Dave Johnson at the Campaign for America's Future writes
Let’s Take Apart The Corporate Case For Fast Track Trade Authority. An excerpt:
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman appeared before Congress Tuesday to make the corporate argument for “fast track” trade promotion authority. The USTR and President Obama are pushing fast-track pre-approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other big “trade” agreements they are working on. The Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and other corporate groups and lobbyists are also pushing hard for Congress to pass fast track.
The promoters of fast track say we need it to push “trade” agreements through Congress to expand trade and increase exports. “What we’re going to do through this trade agreement is open up markets,” Froman told Congress Tuesday, “and then level the playing field so we can protect workers, protect American jobs and then ensure a fair and level playing field by raising labor and environmental standards, raising intellectual property rights, standards and enforcement, making sure that we’re putting disciplines on state-owned enterprises that pose a real threat to workers.”
These corporate arguments (you can see them in this Chamber of Commerce slide show “Ten Reasons Why America Needs Trade Promotion Authority”) just make me more skeptical of what they are selling. Here’s why.
1) President Obama, trade representative Froman, the Chamber of Commerce and others repeat the talking point, “95 percent of the world’s markets are outside the U.S..” This makes me skeptical of what they are selling because it is a “look over there at that shiny object” argument.
Saying that 95 percent of the world’s markets are outside the U.S. implies that we need TPP and other agreements because we are currently not selling goods to 95 percent of the world. This is patently false. We sell goods and services around the world already. In fact, it contradicts other corporate arguments for these agreements like, “More than 38 million American jobs already depend on trade.”
This argument deceives people about the very nature of these agreements. Most of the objections being voiced over these coming agreements are about non-trade issues. Only five of TPP’s 29 chapters deal with what people understand as “trade.” So an argument that TPP and similar agreements will “expand trade” masks what the bulk of these agreements are really about, which is getting governments off the backs of the giant corporations and protecting their profits from competition and democratic regulation.
Just one example of this is the “investor-state dispute settlements” provision, which I have called “corporate courts.” This part of “NAFTA-style” trade agreements, including TPP, allows corporations to sue governments that pass laws and regulations that interfere with profits. Similar clauses in trade agreements around the world have, for example, enabled tobacco companies to sue governments for trying to protect the health of their citizens. Under TPP these suits will be adjudicated by corporate attorneys, not democratically constituted courts. […]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2008—Chafee dishes on pro-war Democrats:
Former Senator and former Republican Lincoln Chafee has a memoir that won't go down well with the political establishment in Washington of either party. According to Scott MacKay, who saw an advance copy, Chafee excoriates George Bush and Republican extremists as well as the Iraq-war enablers among the Democrats.
There's little in his criticisms of Republican leaders that readers here would find surprising or controversial. Chafee does say that he should have left the party when Sen. Jeffords did, but stayed because he feared RI would suffer reprisals from Bush and GOP congressional leaders just as Vermont had after Jeffords' defection.
He has a lot to say about the rush to war in Iraq. Chafee asked for a private briefing with top CIA officials about the evidence on Iraqi WMD. And just as Robin Cook had discovered on the opposite side of the Atlantic when he got a similar briefing on Feb. 20, 2003, it was transparent that the "evidence" was garbage. Chafee also implies that the CIA analysts knew that all too well.
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On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Cliven Bundy's son arrested again. Armed felon TX Walmart gunshot wound something, something.
Greg Dworkin recaps the APR, and notes Huckabee catching flak over Fox's "trashy women," Fox pundits getting Obamacare wrong, how Scott Walker is uniquely positioned to employ the Gop's base-only strategy, the Tea Party already itching for more primaries, the story of "Bibi's Brain," and more measles worries. The in-depth wrap up on "scam PACs", with which
Media Matters helps fill in some important blanks. The super-rich are planning their escapes, and blaming inequality on other people's capitalism.
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