cross-posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.com
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has once again reared its ugly head as it appears to be ready for passage. President Obama roundly supports the agreement, as do a host of Senators and Congressmen from both sides of the aisle, Ron Wyden (D-OR) leading the pack. Although WikiLeaks released some of the details of the agreement, the TPP negotiations have been conducted in secret by Australia, Canada, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, The United States, Vietnam and Japan. And as I wrote over a year and a half ago (Kings of the World, 9/24/13), these negotiations have been restricted to officials and stakeholders such as representatives from Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and Walmart. Farmers are excluded, and the agreement does not include any health, labor or environmental obligations. The TPP deal also includes the egregious Investor-State Dispute Settlement clause (ISDS), which would allow companies to sue or overturn democratically created laws and regulations if they threaten corporate profit. The TPP agreement promotes export-oriented food production and would affect all levels of the food system including the ability of governments to protect their citizens. Passage of the TPP agreement would threaten fracking bans, raise the price of pharmaceuticals, and increase food imports, much of which would be unregulated and coming from countries with few or no safety standards.
What is being negotiated here is a permanent power grab by multinational corporations that would make it impossible for countries to choose what laws they want to live under. Agribusiness could, financially, through lawsuits, prevent any opposition. This deal would establish a world under which corporations would acquire higher status than countries. With this power, multinationals could overturn laws enacted to protect the public and the environment if they were to decide that those protections violated the ISDS. As for food imports, the TPP agreement would undermine any attempts to regulate the foreign seafood market. The FDA currently inspects two percent of the farm-raised fish using antibiotics and hormones that are illegal here, and these imports would increase under the TPP deal without requiring the trading partners to ban the use of illegal chemicals. The trade agreement would also require us to import meat and poultry that don’t meet U.S. food safety standards. Any U.S. food safety rules on pesticides, labeling or additives that are higher than international standards would be challenged as “illegal trade barriers.” The U.S. would be required to eliminate these rules or face trade sanctions. Food labels could also be challenged as trade barriers. The TPP agreement would also impose limits of labels providing information on where a food product comes from. The negotiators of the TPP are also pressuring the EU to drop any objections concerning GMOs.
The TPP agreement will make it more difficult to adopt and maintain strong food safety regulations governing pesticides, food additives and GMOs by granting Monsanto and others unprecedented power to erect barriers. Similar to other trade agreements, the TPP will allow corporations to use foreign tribunals to sue participating countries that try to enforce higher food safety standards. The trade policies put forth by the TPP will inhibit the ability of countries to make their own decisions, based on local conditions and markets, about farming practices and the production of local, healthy food.
Fortunately, there are a few progressive politicians willing to stand up to Senator Wyden and President Obama. Peter DeFazio, also from Oregon, says that the “TPP is informed and manipulated by corporate interests.” He also says that “it doesn’t matter who is president or what they said as candidates, once they become president they start saying free trade agreements will benefit Americans, and time and time again it does not.” Elizabeth Warren is adamantly opposed to the TPP agreement, focusing particularly on the ISDS, saying that “it’s a clause that everyone should oppose.”
The perils and dangers of trade agreements in general are evidenced by the broken promise of such deals in the past, but become even more dangerous when the negotiations are conducted in secret. Sen. Wyden was only allowed to have access to the text of the agreement if he agreed not to tell anyone. Alan Grayson was offered the same deal, which he refused, saying the draft was a “gross abrogation of American sovereignty.” He went on to say, and this was a couple of years ago, that “it’s all about tying the hands of democratically elected governments and shunting authority over to the non-elected for the benefit of multinational corporations.” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Mn) said the TPP represents “the largest corporate power grab you’ve never heard of.” Well now we have and there will apparently be a 60 day time frame for all of us to read the agreement. The good news is only that sunlight is exposing the TPP and opposition is growing. My concern now is that President Obama, Senator Wyden and others are so eager to relegate our rights, our health and the environment to corporate power.
If you want an overview of the future should this agreement be put into practice, read an analysis by Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch on the results of NAFTA after 20 years. This time, as she says, the TPP would be like “NAFTA on steroids.”