Earlier this week, leaked memos with the contents of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) highlighted issues still being disputed among trade representatives from the 12 countries including the United States. There was a hope that these negotiations would come to fruition before the end of the year, but lucky for us they are moving at the speed of a bunch of politicians trying to work together and presently don't appear to be ready to meet their U.S. imposed end of year deadline.
Even failing to meet this penciled in deadline is not stopping these negotiations. One can only hope that the added time will allow more media attention and scrutiny towards what is happening. Everyone from Ed Shultz to Alex Jones is speaking out against these talks. Rep. Alan Grayson is one of a few members of congress that was granted access to review at least some notes from these negotiations and he summarized the whole thing by saying "What this amounts to is giving away our sovereignty as Americans in exchange for nothing."
We have only seen a small portion of the areas that these talks encompass, the proverbial tip of the iceberg if you will, but among these issues include giving extra authority to corporations and non-governmental organizations, similar to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The U.S. delegation’s continued push of this Titanic of a law to allow greater powers under new international laws has been a source of conflict among many of the other countries. One of the most controversial provisions in the talks includes new corporate empowerment language (also apparently insisted upon by the U.S. government), which would allow foreign companies to challenge laws or regulations in a privately run 'third party' international court. Under World Trade Organization treaties, this political power to contest government law is reserved for sovereign nations. In layman's terms, we would allow an internationally appointed power to potentially change and alter U.S. trade law, and you thought the bureaucracy of the federal courts was bad. Using this approach to resolve copyright and patient infringing would be like giving a local mob boss a tank to collect the $100 the guy down the street owes you. There's no real guarantee that the $100 will make it's way back to you, and now another guy in the neighborhood has a tank.
Other points of conflict that remain certain include environmental protections, labor standards, financial regulation, and intellectual property rights that many groups say would undermine some of our basic freedoms. These regulations also include criminalizing unintentional infringements on copyright, increasing patents on medicine from 17 to 20 years, which could lead to higher prescription drug costs and provisions that could undermine climate control regulations in the U.S.. Largely, what these new rules are difficult to gleam because we don’t know due to the almost all-encompassing secrecy that prevails over the negotiation process. From what I can see, the only up side is for corporations interested in either moving operations to lower income countries to lower their costs, or companies interested in suing everyone over intellectual property infringements.The part I have trouble putting my finger on is the motivation of this administration. While secrecy remains about the majority of the TPP, President Obama continues to push for Fast Track Authority. Fast Track would grant him significant powers and allow him to railroad TPP through Congress without a committee hearing, amendments, and limited debate time. Because if there is any way to ensure that congress passes a well thought out piece of legislation, it's by having them pass it before they even have time to read the thing.
It makes one wonder the motivation for something that seems against our countries interest in so many ways, to be held in secrecy by a President who has vowed to be the most transparent administration, that would lay the groundwork for jobs to be shipped overseas easier than ever, that seems to be getting the largest amount of resistance from his own party, what could be his motivation? As someone whose life was shaken up pretty hard in my youth when NAFTA became law, I take offense to the idea that free trade has any true benefit. Our trade deficit has grown between Canada and Mexico from almost a perfect even to over $150 Billion in not our favor.
Let's put on our tinfoil hats as we wait and see what kind of international law results from these secretive meetings. Let's watch as our leaders tell us we're crazy for thinking or believing that there is a secret board of shadowy figures at the same time they are meeting in closed sessions. Let us marvel as the richest country keeps doing everything thing we can to throw our money on a trade ship heading towards other countries. Let us hope that whatever motivations are moving the President to pursue this path in this aggressive manner is not taking root with the majority of congress when the brief window for them to do something about it arrives.
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