues of the South was met with “astonishment” and “dismay” by trade diplomats from the North, who described New Delhi’s as “hostage-taking” and “suicidal”. It obviously came as something of a shock for representatives of Northern interests that any party should have the brass neck to place the interests of its constituents on the negotiating table. After all, why should such banal issues as food security and poverty get in the way of a trade agenda heavily weighted in favour of the industrialised countries? New Delhi was demanding nothing more than credible global trade rules to ensure that “development,” including the challenges of poverty, in the countries of the South take precedence over the cut-throat mercantile business interests of the transnational corporations in the North In fact, it was India’s firm stand for permanent guarantees for public stockholding programmes for food security that turned this trade agenda upside down at the World Trade Organization (WTO) last week, putting paid to the adoption of the protocol of amendment for implementation of the contested TFA for the time being.
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