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Pacific Trade Deal Will Test Trudeau’s Resolve

November 13, 2015

Pacific Trade Deal Will Test Trudeau’s Resolve

As chorus of critics sound alarm, this is PM’s chance to show us he’s listening.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau renewed his promise to listen to labour’s TPP concerns this week.

Justin Trudeau has proven to be much more bold in his first couple of weeks than almost anyone imagined. Unlike Jean Chrétien and his 1993 election Red Book, Trudeau actually seems to be intent on keeping many of his promises.

Most importantly he has done what no other premier or prime minister in my memory has ever done. He has put numerous people in ministries who actually have a passion for their portfolios: a doctor in charge in health care, a potato farmer in charge of agriculture, an Aboriginal former treaty commissioner in justice, a former CIDA staff person in charge of international development. Prime ministers who want to exercise executive control don’t do this. Trudeau, it seems, genuinely wants to run a government by cabinet.

But the real measure of how bold Trudeau will be is how he deals with the economy. After all it is the economic ministries — finance, the treasury board, international trade most prominent among them — that are most directly responsible for managing capitalism, something every federal government has to do no matter what their ideology is. The Liberals have always been a Bay Street party and any move away from that tradition seems unlikely. The biggest test Trudeau will face on this front is right on the top of the issues pile: the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

First off, let’s be clear that these “trade” agreements are only nominally about trade — they are actually, as economist Jeffrey Sachs says “investment protection agreements.” And for every Canadian government starting with Brian Mulroney’s the almost exclusive economic policy for this country has been a focus on attracting international investment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Leaked TAFTA/TTIP Chapter Shows EU Breaking Its Promises On The Environment

October 27, 2015

Leaked TAFTA/TTIP Chapter Shows EU Breaking Its Promises On The Environment from the toxic-trade-deal dept

As far as trade agreements are concerned, the recent focus here on Techdirt and elsewhere has been on TPP as it finally achieved some kind of agreement — what kind, we still don’t know, despite promises that the text would be released as soon as it was finished. But during this time, TPP’s sibling, TAFTA/TTIP, has been grinding away slowly in the background. It’s already well behind schedule — there were rather ridiculous initial plans to get it finished by the end of last year — and there’s now evidence of growing panic among the negotiators that they won’t even get it finished by the end of President Obama’s second term, which would pose huge problems in terms of ratification.

One sign of that panic is that the original ambitions to include just about everything are being jettisoned, as it becomes clear that in some sectors — cosmetics, for example — the US and EU regulatory approaches are just too different to reconcile. Another indicator is an important leaked document obtained by the Guardian last week. It’s the latest (29 September) draft proposal for the chapter on sustainable development. What emerges from every page of the document, embedded below, is that the European Commission is now so desperate for a deal — any deal — that it has gone back on just about every promise it made (pdf) to protect the environment and ensure that TTIP promoted sustainable development. Three environmental groups — the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth Europe and PowerShift — have taken advantage of this leak to offer an analysis of the European Commission’s real intent in the environmental field. They see four key problems:

The leaked text fails to provide any adequate defense for environment-related policies likely to be undermined by TTIP. For example, nothing in the text would prevent foreign corporations from launching challenges against climate or other environmental policies adopted on either side of the Atlantic in unaccountable trade tribunals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trans-Pacific Partnership text won’t be available before election

October 15, 2015

Trans-Pacific Partnership text won’t be available before election

Government officials say haggling by lawyers from 12 countries delaying release of trade agreement

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Trade deal details 2:54

Canadians won’t be able to see the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal before they vote.

Government officials told CBC News on Wednesday that the exact wording of the full agreement in principle announced Oct. 5 won’t be finalized until next week.

The federal election is next Monday, Oct. 19.

Twelve countries have signed on to the Pacific Rim free trade deal in principle, although it will require a separate ratification process in each country before it takes effect.

In an interview with CBC News Network’s Power & Politics, Canada’s trade minister said the government was pressing the other 11 countries to release “any form” of the text.

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Trade Minister Ed Fast told the Vancouver Board of Trade last Thursday that the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would be available within days. Now, government officials say it won’t be available until after the election. (CBC News)

“What I did say is that we’re working with our 11 other partners to secure at least a provisional text,” Conservative Ed Fast told CBC’s Rosemary Barton on Wednesday.

“What I’m saying,” Fast said, “I don’t have full control over it but I can tell you we’ve been very, very assertive with our partners explaining to them that Canadians — in the middle of an election — have a right to know what’s in the text.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

President Obama Accepts Slavery in Order to Win TPP Trade Deal

July 10, 2015

President Obama Accepts Slavery in Order to Win TPP Trade Deal

So that U.S. President Barack Obama can end a roadblock and win the agreement of other nations for his proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, he has decided to remove one of the nations, Malaysia, from the U.S. State Department’s official list of countries that allow slavery. Malaysia, which recently found over a hundred graves of discarded slaves, has been on the U.S. State Department’s “Tier 3” list of slave nations, along with North Korea, Zimbabwe, Syria, and Iran, but, unlike those other countries, Obama wants Malaysia to be included in his Trans Pacific Partnership; so, he has decided to remove Malaysia from that official list.

This was first reported by Reuters on July 8th, under the headline “Exclusive: U.S. Upgrades Malaysia in Annual Human Trafficking Report.” Reuters announced: “The United States is upgrading Malaysia from the lowest tier on its list of worst human trafficking centers, U.S. sources said on Wednesday, a move that could smooth the way for an ambitious U.S.-led free-trade deal with the Southeast Asian nation and 11 other countries.”

Zach Carter at Huffington Post headlined, later on July 8th, “Obama To Upgrade Malaysia On Human Rights Despite Mass Graves,”  and he reported that U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) issued a statement saying: “If true, this manipulation of Malaysia’s ranking in the State Department’s 2015 TIP report would be a perversion of the trafficking list and undermine both the integrity of this important report as well as the very difficult task of confronting states about human trafficking.” 

 

However, Senator Menendez, himself, has, behind the scenes, pushed for Obama’s TPP and other mammoth ‘trade’ deals, including TTIP and TISA, even despite these deals allowing participating countries to look the other way and not prosecute when international corporations hire killers to assassinate labor union organizers in a given U.S. trade ‘partner’ country. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Revolution’s Matchstick

July 1, 2015

Revolution’s Matchstick

Fighting The Trans-Pacific Partnership

Rolling down the corporate-political assembly line is a trade deal so treasonous to the peoples of the world that it should serve as revolution’s matchstick. The treaty is secret, but one fact is well known: the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is being negotiated by transnational corporations without a single US legislator present. Each time I hear this, my eyes blink in disbelief. Without a single legislator present … without their presence at negotiations, without so much as seeing a draft of the deal, and most treacherously, without objection or outcry at their exclusion! President Obama has requested our legislators to “fast track the TPP”, which would allow him to sign the deal prior to sending it to Congress for approval or disapproval. If they agree to this, then Congress eschews its right – and its responsibility – to reject parts of the trade deal and reopen negotiations.

This complicity on the part of our legislators sinks an iron weight in my gut. It smacks not of exclusion, but of willing collusion with transnational corporations that have a proven track record of criminality, destruction, and abuse. In my short lifetime, large corporations have been responsible for poisoning two major gulfs with oil spills, blowing up more than five hundred mountains, destroying numerous watersheds, wrecking the food system with toxins, and causing one in six Americans to be evicted from their homes. They have used the media apparatus to deny the existence of climate change, fomented wars, and obstructed truth and justice so often that it is practically an “industry standard.” The list of grievances can be only partial here, but these abuses alone must sound the alarm bells of our conscience. The largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement is being written in secret by unelected entities that have consistently abused the global population for the sake of profit.

A single thought rings bell-like in my mind.

We must revolt.

 

Obama: TPP a secret treaty because ‘US War on Terror requires secrecy’

June 24, 2015

Obama: TPP a secret treaty because ‘US War on Terror requires secrecy’

(Satire): President Obama announced at a White House press conference today that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty details must remain secret because the now 14-year-old US War on Terror requires secrecy from terrorist enemies, secrecy is the founding principle of American freedom, and that secrecy equals safety. Press conference excerpts:

President Obama: As you know, secrecy is a foundational principle of American freedom. From the Founding Father’s secret “Committees of Correspondence,” to Boston’s Old North Church spy signal of “one if by land, two if by sea,” to Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay using the secret name, “Publius,” to publish The Federalist Papers to win support for our Constitution, American patriots have used secrecy to protect our great nation. Secrecy equals freedom.

This is why the current Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty, TPP, is a classified national security secret that cannot be disclosed to the public, even four years or more after it is passed into law. Secrecy keeps Americans safe.

I also remind everyone that America is fighting a War on Terror, and that even after 14 years of brave combat and support of the American public, the terrorists are not defeated. War requires secrecy to keep our troops as safe as possible. TPP makes America stronger, which supports our troops.

Q: Sir, what about the “fast track” that violates the US Constitutional requirement that all treaties be ratified by the Senate under at least 2/3 vote?

 

Obama: The United States is a democracy. Fast track authority was passed into law by Congress. When Congress has the votes and the President approves, that’s the law of the land.

Q: I’m sorry, Mr. President; but how can Congress and you violate the Constitution by ignoring the 2/3 vote requirement just because you say so?

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Forget the TPP – Wikileaks Releases Documents from the Equally Shady “Trade in Services Agreement,” or TISA

June 6, 2015

Forget the TPP – Wikileaks Releases Documents from the Equally Shady “Trade in Services Agreement,” or TISA

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If it sounds complicated, it is. The important point is that this trade agreement contains a crucial discussion of governments’ abilities to meaningfully protect civil liberties. And it is not being treated as a human rights discussion. It is being framed solely as an economic issue, ignoring the implications for human rights, and it is being held in a classified document that the public is now seeing months after it was negotiated, and only because it was released through WikiLeaks. 

The process is also highly secretive—in fact, trade agreement texts are classified. While the executive branch does consult with members of Congress, even congressional staffers with security clearance have until recently been prevented from seeing the texts. Furthermore, certain trade industry advisers are allowed access to U.S. negotiating objectives and negotiators that the public and public interest groups do not have.

– From the Slate article: Privacy Is Not a Barrier to Trade

If you haven’t heard about about the Trade in Services Agreement, aka TISA, don’t worry, you’re not alone. While I had heard of it before, I never read anything substantial about it until today. What sparked my reading interest on the subject were a series of very troubling articles published via several media outlets following a document dump by Wikileaks. Here’s how the whistleblower organization describes the TISA leak on it document release page:

 

WikiLeaks releases today 17 secret documents from the ongoing TISA (Trade In Services Agreement) negotiations which cover the United States, the European Union and 23 other countries including Turkey, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Taiwan & Israel — which together comprise two-thirds of global GDP. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

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