Here’s something for conspiracy theorists: In order to gain access to a certain document, members of Congress must descend to the basement of the Capitol, hand over their cell phones and other electronic devices, and enter a secured, soundproof room. Then they can’t speak to the public about what they glean from their visit.
What’s so hush-hush? A draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an enormous international trade agreement that 12 nations, including the United States, Japan, and Australia, have been hashing out in secret for the last half-decade. It’s a big deal: The dozen national economies make up nearly 40 percent of global GDP.
The agreement may be shrouded in mystery, but in recent weeks President Obama and some Democratic members of Congress have been publicly sparring over it—trading barbs during press conferences, on national television, and elsewhere. Critics contend the TPP would allow multinational companies to weaken environmental and labor rules here at home; the administration maintains the partnership is good for the American people and economy.
On Thursday the Senate voted to start debate on giving the president “fast-track” authority to negotiate the deal—a move that would limit Congress to voting yes or no once the nations finalize the pact (no messy fights over amendments!). Next, the battle will move to the House.
Despite the cloak of secrecy around the TPP, some draft sections have leaked, sparking concerns among green groups about everything from increased fracking to tainted seafood. “We do not believe that the rules in the TPP will be strong enough nor enforced enough to be able to lift up environmental standards outside the United States,” says Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club’s responsible trade program. “At the same time, rules in the agreement could severely threaten environmental and climate policy in the States and abroad.”
On that note, here are five ways the TPP could affect the West.
Frack Attack
Many conservationists are concerned that the TPP could spur more fracking. To understand why that is, bear with me for a quick (and appalling) explanation.
The greatest tool that the TPP gives foreign corporations is a provision “buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft,” as Senator Elizabeth Warren puts it. This is the “investor state dispute settlement” (ISDS), which grants multinationals the power to sue any government that interferes with their business. Yep, if some pesky regulation in a TPP country is hurting a corporation’s bottom line, it can sue for “millions to billions of dollars,” says Jake Schmidt, director of NRDC’s international program (disclosure). This has happened in other agreements with similar language, Schmidt says. He points out that nearly 500 ISDS cases have been brought, including a Swedish company that sued Germany because it decided to phase out nuclear power after Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and a Delaware-based oil and gas company, Lone Pine Resources, which is suing the Canadian government under NAFTA for more than $250 million because Quebec placed a moratorium on fracking.
Speaking of fracking, “The TPP would expand the export of fossil fuels and pave the way to more fracking, and therefore more emissions,” says Solomon. “It’s a major deal because Japan is one of the countries in TPP and happens to be the biggest importer of natural gas.”
To export natural gas to another country, the U.S. Department of Energy must first assess whether sending the fuel overseas is consistent with the public interest. The Energy Department, however, loses its authority to regulate exports to countries with which the United States has a trade agreement. The TPP would force it to automatically give those exports the green light. You can see where this is going. Countries that sign onto the TPP, whether the original 12 or those that join later (as China is expected to), will be able to import gas from here, then have the power to sue over any future fracking moratoria or bans around the West. (Existing anti-fracking measures, like those in communities in Colorado, California, New Mexico, and Texas, wouldn’t be affected, says Schmidt.)
Similarly, the trade deal could spur more coal-mining in the West. While U.S. consumption of the dirty fuel has been on the decline, TPP countries, including Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam, are relying more and more on coal to keep the lights on.
Air and Water Woes
With increased fossil-fuel development comes more water and air pollution. Fracking, for instance, has been shown to contaminate local aquifers and drinking water. Adding insult to injury, considering the four-year drought gripping the West, the drilling method is also a water-intensive process. Fracking sullies the air, too; one of the by-products released, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, has been linked to cancer and respiratory ailments. Coal production comes with its own set of toxic consequences, including degraded waterways, habitat fragmentation, and health risks like pulmonary disease. And, of course, whatever fossil fuels we pull out of the ground will contribute to global carbon emissions (and that ginormous climate change problem whose effects we’re already feeling).
Fill ’er Up
The TPP's environmental effects would extend beyond wells and mines. Once fossil fuels are out of the ground, they’re on the move across the country and then around the world. As recent experience has shown, there’s no guarantee of safe transport either by pipeline or train.
By the time the fuels wind up in export terminals, extensive damage to the coastal environment has already been done. Constructing such terminals requires dredging sensitive estuaries to make room for massive tankers, and, of course, facilitates the burning of the fossil fuels being transported. Opposition has blocked some proposed facilities and delayed approval of others, such as an LNG terminal near Astoria, Oregon, for several years (the Energy Department gave it the OKlast year). “Oregon has a number of proposed LNG terminals,” says Solomon, and the TPP could remove roadblocks to their construction.
Fishy Business
Americans love fish. Each year we eat nearly 5 billion pounds of seafood, or about 15.8 pounds of fish and shellfish per person. Most of that—up to 90 percent—is imported, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of course, we aren’t the only ones with a penchant for tilapia and tuna. To meet demand, the global fishing industry is dramatically depleting stocks all over the world, while fish farms pollute waterways.
The (leaked) environment chapter of the TPP attempts, but ultimately fails, to address overfishing. It has language about prohibiting shark-finning, preventing illegally caught fish from entering international trade, and having regional fisheries managers institute best practices. Sounds good, right? Wait. “The right words are going to be in the chapter,” says Solomon, “but it won’t have any teeth.” That’s because the pact doesn’t requirecountries to abide by these provisions. “The only thing legally binding is ‘must’ or ‘shall,’ ” says Schmidt, “and what we’ve seen is a lot of ‘strive’ and ‘endeavor.’ I’m not sure how you’d penalize a country for not ‘striving’ or ‘endeavoring.’ ”
So the fish we import could still be illegally caught. And what’s more, the United States wouldn’t be able to ban imports of products not up to our safety standards. Shrimp aquaculture in Vietnam and Malaysia, for instance, uses pesticides and antibiotics that are forbidden in the States. “The TPP will bring a tidal wave of dangerous fish imports that will swamp the border inspectors who cannot keep up with the tainted aquaculture imports today,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, in a press release.
Dirty Laundry
China has long been known as the world leader in cheap apparel manufacturing, but Vietnam is now billing itself as the best cheaper option. If the TPP comes to pass, tariffs on clothing between the United States and Vietnam will drop to zero, from 17.2 percent. With its use of excessive amounts of water, energy, and harmful chemicals, the textile industry makes the clothes we wear dirty—even if we never see the pollution. China, which produces more than 50 percent of the world’s fabric, is trying to clean up its act. But green groups are increasingly concerned about clothing made in Vietnam, which already dumps huge amounts of untreated sewage into its waterways. “Vietnam is in the Mekong Delta, in this pristine place,” says Schmidt. “Expanding the apparel industry could seriously draw down water resources and contaminate enormous quantities of water.”
* * * While the TPP, which negotiators hope to finalize by the end of the year, is the most immediate concern, the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a trade deal between the United States and European Union, is also worrying environmentalists. Supporters of these massive agreements often dismiss concerns that they will diminish environmental standards and other regulations at home. After all, they say, under any of the existing free trade agreements, the United States has never lost a legal case against it.
But that’s no guarantee of future success, says Schmidt. “It’s true the United States has not lost,” he says. “It’s also true that the United States is not immune to loss. Great laws and great lawyers do lose sometimes.”
Alisa Opar is Earthwire's Western correspondent. She is also the articles editor at Audubon magazine, and has written for many publications about science and the environment. Follow her on Twitter @alisaopar.
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
The corporate drive for free trade is once more facing critical public scrutiny, and in the rush to oppose TTIP we mustn’t lose sight of the broader context in which the deal is being negotiated.
Europe has finally woken up. Public opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has put trade agreements back on the political agenda. At least as citizens of the world’s most powerful trade bloc, we can fight TTIP in the knowledge that our politicians have the power to stop it. In numerous African, Asian and Latin American countries, dozens of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are being negotiated with a much less equal playing field, and less opportunity for the public to stop the corporate power grab.
Sold on the premise that they incentivise much-needed investment into poorer countries, BITs actually give foreign (often western) investors huge new powers over the economies of those countries, forcing liberalisation onto them in the process. They allow richer countries to bypass the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which, despite a serious lack of democratic accountability, still requires the consent of member states. This allows southern countries to club together to defeat proposals. That’s why talks at the WTO have been effectively stalled since the late 1990s.
By negotiating separate deals with individual countries, rich countries have managed to get some of what they want by picking off countries one by one. So, since the 1990s, deals such as the UK-Colombia BIT, or the myriad EU Economic Partnership Agreements with African countries, have been multiplying at a dizzying rate.
Back in 1991, there were just 400 BITs in force worldwide, now there are over 2,500. And unlike the EU negotiations over TTIP, southern countries struggle to negotiate any wiggle room for themselves within the one-size-fits-all prescription of blanket liberalisation.
Take the infamous investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system that allows companies to take countries to arbitration for making legitimate policy decisions that happen to reduce corporate profits. So far, much of the debate around these ‘corporate courts’ has concentrated on the possible consequences here in the EU if TTIP is concluded. But these corporate courts are already allowing corporations to hound less powerful countries for taking action to protect their people.Argentina is one of the most targeted counties, being sued at least 16 times under the US-Argentina Bilateral Investment Treaty. Most of these cases involve energy companies trying to claim ‘compensation’ as a result of Argentina’s decision to freeze electricity and water prices during the financial collapse of 2001-2.
The US has not been sued once under the same treaty. Ecuador has a similar treaty with the US and has been sued 20 times under it. Bilateral treaties have also been used by the company Veolia to try and sue Egypt for introducing a minimum wage (France-Egypt BIT) and by Philip Morris to stop Uruguay introducing health warning on cigarette packaging (Uruguay-Switzerland BIT).
It’s true that multilateral treaties can also include this ‘corporate court’ system – for example, the Energy Charter Treaty or the North American Free Trade Area between Canada, Mexico and the US. But bilateral treaties make up the vast majority of ISDS cases.
ISDS isn’t the only problem. These deals often involve southern countries recognising harsher intellectual property regimes designed to help big pharmaceutical corporations. They also tend to impose greater market liberalisation, affording access to multinational corporations but yielding few benefits in return.
In theory, both sides have equal rights, so a Tanzanian company will have the same right to access the EU market as the EU multinational does to access the Tanzanian market. But how many Tanzanian investors are there in the UK?
Things are also hotting up on the multilateral front too. Negotiations on the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) have been steadily progressing without any public scrutiny. TiSA could be even more damaging than TTIP for public services in the 23 countries (including the EU as one country) that are taking part. It is likely to make it all but impossible for countries to bring privatised services back under public control.
And then there’s TTIP’s Asian cousin, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which poses many of the same threats that TTIP does to Europe. The TPP is a key reason that Democrats have been challenging President Obama’s ‘fast track’ trade negotiating authority.
There is a fightback underway. Ecuador is currently conducting the world’s first ‘trade audit’, examining the impact of bilateral trade agreements on its sovereignty, people and environment, with a view to cancelling agreements that have been detrimental. South Africa is reviewing some trade agreements, as is Indonesia. Brazil and India still refuse to sign up to ISDS clauses in their trade deals.
Beating TTIP will give a huge boost to these international campaigns, but we also need to be prepared to offer solidarity to other countries. Currently, the UK is one of the world’s most prolific users of BITs, with 104 deals in force globally. The UK government is currently negotiating a handful of BITs, including one with Ethiopia which could give UK corporations more power over Ethiopia’s agricultural sector.
Fifteen years ago, protests against the WTO talks were central to the so-called anti-globalisation movement. Those talks were correctly seen as a corporate power grab. The corporations are back again. It’s time for us to join up globally again and take to the streets to defeat them.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings This he said to me "The greatest thing You'll ever learn Is just to love And be loved In return"
America’s First Black President Throwing Slaves Under the Bus on TPP Posted on May 27, 2015 by Yves Smith
Huffington Post has reconfirmed its reporting from over the past weekend, namely, that the Administration has a hairball to untangle to get Malaysia to sign the TransPacific Partnership. Basically, Malaysia needs to have an anti-slavery provision that was inserted in the bill in committee watered down. And the reason that that has to happen, as our reader Antifa pointed out in comments, is that Malaysia controls the Straits of Malacca, a critical shipping choke point. One of the major objectives of the pact is to strengthen America’s position in the region relative to China. Thus Malaysia’s location makes it a critically important signatory to the pact.
On Friday night, in an impressive display of dysfunction, the U.S. Senate approved a controversial trade bill with a provision that the White House, Senate leadership and the author of the language himself wanted taken out.
The provision, which bars countries that engage in slavery from being part of major trade deals with the U.S., was written by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). At the insistence of the White House, Menendez agreed to modify his language to say that as long as a country is taking “concrete” steps toward reducing human trafficking and forced labor, it can be part of a trade deal. Under the original language, the country that would be excluded from the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership pact is Malaysia.
But because the Senate is the Senate, it was unable to swap out the original language for the modification. (The chamber needed unanimous consent to make the legislative move, and an unknown senator or senators objected.) So the trade promotion authority bill that passed Friday includes the strong anti-slavery language, which the House will now work to take out to ensure that Malaysia (and, potentially, other countries in the future) can be part of the deal.
Observers are left with a deeper question: Why, in the year 2015, is the White House teaming up with Republican leaders essentially to defend the practice of slavery?
Malaysia’s membership in the circle of TPP nations is not vital because Malaysia — it’s vital because of the Malacca Straits, through which virtually all the shipping in that part of the world passes. It’s a bottleneck, a chokepoint, and if Malaysia is “driven into the arms of China” then China can close those Straits to shipping how, when, and as they please.
Which would neuter the US Navy in that part of the world, reducing them to observer status. When people at the Pentagon talk about America’s role as the world’s policeman, they are talking about the Navy’s ability to project overwhelming force wherever and whenever needed. The three little chokepoints world trade and shipping depend on are the Strait of Hormuz, the Straits of Malacca, and the Panama Canal. Taking one of those and giving control of it to China and Friends — or to anyone but the US Navy — puts the world’s policeman in a clown suit.
And Andrew Watts added yesterday:
In terms of geopolitics, a pseudo-science imo, there isn’t a more strategic chokepoint in the world. A quarter of the world’s shipping goes through the Straits of Malacca. Look at a list of member states of TPP and tell me this isn’t an anti-Chinese military alliance or there are alternative shipping lanes. The transportation routes via the Eurasian Silk Road is one way to circumvent this potential naval blockade but shipping via the sea has always been cheaper than shipping by land.
The only reason why business and intellectual property rights is apart of the deal is because Obama needs to bribe as many domestic power centers as possible to pass it. This is straight outta his Obamacare playbook. The reason for the secrecy is probably due to the military nature of the pact. in any case nobody wants the perception that this is preparation for some future Sino-American war.
But if I were a Chinese political leader in Beijing I would not trust any assurances to the contrary that come from Washington.
Strait of Malacca control was also one of the domino theory issues that contributed to the Vietnam War.
Correct. Which proves that the US military has always had it in it’s sights AND they’re willing to go to war for control over it.
Of course, one might ask why we are now working so hard against China after having made the US dependent on her by allowing, even encouraging, US multinationals to outsource and offshore manufacturing in China.
A Malaysian government official effectively confirmed that the government expects Fast Track authority ot include the watering-down language in the amendment that the Senate failed to pass:
Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed today minimised concerns that Malaysia could be excluded from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) over its dismal people-trafficking record..
“TPP is still being discussed and nothing has been finalised yet,” Mustapa told Malay Mail Online.
“In the event discussions are concluded, the outcome of these discussions will go to Cabinet and Parliament for approval. Regarding our Tier 3 position on human trafficking, this could be resolved if a Tier 3 country is seen to be taking concrete steps to implement recommendations in the Trafficking in Persons report,” he added.
Mustapa was referring to the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons report that downgraded Malaysia last year to Tier 3, its worst ranking on human trafficking abuses globally.
Notice that same “taking concrete steps” phrase? That’s straight from that failed amendment.
The slavery provision’s survival means that the House will either need to amend the bill and send it back to the Senate, which would cause a delay and complicate the House debate, or pass a bill and go to conference with the Senate, also causing a delay. It also potentially could be fixed in separate legislation otherwise moving through Congress. But time is not on the side of advocates of the trade agenda, as summer recess is approaching, followed by a heated presidential campaign season. “It leaves a substantial problem that no one’s sure how will be addressed,” said one senator.
Since Obama has had the embarrassing spectacle of having set a ministerial meeting for the TPP this week at which the other intended signatories were to give their final offers, based on the assumption that Obama would have Fast Track authority in hand. the negotiators increasingly doubt that Obama can get the bill passed this year, and the general assumption is that Congresscritters won’t touch this issue in 2016, an election year.
I strongly urge you to keep calling your Senators and Representatives. Concentrate on the slavery issue, since there is opposition on the right and left, and the folks on the Hill are likely not well prepared for voter pressure on this aspect of the sausage-making, since the MSM has pointedly ignored it. I’d also call Hillary Clinton’s office, and tell her staffers how deeply disappointed you are that she clearly supports the TPP (see this Gaius Publius post for details), even though she has tried to keep that under wraps. Tell her that anything less than vocal opposition is a dealbreaker for you as far as her presidential candidacy is concerned. Thanks for keeping the pressure up!
As negotiations continue, WikiLeaks has published leaked chapters of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership — a global trade deal between the United States and 11 other countries. The TPP would cover 40 percent of the global economy, but details have been concealed from the public. A recently disclosed "Investment Chapter" highlights the intent of U.S.-led negotiators to create a tribunal where corporations can sue governments if their laws interfere with a company’s claimed future profits. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange warns the plan could chill the adoption of health and environmental regulations.
Watch more from our Julian Assange interview: Part 1 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We return to our exclusive interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. I spoke to him inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on Monday.
AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange, let’s stay with the United States for a moment, with the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which certainly doesn’t only involve the United States, but there’s a huge debate within the United States about it right now. And I dare say, some of that debate is as a result of what WikiLeaks revealed. For some people, this treaty, that will determine 40 percent of the global economy, the only thing that we have seen about it comes from WikiLeaks. Explain what the TPP is and the information that you got, that you put out about this top-secret agreement.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, the TPP is an international treaty that has 29 different chapters. We have released four of them, and we are trying to get the remainder. For the information that has been released, through the chapters that we got hold of and through some congressmen who have seen the contents of some of the others, but they are not allowed to write it down—
AMY GOODMAN: They can go into a room and look at it.
JULIAN ASSANGE: They can go into a room. It has been—it’s not formally classified, but it’s being treated as if it was classified, in terms of how the information is being managed. They go into a room. If they try and take notes, the notes have to be handed over to the government for safe keeping. And, of course, congressmen under those situations won’t take notes. So it is very well guarded from the press and the majority of people and even from congressmen. But 600 U.S. companies are part of the process and have been given access to various parts of the TPP. OK, so it’s a—the largest-ever international economic treaty that has ever been negotiated, very considerably larger than NAFTA. It is mostly not about trade. Only five of the 29 chapters are about traditional trade. The others are about regulating the Internet and what Internet—Internet service providers have to collect information. They have to hand it over to companies under certain circumstances. It’s about regulating labor, what labor conditions can be applied, regulating, whether you can favor local industry, regulating the hospital healthcare system, privatization of hospitals. So, essentially, every aspect of the modern economy, even banking services, are in the TPP. And so, that is erecting and embedding new, ultramodern neoliberal structure in U.S. law and in the laws of the other countries that are participating, and is putting it in a treaty form. And by putting it in a treaty form, that means—with 14 countries involved, means it’s very, very hard to overturn. So if there’s a desire, democratic desire, in the United States to go down a different path—for example, to introduce more public transport—then you can’t easily change the TPP treaty, because you have to go back and get agreement of the other nations involved. Now, looking at that example, what if the government or a state government decides it wants to build a hospital somewhere, and there’s a private hospital, has been erected nearby? Well, the TPP gives the constructor of the private hospital the right to sue the government over the expected—the loss in expected future profits. This is expected future profits. This is not an actual loss that has been sustained, where there’s desire to be compensated; this is a claim about the future. And we know from similar instruments where governments can be sued over free trade treaties that that is used to construct a chilling effect on environmental and health regulation law. For example, Togo, Australia, Uruguay are all being sued by tobacco companies, Philip Morris the leading one, to prevent them from introducing health warnings on the cigarette packets.
AMY GOODMAN: That we have in the United States on our own cigarette packages.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Yes. And it’s not even an even playing field. Let’s say you’ll say, OK, well, we’re going to make it easier for companies to sue the government. Maybe that’s right. Maybe the government is too powerful, and companies should have a right to sue the government under various circumstances. But it’s only multinationals that get this right. U.S. companies operating purely in the U.S., in relation to investments that happen in the U.S., will not have this right, whereas large companies that are multinationals, that have registrations overseas, can structure things such that they’re taking investments from the U.S., and that then gives them the right to sue the government over it. Now, it’s not so easy to get up these cases and win them. However, the chilling effect, the concern that there might be such a case, is severe. Each one of these cases, on average, governments spend more than $10 million for each case, to defend it, even successfully. So, if you have, you know, a city council or a state considering legislation, and then there’s a threat from one of these multinationals about expected future profits, they know that even if they have the law on their side, even if this TPP is on their side, they can expect to suffer.
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
With trade agreements galore--TPP, TISA, TTIP, TAFTA, etc--that most people have never even heard of, is there any doubt that the ultimate agenda is to completely undermine U.S.A. sovereignty in order to institute global corporate governance? And if the Obama administration fails to achieve this, the next administration surely will.
Anyway, if Fast Track goes through, I think it's a done deal. Congress cannot submit amendments, cannot hold normal committee hearings, basically eliminating debate.
Supporters of a controversial trade bill are increasingly confident they can secure the votes needed to pass so-called fast-track legislation when it hits the House floor, which could come as early as this week.
Still, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and other GOP leaders have not yet committed to bringing up Trade Promotion Authority by week’s end, a sign that while pro-trade leaders in the House are closing in on the 217 ayes they need to pass the bill, the contentious vote remains very close. Only about a dozen members remain undecided, most of them Democrats, and President Barack Obama is expected to make another lobbying push this week to try and win over wavering members of his party.
Republican aides predicted a decision by Wednesday on whether the measure would come up for consideration in the House this week, signaling it does not have the votes to pass quite yet.
Support for fast-track — which allows Congress up-or-down votes to approve trade packages while barring amendments — is a rare point of agreement between Obama and Hill Republicans. And enacting fast-track would be a major victory for the president, who needs the expedited authority to finalize a huge Pacific trade accord, the centerpiece of Obama’s economic agenda.
In fact, with bitter fights looming over government spending this summer, it may be the last time for months that Obama and GOP leaders work together in relative harmony.
Congressional sources estimate the pool of undecided members at just over a dozen lawmakers — mostly Democrats torn between supporting Obama’s quest for a historic Pacific Rim trade deal and traditional party backers like labor unions, who have turned the TPA vote into a litmus test for deciding whether to support incumbents heading into 2016.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind, the lead Democrat whipping for the legislation, need at least 217 members to support the deal for it to pass, though congressional sources say both sides want 220 to 225 “yes” votes lined up to avoid the possibility that any one lawmaker could be tagged with casting the deciding vote. So far, more than 18 Democrats have publicly committed to supporting the legislation.
“Over the last few weeks, we have gained more support amongst House Democrats to pass a trade promotion authority bill that will strengthen fundamental labor and environmental rights protections and gives the American people at least 90 days to review every line, every word and every comma in the trade agreement before the House will vote on an agreement,” Kind said.
Kind added, “I am confident that we are going to have the Democratic votes needed to pass TPA.”
Selling fast-track to the House Democratic Caucus has always been the major hurdle, as the overwhelming majority of Republicans support the measure.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland have said they are committed to finding a “path to yes.” But they have otherwise refused to signal which way they are leaning on fast-track.
Pelosi and Hoyer want to avoid embarrassing Obama with a losing vote but are caught between competing loyalties to the president and their deeply progressive caucus. Labor unions believe Pelosi will ultimately side with them and vote against the package, but the White House has said privately it thinks the California Democrat is more inclined to support the bill when it comes to the floor for the vote.
On the whole, though, House Democrats oppose the measure. Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, have lobbied aggressively against fast-track because of larger concerns about labor and environmental standards and currency manipulation in the forthcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership. The massive trade package, which includes the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries, is still being negotiated.
“The majority of the House of Representatives knows the bill passed by the Senate is bad policy that would cost American jobs, depress our wages, and put seniors’ health and the safety of our food supply at risk. That is why there is such broad opposition,” DeLauro said Sunday in a statement issued by her office.
DeLauro, who has claimed for weeks she has the votes to defeat fast-track, has the backing of labor unions that are pledging to pull support from any vulnerable Democrat who votes for the trade legislation. Labor activists have already pledged to run $84,000 in TV ads in Rep. Ami Bera’s California district to punish the Democrat for his full-throated endorsement of fast-track.
“For huge numbers of us, it is a mistake to grant ‘fast-track’ while there remain major problems on so many issues with the TPP negotiations,” Levin said in a statement to POLITICO. “At this critical stage in the negotiations, Congress should not give the Administration a blank check on resolving those issues, leaving itself only with [a] yes or no vote after the agreement is done. We need a TPP that is clearly on the right track.”
With so much at stake, Obama has launched a lobbying blitz to push supporters his way. He’s spent the past two weeks calling up Democrats who were on the sidelines to assuage any lingering concerns. A number of those lawmakers, like Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut and Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, have since signaled their support for fast-track.
Still, the vote margin has remained largely static, with both sides fiercely fighting over a small pool of undecided lawmakers. But the pro-trade wing won an unexpected victory over the weekend when Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) announced she would support fast-track — after previously signing on to letters voicing her opposition to the measure.
“Far too many things are getting lost in an important debate that has listed wildly between public policy, theatre, and threat. But a few things to me have become crystal clear, and these are what I’m going to let guide my vote when fast track hits the House floor in the coming weeks,” Rice wrote in an op-ed in The Hill. “Lost in the ensuing dust-up is that the fast-track legislation recently passed by the Senate outlines unprecedented requirements to address the worker-protection problems of NAFTA. It sets high labor and environmental standards, and ensures that trade sanctions can be imposed on any country that fails to meet these marks.”
Republicans are closely watching numbers on their side, too, with party leaders buoyed by the support they received throughout the week. Boehner, McCarthy, Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a key player in the fast-track fight, hosted a Wednesday meeting with trade associations, agriculture groups and manufacturers that drew 150 attendees. And lawmakers were treated to pizza in Scalise’s office during a series of late-night votes that attendees said came with a side order of trade lobbying.
There is less dissent among the GOP Conference, but still, Boehner and McCarthy want to get their numbers closer to 190 before scheduling a vote. Ohio Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi, a close ally of Boehner’s and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said over the weekend that trade is vital to growing the economy — a key selling point of the GOP leaders’ push to woo Republicans not thrilled with giving Obama more executive authority.
“If we pass TPA, we’ll be able to make agreements that give us access to billions of new customers,” Tiberi said in the weekly Republican address. “And our workers will be able to compete for that business on a level playing field, where we know we can outwork anyone.”
'I see clearly that man in this world deceives himself by admiring and esteeming things which are not, and neither sees nor esteems the things which are.' — St. Catherine of Genoa
Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Program.
As the Obama administration praises the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), backlash continues to grow against the deal. WikiLeaks has just published another section of the secret text — this one about public healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry. Newly revealed details of the draft show the TPP would give major pharmaceutical companies more power over public access to medicine, and weaken public healthcare programs. The leaked draft also suggests the TPP would prevent Congress from passing reforms to lower drug costs. One of the practices that would be allowed is known as "Evergreening." It lets drug companies extend the life of a patent by slightly modifying their product and then getting a new patent. We speak to Peter Maybarduk of Public Citizen and John Sifton of Human Rights Watch about their concerns.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Welcome to all our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world. House Republicans are set to push for a vote as soon as Friday on approving a measure to give President Obama fast-track authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. The secretive TPP deal involves 12 countries and nearly 40 percent of the global economy. On Wednesday, WikiLeaks released a leaked draft of another chapter of the secret negotiating text. This time the TPP’s so-called "Healthcare Annex." Newly revealed details of the draft show the TPP would give major pharmaceutical companies more power over public access to medicine, and weaken public healthcare programs. The leaked draft also suggests the TPP would prevent Congress from passing reforms to lower drug costs. One of the practices that would be allowed is known as "evergreening." It lets drug companies extend the life of a patent by slightly modifying their product and then getting a new patent. This is a video explaining the practice, produced by Doctors Without Borders.
PRESENTER: Evergreening. It sounds nice, doesn’t it? But evergreening is what drug companies do when they want to increase their profits. And it leads people in developing countries without the medicines they need. Here is how. A drug company develops a new drug and is rewarded with a patent. The patent stops other producers making the medicine for 20 years. So the drug company can charge very high prices without anyone else undercutting them, for 20 years. When the patent ends, other producers can come in and compete with each other, and bingo, the prices come tumbling down. So the medicines become affordable for everyone. But the drug companies want more profits, so they make a tiny little change to their drugs and ask for another 20 year patent. AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by two guests in Washington, D.C. Peter Maybarduk is Director of Public Citizen’s Global Access to Medicines Program. And John Sifton is an advocacy director with Human Rights Watch. Today he is hosting a briefing at the National Press Club on the Human Rights and Humanitarian Concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, along with Oxfam America and the Council on Global Equality. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Peter, let’s begin with you on this issue of drugs. Talk about the TPP, and for those who have never heard of it, explain its significance and, particularly, as it relates to global access to drugs.
PETER MAYBARDUK: Sure, it’s great to be with you. The transpacific partnership is an ongoing trade negotiation; been going for about five years now, among 12 countries, including developing countries like Vietnam, Peru, Malaysia as well as the United States. In this agreement, the U.S. trade representative and the Obama administration put forward a number of proposals that have nothing to do with trade. There are about 30 chapters, only a few have leaked, the rest is negotiated in secret. Among the many harmful proposals that have been made by big business are demands to transform other countries’ rules with regard to medical patents and many rules affecting people’s access to affordable medicines.
We are very concerned that the TPP would lead to preventable suffering and death in these countries where people rely on access to generics. There are many provisions in the TPP that would expand the pharmaceutical industry’s monopoly power. We are also concerned about rules in this latest leak that potentially have implications for Medicare and for U.S. programming, and most particularly, constraining our ability to make some of the health care reforms the Obama administration has pledged, to reduce health care costs for Americans.
AMY GOODMAN: And you’re just learning this now, because WikiLeaks has released the chapter on these issues?
PETER MAYBARDUK: This Annex, which is ironically an annex to a chapter called "transparency," is the latest in a series of leaks that have been published that give us more particular idea of exactly what rules are being negotiated. The details matter. You can’t get into the negotiations. We do our best to follow by talking to contacts that we know, but due to the secrecy, it’s really only through leaks we’re available to evaluate the particular proposals and assess their impact. These are all rules that would otherwise be debated in our Congresses and Parliaments out in the open, rules that include many gifts to big business. And so it’s very concerning that we have to rely on someone taking the tremendous risk of leaking a document in order to have a real public debate about the issues.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the possible justification for not revealing what is in the TPP? President Obama repeatedly says, "trust me." He says, you know, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, they’re getting it wrong. But we are not able to see — the Senators can’t even see unless they go into a room what is in this deal?
PETER MAYBARDUK: The U.S. trade representative has come out and as much as said we can’t tell you what is in the agreement because it would create political complications for the negotiation, which is effectively the same thing as saying if people saw what is in it, they wouldn’t like it and we wouldn’t be able to pass a deal.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Peter, I want to ask you about what you mention earlier about the possible impact of the TPP deal from what has been revealed on Medicare here in the U.S. The New York Times, yesterday, Wednesday, cited officials at the U.S. trade representative office saying, saying rules in the TPP would have no impact on the U.S. because Medicare and Medicaid are already adhere to them. Could you comment on that? Of course, they didn’t officially comment on the leaked draft, but these were comments they disclosed to The New York Times.
PETER MAYBARDUK: Well, the administration makes that assertion. But as I say, the details matter. And if you read the leaked text and compare it to Medicare regulations, we are quite concerned that it gives pharmaceutical companies opportunities to say, well, we have broader rights under the TPP than we have under Medicare regulations, we want to be listed in the formularies if we show any therapeutic value, we want to have opportunities to comment at all meaningful point according to our own definitions. And we’re concerned that that could mean potentially that pharmaceutical companies might even be able to bolster a claim in the secret investor state tribunals that are much more friendly to investor rules in order to make their arguments about interpretation of the particular terms. So we’re concerned that there are potential consequences for Medicare a and b today. If pharmaceutical company lawyers and lobbyists exploit what they might now see as their rights if this agreement is signed. But we are also concerned about what happens to Medicare part D in the future.
The president’s budget includes a proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug costs, something that 75 percent or 80 percent of Americans support broadly across party lines could save a tremendous amount of money if it’s implemented with a national formulary. And implementing a national formulary under these rules that have just leaked yesterday would be difficult, would be expensive, subject to a great deal of challenge. We know this, in part, specifically because the Veterans Administration, for example, which is considered a model for procurement practices, has been specifically excluded from the Annex we think because it’s known that these rules would make it difficult for the V.A. to operate, similarly difficult for us to negotiate drug prices the way we need to.
AMY GOODMAN: John Sifton, you’re holding a news conference today with other human rights groups. Can you expand on — I mean, health rights are also a human right, but go further and talk about your overall human rights concerns with the TPP.
JOHN SIFTON: Well, there are issues both within the agreement with respect to the health issues, but also labor rights issues. And then there are issues that are larger, on the geopolitical level. The simple fact is, this agreement awards several countries which have atrocious human rights records. One of them is Vietnam, a one party undemocratic state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam, no elections, no freedom of speech. This is a country lacks of dissidence for criticizing the government, voicing their own issues. So that is one traded partner. Another Brunei, the Sultan of Brunei wants to impose Sharia law, which would result in a adulterers being stoned to death, thieves having their hands cut off, homosexuals whipped. This is a country which is also nondemocratic, ruled by fiat, by a sultan who inherited his power through birth.
Then you have countries like Malaysia, which although emerging democracies have serious problems with freedom of expression and rights of lesbian, gay, transgender people, Singapore, the city-state next to Malaysia also has serious problems with labor rights and freedom of expression. All of these countries would be rewarded by the United States. We’d like to see the U.S. use the agreement as leverage to compel these countries to improve their human rights records. Yet over the last four or five years, that hasn’t really happened. A couple of the countries have made baby steps. Vietnam has done a few minor things. But by and large, no big agreements. Malaysia, in fact, its human rights record has gotten worse.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is President Obama speaking last month about how the TPP would improve worker conditions in Vietnam as well as here in the United States.
PRES. BARACK OBAMAM: So when you look at a country like Vietnam, under this agreement, Vietnam would actually, for the first time, have to raise its labor standards. It would have to set a minimum wage. It would have to pass safe workplace laws to protect its workers. It would even have to protect workers freedoms to form unions for the very first time. That would make a difference. That helps to level the playing field. And it would be good for the workers in Vietnam, even as it helps make sure that they’re not undercutting competition here in the United States. So that’s progress. NERMEEN SHAIKH: John Sifton, could you comment on what he said about the likelihood of worker conditions improving as a consequence of the TPP?
JOHN SIFTON: Look, we give credit to the administration for pushing along a good labor chapter that would have provisions that would do some of the things that President Obama said. The problem is, all of that would all be on paper. The key issue here is, would those provisions be enforceable? Would Vietnamese workers be able to actually compel the government of Vietnam to make those supposed paper reforms a reality? And that is where the Obama administration has been very disingenuous. They suggest the labor chapter is enforceable, what they mean is, if Vietnam fails to meet the standards, a nonexistent Vietnamese union would bring a claim in a nonexistent tribunal to compel Vietnam to improve its rights. No. The only possibility is that an outside group, maybe an international labor federation, could compel another country, like the United States, to bring a complaint against Vietnam about its labor practices in the abstract, and maybe after many years of tribunal litigation, that would result in some kind of penalty being imposed on Vietnam. That’s not enforceability. That’s merely a process which might potentially impact Vietnam’s reform process on the grand scale. There is nothing like the rights that investors have to compel governments to change their rules. And that, at the end of the day, is what is wrong with the TPP. It creates rights for companies and investors but it doesn’t create new rights for workers or civil society. It basically gives corporations more rights than people.
AMY GOODMAN: So some are saying even if you can’t negotiate these things, after the TPP, you can use the TPP to change things as you negotiate it. Some openly gay lawmakers have called for halting TPP negotiations with Malaysia and Brunei because of their laws targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens. But Colorado Congress member Jared Polis, who’s openly gay, has called on the Obama administration to use the trade agreement to push for reform. He wrote a letter earlier this year saying, "As negotiations over the TPP proceed, I hope you will seize the occasion by expressing to the governments of Brunei and Malaysia in no uncertain terms that their violations of basic human rights must end." John Sifton, if you could respond to that, using the negotiations to change these countries, but also, then, the two of you disagree over what should be done with TPP. John, you’re with the reform TPP crowd. Peter, you’re with the stop it, end it. I’d like to hear your views on this. John?
JOHN SIFTON: Well first off, let me say, the problem with the idea of compelling the government of Malaysia and Vietnam to improve through the negotiation process is that that has already been going on for four or five years, the United States has been pushing these reform agendas in these countries have not shown any willingness to make meaningful steps. So the real question for the administration is, how is having fast-track authority going to make it any better? At the end of the day, it’s our position that if the United States — if the administration is compelled to reach certain benchmarks on human rights, not just labor rights, but other human rights, political prisoners in Vietnam, LGBT issues in Malaysia, if they’re compelled by law to actually meet those benchmarks as part of the agreement to allow fast-track authority or allow the government to present the TPP back once it’s finalized, then it will be a necessity, these countries will have to reform, otherwise, they can’t be part of the agreement. And that would be an incentive that wouldn’t exist otherwise. So essentially, what we’re saying is, yeah, the TPP could be used for leverage, but you have to actually use it for leverage. And if you don’t, it is going to be a huge disappointment. And when you actually come back with a negotiated agreement, then you’re going to see human rights groups saying, no, don’t vote for this agreement we are against it. But, for now, our position is, yes, let’s compel the administration to write this agreement in a way that actually protects human rights that actually promotes human rights, that actually abandons the ridiculous unconscionable provisions on intellectual property that will lead to higher drug costs. If you make those changes and then go out and negotiate and it actually compels Vietnam to improve its records, great. If you can’t do it though, you’re going to be out of luck when you bring this agreement back to Congress when it is done.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Maybarduk, you’re with the stop TPP crowd, not reform it, as John is. Why?
PETER MAYBARDUK: There’s no such thing as a good TPP. There have been some very brave negotiators from some of the developing countries in the negotiation who have been standing up to some of the most powerful industries on earth. In defense of their countries’ various public interests, including health. But, at the end of the day, the multinational corporations involved aren’t going to accept a text that reduces their rights. So we’re not going to see a TPP that has positive effects for society the way many of us would. The predicted benefits in gains in terms of trade flows are very small. The predicted costs are very large. So I don’t know why Congress would want to cede its constitutional authority to the executive, to the president, giving the president fast-track authority to ram a deal through Congress on an up or down vote without possibility for amendment when the whole thing has been negotiated in secret all this time. As I say, only a few chapters have leaked. That, of course, is unofficial. What is in the other 25 plus chapters of the agreement that we don’t about, what unfortunate surprises that could have real consequences for human beings? So we invite your viewers to go to stopfasttrack.com, and your listeners, and to call their member of Congress today ahead of this very close and very important vote on fast-track trade promotion authority. Say no to fast-track.
JOHN SIFTON: And I’d say, look, we don’t disagree at the end of the day about these issues, because the substantive underlying issues are the same. If people want to call their member of Congress and tell them, I’m uncomfortable with this agreement, they should do that. And, look, we work on Syria, we work on North Korea, we have to be optimistic about the idea in theory that the Obama administration could do better. If Peter is right and they can’t, and there’s no such thing as a good TPP, then so be it. Then the time will come when it’s time to oppose it. So I don’t think there’s a disagreement here. And, yes, your listeners should go call their congress people today. The vote is tomorrow.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And Peter, before we conclude, could you just explain specifically what you think the impact of this deal would be on drugs that are used over the long-term? For instance, cancer or HIV drugs?
PETER MAYBARDUK: Certainly. Well there’s a combination of provisions in the intellectual property chapter, enforceable, potentially through the investment chapter, affected in terms of negotiation powers in this leak that just came out yesterday published by WikiLeaks, that show us that the generic competition, the affordable medicines in which people around the world in many TPP countries depend would be blocked through the expanding monopoly powers of the industry under this agreement. That includes the patent evergreening rules you mentioned in your run up. But, for example, if we look at cancer, there’s a rule proposed that was tucked in through a massive lobbying effort by the pharmaceutical industry, tucked into Obamacare for 12 year automatic monopolies on Biologics, which includes a great many cancer drugs, 11 to 12 cancer treatments approved recently by the FDA, cost more than $100,000. That’s a leading driver of bankruptcy for American families, and leads to devastating consequences, routinely to death, for people in developing countries. So if competition is blocked for a long period of time, governments aren’t even going to be able to offer some of these treatments to their citizens and people will suffer.
JOHN SIFTON: And it’s madness on the issue of antivirals for HIV/AIDS. It’s amazing that one part of this government, PEPFAR, which is the presidents agenda for combating HIV/AIDS worldwide, they’ll see higher costs to their budget as they try to help countryside HIV/AIDS because antivirals — second stage antivirals, the kind you have to use once the initial ones where off after a certain number of years of use — are going to be more expensive. Not to mention that all these groups, these humanitarian groups on the ground, are obliged to use sub-par, generic antivirals, even though there are better drugs coming on the market, simply because of this expansion in the patent protections. It’s really unconscionable.
AMY GOODMAN: John Sifton, we want to thank you very much for being with us. I know you have to run off to your news conference, over at the — you’re holding it at the National Press Club, but John Sifton is with Human Rights Watch and, together, with Oxfam America, as well as other groups, like the Council on Global Equality, they will be speaking out against TPP. And thank you very much to Peter Maybarduk, Director of Public Citizens Global Access to Medicines program. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, has ISIS trumped Al Qaeda — actually begun to destroy it? We go to London to talk with a journalist from The Guardian. Stay with us.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started. They could still get him out of office. But instead, they want mass death. Don’t forget that.
I wanted to share my feelings about this terrible development, the TPP and the others committed to under the past few administrations.
We've heard some about how partners in the pact will be able to skirt members local government rules, but what is effectively being created are corporate cartels to entirely do away with government oversight of capitalism before dissolving "Government" everywhere having convinced too many that government is an obstacle to free trade and no longer relevant.
Now see where it's going? - Why it is critically important for common people to exert human rights over corporate rights before people lose what slim rights we now have to govern ourselves.
(Interesting to contemplate what will happen to the tens of thousands of truckers once robotic transport becomes the norm.)
I wonder if this is making right-wingers heads explode...The US has thawed relations with Vietnam considerably, obviously for the TPP and wedging them against further against China...Japan is also dropping money on the region but it canot offer what the US is so great at: arms.
Vietnam is Southeast Asia's biggest exporter to the United States, with which it shares annual trade of $35 billion. Both countries are among 12 negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) accord covering combined GDP of $28 trillion.
A lethal arms embargo on Vietnam was eased in October, allowing joint military exercises and $18 million in loans for U.S. patrol boats. It also allowed consultations on defense procurement, as Hanoi seeks to build up a deterrent to counter Beijing's expansionism in the South China Sea.
Vietnam has been speaking to Western defense companies, including U.S. firms Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing, according to informed sources.
But scope for deals could be limited until the embargo is fully lifted. Washington says that requires greater improvements in Vietnam's human rights record.
Of course, our relationship is not just about doing business. Our security cooperation has improved, and the Obama administration has partially lifted the U.S. embargo on the sale of lethal arms. Vietnam and the United States share a common goal of peace and stability in the region. Both our governments believe in the settlement of disputes by peaceful means through negotiations, on the basis of international law, and the respect for freedom of navigation in international waters. As a result, we are natural partners when it comes to promoting stability in East Asia.
The general secretary’s visit underlines these achievements of bilateral relations, but more important, it is a milestone that can help usher in more positive changes. With or without a prompt conclusion of the negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal — which Vietnam strongly supports — we invite more U.S. investment. We want the United States to become the top investor in Vietnam, because U.S. investors are involved in the industries that represent the future: business services and technology. Vietnam is an eager market for these industries of the 21st century.
Washington should finally grant market-economy status to Vietnam. Our economy is no less open than those of some European countries, and where we still have problems, such as with state-owned enterprises, we are working diligently to make the necessary — and sometimes painful — reforms.
