TPP: Leaked Doc Shows Obama Wants to Help Corporations Avoid Regulations

[Cataclysm]

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc

A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama. A U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal.

The agreement is being negotiated by the U.S. trade representative, Ron Kirk, appointed by President Obama. But the newly revealed terms contradict promises Obama made while running for president in 2008. One campaign document read in part, quote, "We will not negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the government from protecting the environment, food safety, or the health of its citizens; [or] give greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors."

Here we are, three years into this negotiation with eight countries, and they will not publish a sentence. In fact, it finally leaked that they had signed a special agreement not to release any draft text for four years after negotiations are done—a secrecy agreement on top of the normal secrecy. And when asked, Ron Kirk, the trade representative, why—in the past, the U.S. has sent out draft texts. The WTO, hardly a paradigm of transparency, publishes draft texts. "What the—what’s going on?" he was asked. He said, "Well, in the past, for instance, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, when the text was revealed, we couldn’t finish it."

The U.S. and the other countries would submit themselves to the jurisdiction of this corporate kangaroo court, and these three random attorneys would have the right to order the U.S. government to pay unlimited amounts of our tax dollars to corporations and investors who, A, claim regulatory costs need to be refunded, or, B, are saying they’re not being treated well enough, regardless if the policies they dislike are the exact same ones that apply to all of us. Even under NAFTA’s system, which has some of this, $350 million have already been paid out to corporations by governments, over toxics bans, zoning laws, timber rules. This is a sneaky outrage. And if people actually put a spotlight on it, we can stop it.

Read more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Strategic_Economic_Partnership

[largeham]

Well that's what the state is for anyway.

[Jodie]

Do you have a source for this besides Wikipedia?

[Osama bin Bambi]

Sadly, not surprised.

[Witchyjoshy]

Do you have a source for this besides Wikipedia?

[Old Viking]

Sounds implausible.

[m52nickerson]

The US is in negotiations with countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  Much of the negotiations are being held hind closed doors.  Thing is before any treaty is ratified by the US government it has to be approved by congress, and anything that goes before congress is public record and we will be able to see it.  Congress, is not going to pass any treaty which gives up US sovereignty or pays out unlimited US tax dollars.

This is the standard grains of truth covered in bullshit to get people upset about something they don't understand.