A Direct Constitutional Threat by Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham
Clinton, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi but it's worse than that:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPA)
Agenda 21, United Nations
“free flow of workers” between countries
The TPP agreement is being negotiated — in secret, even from Congress — between representatives of governments and giant, multinational corporations.
“free flow of workers” between countries
The TPP agreement is being negotiated — in secret, even from Congress — between representatives of governments and giant, multinational corporations.
Ten
Million More Illegal Aliens, staged for importing.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPA) fast track being supported by many
Republicans (the bastards you voted for) has a legal provision that allows for
the “free flow of workers” between countries, essentially creating a backdoor
to “unrestricted immigration.” A free
flow of workers is the Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, George Soros
dream as it truly does eliminate the border of the United States, U.N. Agenda
21.
“This is huge hit to
every American citizen and they won't know what hit them.
I hope everybody reading this will take the time to copy, paste
and post on all available internet channels to get the word out.
Everybody asks me "what can I do?"
Start paying attention and spread the word.
If you're watching ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN or reading The New
York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, L.A. Times and other progressive socialist
media you're be blindsided.
Call your senator today if they're not in jail yet.
If he is a Republican he is voting wrong.
People don't understand that in this deal which is a trade
agreement among Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, Canada, the United States,
Mexico, Peru, and Chile, there’s a provision for free flow of workers, just
like in the European Union.
What It means is unrestricted immigration.
Open borders forever.
Low paying jobs for American citizens.
It means literally that
congress would not have the authority to restrict immigration because a
treaty supersedes a statute under our constitution.
You can expect millions of illegal aliens, made legal by treaty,
to be transported to your neighborhood and stay forever.
.
Not Really A “Trade’ Treaty”
The TPP agreement is being negotiated — in secret, even from
Congress — between representatives of governments and giant, multinational
corporations. (Government negotiators are not prevented from seeking lucrative
corporate jobs if negotiations are completed in favor of those corporations.)
Groups representing the interests of labor, environmental, consumer, human
rights or other stakeholders in democracy are not at the negotiating table.
And, not surprisingly, it appears that the agreement will promote the interests
of giant, multinational corporations over the interests of labor,
environmental, consumer, human rights or other stakeholders in democracy.
Negotiated in secret, what we know about the treaty comes from
leaks. Only a few of the “chapters” of the agreement are actually about “trade”
at all. The rest are about the “rights” of corporations and investors.
Negotiated just as the worldwide democracy uprising threatens to reign in
corporate interests, the agreement will limit governments’ ability to write
banking regulations, energy policy, food safety standards
and even government purchasing decisions. It will allow corporations and
investors to sue governments for lost profits if the governments try to make
and enforce environmental, labor and other laws.
Congress Waking Up
The corporations are asking Congress to pass “Fast Track” Trade
Promotion Authority. This would mean Congress yields its authority and duties
under the Constitution, and just has a rushed up-or-down vote on whatever is
presented to them. So this will be about which legislators the giant corporations
own, and which they do not. (Of course this vote will occur during a major
corporate-funded PR campaign that will rival the propaganda “run-up” to the
Iraq war vote.)
Some members of Congress are circulating letters opposing “Fast
Track” Trade Promotion Authority and are getting plenty of signatures from the
“left” and the “right.”
Last week conservative House Republicans Michele
Bachmann and Walter Jones joined Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro began gathering
signatures of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress on letters
opposing granting “Fast Track” Trade Promotion Authority. They complain that
Congress has not played their Constitutionally-mandated part in shaping this
deal, and Fast Track removes their Constitutional authority to review and amend
any such agreement.
In June 2/3 of newly-elected
Democratic members of Congress warned against passing “Fast Track.” Also in
June 230 members of Congress signed a letter asking that TPP address currency
manipulation.
Last year many members of Congress signed letters objecting to the secrecy of the
negotiations.
Representative Alan Grayson has been all over this.
he has penned posts,
held meetings, sent
emails, done radio show, and all kinds of other things to warn the public and
rally opposition to TPP.
Public Rallying
This public is slowly becoming aware of TPP and the threat it
poses. (Corporate media is, of course, not covering this.) Last Saturday, for
example, hundreds of people gathered at a rally in Madison Wisconsin to show their
disapproval of TPP.
At the rally people chanted,
“Secrets, secrets are no fun! TPP hurts everyone!”
Interestingly, those parts of the Tea Party that are not fronts
for corporate interests are also trying to spread the news about this treaty.
Gotta give them credit, their radar is really catching this one.
Tea-Party concerns include the fact that the treaty would
elevate a corporate-council above American sovereignty, and Fast-Track Trade
Promotion Authority would strip Congress of its Constitutional role in shaping
and approving the treaty.
Here are some examples from Tea-Party outlets,
Daily Paul:
Others:
The third evil is flying under the radar. Few people know about
it. That is by design.
It is called the Trans Pacific Partnership. It might as well be
called the American Suicide Agreement.
Do Your Part
Let your Representative and Senators know that you oppose
Congress voting for “Fast Track” Trade Promotion Authority because this means
that Congress cannot carefully consider the TPP and amend it as needed.
If
you're just now hearing about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, don't worry: It's
not too late to get up to speed. Negotiations over the huge trade agreement
— which, when finished, will govern 40 percent of U.S.' imports and
exports — were supposed to wrap up this past weekend in Singapore, but,
well, they didn't quite make that deadline,
which means meetings will likely continue into the new year.
You'd
also be forgiven for not hearing about it: The talks, as with all trade
agreements, have been conducted largely in secret. Global health advocates,
environmentalists, Internet activists and trade unions have deep concerns about
what the deal might contain, and are making as much noise as possible in order
to influence negotiations before a final version becomes public. Here's what
you need to know.
1.
What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Basically,
it's a giant free trade deal between the U.S., Canada, and 10 countries in the
Asia-Pacific region that's been under negotiation for nearly a decade now (it began as an agreement between Singapore,
Chile, New Zealand and Brunei before the U.S. took the lead in 2009). It's
expected to eliminate tariffs on goods and services, tear down a host of
non-tariff barriers and harmonize all sorts of regulations when it's finished early next year.
2.
Giant, huh? How giant?
The
countries currently party to the agreement — currently
including Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada,
Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, most critically Japan and potentially Korea —
are some of the U.S.' biggest and fastest-growing commercial partners,
accounting for $1.5 trillion worth of trade in goods in 2012 and $242 billion
worth of services in 2011.
They're responsible for 40 percent of the world's
GDP and 26 percent of the world's trade.
That makes it roughly the same size as
the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, another huge trade
agreement that got rolling this
past summer. The hope is that more countries in the region will join down the
line.
.
3. So the big country not in the TPP is ...
That's right: China. The Obama administration's focus on the TPP
is part of its "pivot" to Asia — former national security adviser Tom
Donilon called it the "centerpiece of our economic rebalancing" and a
"platform for regional economic integration" — after too many years
of American foreign policy being bogged down in the Middle East. Scholars such
as Columbia University's Jagdish Bhagwati are worried that the TPP goes
further, as an effort to "contain" China and provide an economic
counterweight to it in the region. Many of the TPP's current provisions are
designed to exclude China, like those requiring yarn in clothing to come from countries
party to the agreement, and could possibly invite retaliation. In addition, 60
senators have asked for the final agreement to address currency manipulation,
which wouldn't directly affect China as a non-member, but could create a
framework for broader action.
(Congressional Research Service)
4. I thought we already had a World Trade Organization. Why do
we need a separate Asia trade deal?
The TPP process itself is an admission that the consensus-driven
WTO is too cumbersome a venue for so-called "high-standard" trade
deals. The WTO's weakness seemed even more apparent in its recent
"breakthrough" on customs streamlining, which was all negotiators
could salvage from the much more ambitious Doha Round that's otherwise been a
failure. Of course, some fear that another regional pact will just add
complexity and undermine existing institutions.
Trade agreements are
becoming broader. (The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Asia-Pacific Integration:
A Quantitative Assessment, edited by Peter A. Petri)
Trade agreements are becoming broader. (The Trans-Pacific
Partnership and Asia-Pacific Integration: A Quantitative Assessment, edited by
Peter A. Petri)
5. How is it different from other trade deals we've done?
Trade agreements used to deal mostly just with goods: You can
import X number of widgets at Y price, as long as we know that certain
environmental and labor standards are met. Modern trade agreements — including
the Trans-Atlantic deal as well as the TPP — encompass a broad range of
regulatory and legal issues, making them a much more central part of foreign
policy and even domestic lawmaking.
6. Wait, so how much does this thing actually cover?
The treaty has 29 chapters, dealing with everything from
financial services to telecommunications to sanitary standards for food. Some
parts of it have significant ramifications for countries' own legal regimes,
such as the part about "regulatory coherence," which encourages
countries to set up a mechanism like the U.S.' own Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs to conduct cost-benefit analyses on new rules. USTR has a
rough outline, and for a more comprehensive rundown, read this Congressional
Research Service report.
7. That doesn't tell me much. What are countries still fighting
over?
Where to start? Most countries have their own individual issues,
and it's difficult to tell what's been resolved since the details aren't
public, but anonymously sourced reports and leaked texts suggest that these are
the biggest remaining sticking points:
— Intellectual property: The leaked intellectual property
chapter revealed that the U.S. has been pushing stronger copyright protections
for music and film, as well as broader and longer-lasting applicability of
patents. It would also make the approval process more difficult for generic
drug makers and extend protections for biologic medicines, which has concerned
several members of Congress. Public health and open internet groups have
campaigned hard for years around these issues, and public intellectuals like
Joe Stiglitz have warned against using the treaty to "restrict access to
knowledge."
— State-owned enterprises: Many TPP governments, in particular
Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia, essentially own large parts of their
economies. Negotiations have aimed to limit public support for these companies
in order to foster competition with the private sector, but given the U.S.' own
government-sponsored enterprises — Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the U.S. Postal
Service — they probably won't go too far.
— Market access: Though the treaty envisions dropping all
tariffs, tensions remain between the U.S. and Japan over support for both of
their agricultural sectors, as well as Japan's willingness to accept U.S.-made
automobiles.
— Investor-state dispute resolution: Most modern free trade
agreements include some mechanism for investor parties to sue governments
directly for failing to abide by the terms of the agreement, which some public
interest advocates worry will have a chilling effect on domestic regulation
aimed at consumer and environmental protection.
— Tobacco: Originally, the U.S. had proposed that tobacco be
treated differently than other kinds of goods, in that countries would have
permission to restrict its importation and sale. This summer, it executed
something of an about-face, which alarmed anti-smoking advocates who worry that
tobacco companies will continue to sue nations for passing laws that heavily
tax cigarettes or ban certain kinds of advertising.
The Peterson Institute has a helpful overview of some of the
more contentious issues.
8. How do negotiations work, exactly?
The negotiations have progressed in 20 several-day-long
"rounds," which rotate between the party nations. Typically, the U.S.
will table a proposal or circulate something called a "non-paper" for
discussion, which gets marked up by all the participants until they can come to
a consensus. In between the rounds, the U.S. Trade Representative will brief
its 16 formal "advisory councils" and seek input from key lawmakers
on where they've arrived. (Given the robust revolving door between USTR and
industry, a certain amount of back-channel lobbying goes on as well).
When all the parties have agreed on a complete text, they'll
take it back to their respective legislative bodies for ratification.
9. Why has the TPP been so secretive? Is that normal?
Trade negotiations are usually conducted in private, on the
theory that parties won't be able to have a meaningful dialogue if their
positions are disclosed to the public. Accordingly, TPP parties have signed a
confidentiality agreement requiring them to share proposals only with
"government officials and individuals who are part of the government’s
domestic trade advisory process."
What's different this time is the scale and scope of the
agreement, and the reasons advocates have had to be concerned about its
contents. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have been
particularly vocal about the administration's refusal to make draft text
available, as have law professors and numerous public interest groups. There
have been a couple major unintentional releases, most recently in mid-November,
when Wikileaks published a controversial chapter on intellectual property.
9. So but wait, how will this actually affect my life?
To be honest, it'll be hard to notice at first, and it depends
on who you are. In the aggregate, it should make you richer: The Peterson
Institute for International Economics estimates the U.S. will realize $78
billion more per year under its assumptions about what the TPP will include,
and $267 billion annually if free trade is expanded to the rest of the
Asia-Pacific region.
Those gains won't be evenly distributed, though: If you're an
investor or a U.S. business looking for foreign investment, or a small business
looking to sell stuff overseas, the news is pretty great. If you have a job
making cars or airplanes, you might have reason to worry. (The Business
Roundtable, which is composed of the U.S.' biggest companies, has put together
fact sheets on how it thinks the TPP could benefit each state).
U.S. income gains under the Trans-Pacific Partnership and if
it's expanded to a Free Trade Agreement of the Asia Pacific, according to the
Peterson Institute for International Economics.
UPDATE: It's also worth considering the ramifications of the
TPP's potential to exacerbate economic inequality. The left-leaning Center for
Economic and Policy Research responded to Peterson's paper with an analysis
that breaks out wage gains by income percentile, showing that most would accrue
to the wealthy:
(Center for Economic and
Policy Research)
(Center for Economic and Policy Research)
10. What does Congress have to do with this?
The Constitution charges Congress with giving advice and consent
on trade agreements. Over the past couple decades, though, Congress has
abrogated that right somewhat by granting the president something called
"trade promotion authority" or "fast track," which is the
right to an up-or-down vote on the treaty as negotiated by the administration
so as to avoid quibbling over line items that would require renegotiation with
TPP countries.
That's what Congress is currently fighting over. Republicans and
big business generally favor reauthorizing the president's fast track
privileges, which expired in 2007, while Democrats concerned with protecting
U.S. industries and global health have opposed it or demanded more robust
consultation up front in exchange. Without trade promotion authority, the
chances of ratification are slim.
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