Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Nightman1965
May 10, 2013
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A corporate world order is emerging, and like any parasite, it is
slowly killing off its host. Unfortunately, the "host" happens to be the
planet, and all life upon and within it. So, while the extinction of
the species will be the end result of passively accepting a
corporate-driven world, on the other hand, it’s very profitable for
those corporations and their shareholders.
The
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is the latest
corporate-driven agenda in what is commonly called a “free trade
agreement,” but which really amounts to ‘cosmopolitical corporate
consolidation’: large corporations dictating and directing the policies
of states – both nationally and internationally – into constructing
structures which facilitate regional and global consolidation of
financial, economic, and political power into the hands of relatively
few large corporations.
Such agreements have little to
do with actual ‘trade,’ and everything to do with expanding the rights
and powers of large corporations. Corporations have become powerful
economic and political entities – competing in size and wealth with the
world’s largest national economies – and thus have taken on a distinctly
‘cosmopolitical’ nature. Acting through industry associations, lobby
groups, think tanks and foundations, cosmopolitical corporations are
engineering large projects aimed at transnational economic and political
consolidation of power... into their hands. With the construction of “a
European-American free-trade zone” as “an ambitious project,” we are
witnessing the advancement of a new and unprecedented global project of
transatlantic corporate colonization.
The Atlantic Fortress as “Grand Strategy”
In a 2006 article for
Der Spiegel,
Gabor Steingart suggested that, “to combat the rise of China and Asia,”
the “role NATO played in an age of military threat could be played by a
trans-Atlantic free-trade zone in today’s age of economic
confrontation.” With the possible “addition of Canada,” the US and EU
“could stem the dwindling of Western market power by joining forces...
[which] would inevitably lead to a convergence of the two economic
systems.” In a process that would likely take decades, “a mega-merger of
markets” would send a “new message” to the East, to “
serve as a fortress.”
During the worst of the initial financial and economic crisis in January of 2009, Henry Kissinger wrote an article for the
New York Times
in which he noted that America’s “prescription for a world financial
order has generally been unchallenged,” though the crisis had changed
this, as “disillusionment” became “widespread.” Nations now wanted to
protect themselves from the global markets and thus, become more
independent. Kissinger warned against this, proclaiming: “An
international order will emerge if a system of compatible priorities
comes into being. It will fragment disastrously if the various
priorities cannot be reconciled... The alternative to
a new international order is chaos.”
Kissinger
noted that the economic world was “globalized,” yet the political world
was not, and in the midst of “political crises around the world”
accelerated by “instantaneous communication,” the political and economic
systems had to become “harmonized in only one of two ways: by creating
an international political regulatory system with the same reach as that
of the economic world; or by shrinking the economic units to a size
manageable by existing political structures, which is likely to lead to a
new mercantilism, perhaps of regional units.” President Obama’s
election victory was an “opportunity” in “shaping a new world order.”
But that opportunity had to become “a policy” as manifested through “
a grand strategy.”
A central facet to that grand strategy would include the strengthening
of the “Atlantic partnership,” which “will depend much more on common
policies.”
Some four years later, former U.S. National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski praised the “enormous promise” in
the new transatlantic agreement, “It can shape a new balance between the
Pacific and the Atlantic oceanic regions, while at the same time
generating in the West a new vitality, more security and greater
cohesion.” Not worth mentioning, apparently, was that this was all about
“cohesion” of power interests. In the same speech where Brzezinski
endorsed “greater cohesion” between the U.S. and the European Union, he
criticized the EU for being “
a Europe more of banks than of people, more of commercial convenience than an emotional commitment of the European peoples.”
It’s
the type of “cohesion” that only bankers, corporations, and “grand
strategists” like Kissinger and Brzezinski could like. So naturally,
such an agreement has a great deal of support, encouragement, and
organized planning. While the idea of ‘transatlantic integration’ has
long been on the lips and in the documents of grand strategists and
corporate-financed think tanks, it kept its distance from formal policy.
In 2007, the EU-US summit meeting of leaders – US President Bush,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and European Commission President José
Manuel Barroso – established the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) to
promote economic cooperation between the two regions.
The
economic crisis itself delayed any progress from taking place, as
countries focused on rescuing their banks and imposing austerity
measures in order to punish their populations into poverty, privatize
society, and create the conditions ripe for unhindered plundering of
resources and exploitation of labour. This is called “structural
reform.” But structural reforms only show “success” when corporations
begin profiting from them. That’s called an “economic recovery.” There
is an entire language to the European debt crisis – and to political
economy in general – which, when translated, helps to elucidate the
rationality of policy choices.
Political Language: Words or Weapons?
As
George Orwell once wrote: “Political language… is designed to make lies
sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidity to pure wind.”
In a world undergoing radical
transformations in political, economic, and social structures and
relations – from the Arab Spring, the global economic crisis, food
crisis and land grabs, to the global spread of protest movements –
political language becomes weaponized. Hiding behind seemingly
meaningless words, obscured by over-used rhetoric and abstract,
undefined terms and concepts, political and economic language function
by preventing the population from understanding the true meaning and
implications of the policies pursued.
Take, for example,
the word ‘austerity.’ It has been used endlessly – in rhetoric and
policies – as the ‘solution’ to the economic, financial, and debt
crises, but it’s meaning is obscured as an abstract notion of cutting
public spending in order to decrease the debt, and thus, increase
investor confidence in the country. This is supposed to lead to an
economic “recovery.” The problem is that it doesn’t: it leads to a very
deep depression. Yet, the policies continue to be promoted and pursued.
What
can one deduct from this? If the rhetoric promotes specific policies
for a desired effect, and the desired effect is never met, yet the
rhetoric and policies continue to be promoted, we can assume one of two
things: either, as Einstein defined it, the world’s decision-makers are
all insane (“doing the same thing over again, expecting different
results”); or, they are simply speaking a different language, and we
lack an understanding of it. In such circumstances, it is helpful to
attempt translating this language.
The policies of
‘austerity’ include firing public sector workers, cutting spending on
health care, education, welfare, social services, pensions, increasing
the retirement age, increasing taxes and decreasing wages. The results,
inevitably, is impoverishment of the general population, increased
unemployment, the elimination of health and social services when needed
most, increased cost of living and decreased standards of living. Thus,
we can loosely translate ‘austerity’ as impoverishment, since that is
what the actual effects of the policies have.
In March
2010, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
suggested Europe undertake a program of austerity lasting for no less
than six years from 2011 to 2017, which the
Financial Times referred to as “
highly sensible.”
In April of 2010, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – the
central bank to the world’s central banks – called for European nations
to
begin implementing austerity measures. In June of 2010, the G20 finance ministers agreed: it was time to enter
the age of austerity! German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the European midwife of austerity, set an example for the EU by
imposing austerity measures at home in Germany. The G20 leaders met and agreed that the time for stimulus had come to an end, and
the time for austerity poverty was at hand. This was of course endorsed by the unelected technocratic president of the European Commission,
José Manuel Barroso.
The
unelected president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, also
agreed, explaining in his unrelenting economic wisdom that austerity “
has no real effect on economic growth.” Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), also hopped on the austerity train, writing in the
Financial Times that, “
now is the time to restore fiscal sustainability.”
Jaime Caruana, General Manager of the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS) stated in June of 2011 that the need for austerity was
“more urgent”
than ever, while BIS chairman, Christian Noyer, also the governor of the
Bank of France (and board member of the ECB), stated that apart from
austerity, “
there’s no solution possible” for Greece.
But
of course, austerity is not complete without its sister-program of
‘structural reform’ (or ‘structural adjustment’), which includes
policies aimed at privatizing all state-owned assets, resources, and
services, the dismantling of labour and environmental protections and
regulations, the opening of new ‘markets,’ and enormous subsidies and
protections for multinational banks and corporations.
Why
is this done? To promote investment, competition, and growth.
Privatizing everything in sight – including airports, land, water
management, roads and resources – encourages investment because
corporations can come in and purchase national assets for pennies on the
dollars. Indeed, most privatization programs include enormous subsidies
and protections for corporations in order to provide an incentive for
them to invest. And competition is best promoted by allowing just a
handful of transnational conglomerates to cheaply acquire a nation’s
wealth and resources, and then by promoting what’s called “labour
flexibility.” These ‘reforms’ mean that workers’ rights are to be
dismantled, cutting wages, benefits, protections, the ability to
unionize and make demands, to make the labour force flexible to the
demand of big business, who demand little more than a cheap labour force
(as well as absolute control of the global economy). Thus, across
markets – Europe for the EU, North America for NAFTA – and indeed,
across the world, labour forces are put into competition with one
another in a race to the bottom of who can be the best, and therefore,
cheapest labour available – in order to attract investment and jobs.
Thus,
the effect of ‘structural reforms’ is to facilitate the exploitation of
resources and people and to consolidate economic and political power
into corporate hands. Austerity thus serves the purpose of impoverishing
the population to make them ready and willing to accept the structural
reforms (or “adjustment”) which adjust them to a situation of social
devastation by making them into an employable – and cheap – labour
force. Unhindered corporate plundering is facilitated by dismantling all
“barriers” to investment, and thus, control of the entire economy.
Austerity and structural reform create the conditions for investment,
competition, and growth. Investment essentially means subsidized
acquisition/control over the economy by corporations, competition
implies protection for corporate interests, and growth means that
corporations are making massive profits. The effect of all these
policies and programs is to consolidate regional and global economic and
political power into the hands of cosmopolitical corporations.
Austerity is impoverishment for populations.
Structural reform is exploitation of people/resources, and consolidation of political power in corporate hands.
Investment is corporate control of the economy.
Competition is protectionism for corporations.
Growth is corporate profits.
Mario
Draghi is the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) – one of the
three institutions of the ‘Troika’ with the European Commission and IMF
– imposing austerity and structural reform measures across Europe in
return for bailing out bankers. In February of 2012, he gave an
interview with the
Wall Street Journalin which he explained
that, “there was no alternative to fiscal consolidation,” meaning
austerity, and that Europe’s social contract was “obsolete” and
the social model was “already gone.” However, Draghi explained, it was now necessary to promote “growth,” adding, “
and that’s why structural reforms are so important.”
In
addition to austerity and structural reforms, new markets are required,
and thus, “free trade” must be promoted. This is all part of the road
to ‘recovery.’ Free trade also has a technical definition: its policies
dismantle environmental, labour, and other social protections, increase
privatization, deregulation, and include large subsidies and protections
for corporations. And today’s ‘free trade’ agreements grant
unprecedented rights to corporations to sue governments directly for
having laws or regulations which corporations view as “barriers to
investment.” Free trade thus promotes competition between populations –
in a race to the bottom – and protection for the powerful, for
corporations and banks. What we call free trade agreements essentially
function as a process of corporate colonialism: the regional and global
consolidation of financial, economic, political and social power into
relatively few corporate hands.
With the onset of the
global economic crisis in 2008, countries turned to bailouts to rescue
the large banks that destroyed their economies. In doing this, they
accumulated large debts, handing the bill to the populations. The people
pay for the debts through austerity, and thus, poverty, which in turn
necessitates structural reform, and thus, exploitation. Free trade
agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), being negotiated
between 12 Pacific-rim countries, facilitate transnational corporate
colonialism.
A new corporate world is emerging, and the
transatlantic partnership is a centerpiece in constructing this ‘new
world order.’ While the crisis had initially stalled the process, it was
revived at the EU-US summit meeting in November of 2011, when political
leaders ordered the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) to create a
High-Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth, led by U.S. Trade
Representative Ron Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht,
“tasked to identify policies and measures to increase U.S.-E.U. trade
and investment to support mutually beneficial job creation, economic
growth, and international competitiveness,” by
working closely with both public and private sector/corporate groups.
The Transatlantic Corporate Complex
The
impetus for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was
provided by a plethora of corporate-dominated think tanks and big
business organizations, including the Atlantic Council, Brookings
Institution, the German Marshall Fund, BusinessEurope, the Business
Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the European Round Table
of Industrialists, among several others. These institutions collectively
form a transatlantic corporate complex, uniting elites from major
corporations, banks, think tanks, foundations, academia and policy
circles in order to establish consensus on elite agendas and to provide
the strategies and objectives to be implemented.
The
Atlantic Council
was founded in 1961 by former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and
several other prominent citizens in the United States in order to help
consolidate support for the ‘Atlantic Alliance.’ The Atlantic Council’s
first published volume,
Building the American-European Market: Planning for the 1970s,
was published in 1967, and the Council continued to publish policy
papers, books, monographs and other reports throughout the 1970s.
The
Atlantic Council’s leadership and direction is provided by the members
of its boards, consisting of the foreign policy elite of the United
States as well as major cosmopolitical corporations, including the likes
of Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Madeleine Albright along
with executives from corporations such as Deutsche Bank, BAE, and
Lockheed Martin. [For a look at some of the other names of directors and
advisors, see Appendix 1]
The Atlantic Council thus
represents the interests of trans-Atlantic corporate and financial
interests and the foreign policy elite within the United States. Thus,
what issues and agendas they promote tend to wield significant influence
behind them, with extensive access to policy-makers and processes. Back
in 2004, the Atlantic Council published a report,
The Transatlantic Economy in 2020: A Partnership for the Future?
in which they recommended increasing integration between the two
economies and regions, the joint management of the world economy, and
more “
transgovernmental cooperation.”
The
German Marshall Fund of the United States was founded in 1972 with a
donation from the German government to Harvard University, where
25-years prior U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall announced the
Marshall Plan for Europe’s economic recovery after World War II. The
German Marshall Fund (GMF) “is dedicated to the promotion of greater
understanding and
common action
between Europe and the United States,” and includes a number of
corporate executives, news commentators and other elites on its
leadership boards [See Appendix 2].
The Business
Roundtable (BRT) is an organization of CEOs from major U.S. corporations
“with more than $7.3 trillion in annual revenues,” according to its
website. The BRT was founded in 1972 “on the belief that... businesses
should play an active and effective role in the formation of public
policy.” The Chairman of the Executive Committee of the BRT is W. James
McNerney, the president and CEO of Boeing. The Executive Committee
includes the CEOs of a number of other major cosmopolitical corporations
[see Appendix 3].
The European Round Table of
Industrialists (ERT), founded in 1983, is an organization of several
dozens CEOs of major European corporations. As Bastiaan van Apeldoorn
wrote in the journal New Political Economy(Vol. 5, No. 2,
2000), the ERT “developed into an elite platform for an emergent
European transnational capitalist class from which it can formulate a
common strategy and – on the basis of that strategy – seek to shape
European socioeconomic governance through its privileged access to the
European institutions.” Wisse Dekker, former Chairman of the ERT, once
stated: “I would consider the Round Table to be more than a lobby group
as it helps to shape policies. The Round Table’s relationship with
Brussels [the EU] is one of strong co-operation. It is a dialogue which
often begins at a very early stage in the development of policies and
directives.”
The ERT was a central institution in the
re-launching of European integration from the 1980s onward, and as
former European Commissioner (and former ERT member) Peter Sutherland
stated, “one can argue that the whole completion of the internal market
project was initiated not by governments but by the Round Table, and by
members of it... And I think it played a fairly consistent role
subsequently in dialoguing with the Commission on practical steps to
implement market liberalization.” Sutherland also explained that the ERT
and its members “have to be at the highest levels of companies and
virtually all of them have unimpeded access to government leaders
because of the position of their companies... So, by definition, each
member of the ERT has access at the highest level to government.” [For a
list of other corporations represented on the board of the ERT, see
Appendix 4]
BusinessEurope is Europe’s main business
group, representing 41 business federations in 35 countries with its
“main task” – according to its website – being “to ensure that
companies’ interests are represented and defended vis-à-vis the European
institutions with the principal aim of preserving and strengthening
corporate competitiveness.” [For a look at some of the companies that
made up the Corporate Advisory and Support Group, see Appendix 5]
The
U.S. Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1912 as an umbrella
organization representing the voice of business throughout the United
States. According to its website, the Chamber “works with more than
1,500 volunteers from member corporations, organizations, and the
academic community who serve on committees, subcommittees, task forces,
and councils to develop and implement policy on major issues affecting
business.” Their “overarching mission” is “to
strengthen the competitiveness
of the U.S. economy.” [For a look at some of the companies represented
on the board of directors of the Chamber, see Appendix 6]
The
Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) was formed in 1995 by the U.S.
Department of Commerce and the European Commission in an effort to
“serve as
the official dialogue
between American and European business leaders and U.S. cabinet
secretaries and EU commissioners,” composed of CEOs of U.S. and European
transnational corporations.
Transatlantic Corporate Colonialism in Action: Shaping the Agenda
As
with any “free trade” agreement (read: cosmopolitical corporate
consolidation agreement), corporations must be consulted throughout the
entire process to allow them to shape the agenda and encourage specific
policies, to ensure that their interests are met. Think tanks employ
academics and foreign policy elites to undertake studies and produce
reports which advocate policies beneficial to western political and
economic domination of the world. Big business groups organize the
corporate community around agendas and provide a direct “voice” to the
corporate world. The boards of think tanks are dominated by political
and corporate elites, and once think tanks begin to establish consensus
on agendas, academics and other officials from the organizations write
articles or are interviewed frequently in the media (which is owned by
the same corporations), to ensure that what little is said in public
about such agreements is indeed, positive and encouraging.
When
the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) created the High-Level Working
Group on Jobs and Growth in November of 2011, it announced its intent
to ‘consult’ with private sector organizations on the process of
transatlantic integration.
The Transatlantic Business
Dialogue (TABD) was one of the first major corporate organizations to
support the announcement of the High-Level Working Group. In January of
2012, the TABD met with high level EU and US officials at the annual
World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. They released a
report,
Vision for the Future of EU-US Economic Relations,
which established a consensus “to press for urgent action on an
visionary and ambitious agenda,” as well as for the creation of a “
CEO Task Force” which would “provide direct input and support the High Level Working Group.”
The meeting
was attended
not only by the 21 members of the executive board of the TABD (all
corporate executives), but officials representing the Atlantic Council,
the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), the US Chamber of
Commerce, World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy, US
Trade Representative Ron Kirk, European Commissioner for Trade Karel De
Gucht, European Commissioner for Competition, Joaquin Almunia; Jon
Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and Michael Froman,
Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic
Affairs.
That same month, the TABD and the Business
Roundtable (BRT) released a joint statement outlining their “vision” of a
Transatlantic Partnership (TAP) – modeled along similar lines as the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – which would require a further
“opening” of the trans-Atlantic market, being able to “compete” with
other major economies (such as China), and “deepening the multilateral
commitment to open markets.” As major CEOs and executives, the statement
wrote, “we need nothing less” than a “strategic vision and structure
[which] will need to serve as
a global template.”
In
February of 2012, the German Marshall Fund released a report from the
Transatlantic Task Force on Trade and Investment entitled, A New Era for Transatlantic Trade Leadership.
The task force was co-chaired by Ewa Bjorling, the Swedish Minister for
Trade, and Jim Kolbe, a former U.S. Congressman and Senior
Transatlantic Fellow at the GMF. [For other members of the Task Force,
see Appendix 7] The Task Force was launched as a cooperative effort
between the German Marshall Fund and the European Centre for
International Political Economy (ECIPE) in May of 2011.
The
report called for the EU and US to pursue “deeper transatlantic
economic integration” as “essential for recovery from the current
economic crisis.” The report called for “high-level commitment from
political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic” and “it will require
active involvement of
private sector stakeholders,” or in other words, corporations.
In March of 2012, BusinessEurope released a report to contribute to the EU-US High Level Working Group entitled,
Jobs and Growth: Through a Transatlantic Economic and Trade Partnership,
in which it was recommended to eliminate tariffs and barriers, to trade
in services, ensure access and protection for investments, “opening
markets,” to establish “
global standards” for intellectual property rights, and to build on the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) for regulatory cooperation.
That
same month, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to Congress in
which the U.S. Chamber, BusinessEurope, American Chamber of Commerce to
the European Union, the Business Roundtable, European-American Business
Council, the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue, and several other big
business associations called upon political leaders “to move swiftly to
deepen the transatlantic economic and commercial relationship through
ambitious trade, investment, and regulatory policy initiatives.” Thus,
in the midst of an economic and social crisis created by the very
corporations and banks these associations represent, and with the
emergence of new economic giants like China and India, “we believe now
is the time to create a barrier-free transatlantic market to drive the
job creation and growth” that Europe and America “
urgently need.”
The High Level Working Group – chaired by USTR Ron Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht – should have a “
far-reaching”
agenda, the statement wrote, which would cover: “tariff and non-tariff
barriers to trade in goods and services, investment, regulatory
cooperation, intellectual property protection and innovation, public
procurement, cross-border data flows, and business mobility.” The
statement noted that they had received “support” from Angela Merkel,
David Cameron, and then-President of France Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as
from the European Council (presided over by Herman van Rompuy). From the
American side, support was given by Hillary Clinton.
In
May of 2012, the Business Roundtable, European Round Table of
Industrialists and the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue sent a joint
letter to President Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German
Chancellor Merkel, Italian PM Mario Monti, UK prime minister David
Cameron, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, European
Council president Herman Van Rompuy, EU Trade Commissioner De Gucht and
USTR Ron Kirk. The letter noted that the three organizations of
corporate executives from across the Atlantic “have come together to lay
out a strategic vision for a new Transatlantic Partnership (TAP),” and
they together produced the report,
Forging a Transatlantic Partnership for the 21st Century, to do just that. The report called for US and EU officials to launch “
ambitious and comprehensive transatlantic trade, investment and regulatory negotiations by the end of this year.”
That
same month, just to press the message, the presidents of the US Chamber
of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the National Association of
Manufacturers sent a joint letter to Obama urging him to launch
negotiations to “
trail blaze a true 21st century trade,
investment, and regulatory cooperation initiative,” which apart from
further integrating the economies, would also “have important benefits
for defense and military cooperation as well.”
In June
of 2012, Obama’s Export Council sent him a letter applauding the
president for establishing the High Level Working Group the previous
year, but urged him to “
take the critical next step,
in consultation with the private sector, to move forward quickly to
define and launch a comprehensive and ambitious Transatlantic
Partnership (TAP) negotiation.” They recommended the usual protections
for intellectual property rights, liberalization of services,
“elimination of industrial and agricultural goods tariffs,” among many
things. The letter was signed by Export Council chairman Jim McNerney,
the president and CEO of the Boeing Company.
The U.S.
President’s Export Council (PEC) “is the principal national advisory
committee on international trade,” founded in 1973, consisting of
28 private sector members,
as well as Congress members and cabinet secretaries. The PEC reports to
the president through the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. [For a list of
corporations represented by the PEC, see Appendix 8]
Not
wasting any time, the High Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth
released their interim report to their leaders in June of 2012 from the
co-chairs, De Gucht and Kirk. Among other things, they recommended the
“elimination” of “barriers to trade” in goods, services, and investment.
They recommended a “comprehensive agreement” which “could promote a
forward-looking agenda for multilateral trade liberalization.” The “aim”
of the negotiations, they wrote, would be to “bind” the EU and US “at
the highest level of liberalization”
and “achieve new market access.” They were taking the recommendations
from corporate groups seriously, and pushing those words into policies.
Paula Dobriansky, a prominent academic at the Atlantic Institute, co-authored an article for the
Wall Street Journal in which she called for “
a trans-Atlantic free-trade agreement”
between the EU and US in order to “strengthen American and European
leadership for decades to come.” Frances Burwell, Atlantic Council vice
president and director of the Program on Transatlantic Relations
published an article for
US News & World Report in November of 2012 in which she wrote that “creating a single transatlantic market... makes
a great deal of sense.”
In November of 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech to the Brookings Institution entitled,
U.S. and Europe: A Revitalized Global Partnership, in which she noted: “we have to realize the untapped potential of the transatlantic market... is as much
a strategic imperative
as an economic one.” Informing the audience that the Obama
administration was “discussing possible negotiations” with the EU on
such an agreement, Clinton said it “would shore up our global
competitiveness for the next century.”
Also in November,
Atlantic Council board member James L. Jones (former U.S. National
Security Advisor to Barack Obama) and Thomas J. Donohue (President and
CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce) co-authored an article for
Investor’s Business Dailyin
which they suggested that the simultaneous economic crises in Europe
and the U.S. – which they defined as “flagging competitiveness,
unsustainable entitlement spending, and the ticking time bomb of
oversize sovereign debt” – were a threat to the future of NATO’s ability
to “tackle urgent security threats” and that this poses “
the greatest challenge to the future of the trans-Atlantic community since the Cold War.”
Sustainable
growth, they wrote, “only comes from one place – the private sector.”
Governments have a “responsibility... to create conditions in which the
private sector can drive economic expansion, investment and job
creation.” An “ambitious trans-Atlantic economic and trade pact” would
certainly fit this prescription of increasing “growth” and
“competitiveness.” It was time, they wrote, “to move decisively to the
next level of
trans-Atlantic economic integration.”
Within
days of Obama winning his re-election, European leaders such as David
Cameron and Angela Merkel urged him to move forward with the agreement,
and the
New York Times even noted that “corporations and
business groups on both sides of the Atlantic are also pushing hard for a
pact.” Former deputy U.S. trade representative and current vice
president at General Electric, Karan Bhatia, noted: “This could be the
biggest, most valuable free-trade agreement by far, even if it produces
only a marginal increase in trade.”
The
Financial Times said that a “transatlantic partnership” would yield
“geostrategic benefits,” since the EU and US account for half the
world’s economy, and thus, they will “possess the leverage to set the
global standards that others, including China, are likely to follow.”
Since “both the EU and US are desperate for new growth,” wrote Edward
Luce, the “only realistic route is via higher productivity,” implying
cheaper costs and larger profits for corporations. It would be “an
ambitious agenda for transatlantic market integration” including
harmonizing regulations and product standards. In other words, wrote
Luce: “if a drug were approved by the European Medicines Agency, the
Food and Drug Administration would accept it too.” The same would apply
for “financial regulation” (or lack thereof), as well as agricultural
(GMO) standards, a key issue, since the EU has a ban on such products.
The EU had recently shown its enthusiasm for change when it “dropped its
objections to imports of US meat from abattoirs [slaughterhouses]
decontaminated with lactic acid.” In the EU, “
the climate of austerity ought to work in their favour” for reducing protections to do with agriculture.
In January of 2013, the Brookings Institution sent a ‘memorandum to the president’ to Barack Obama entitled,
Free Trade Game Changer,
in which the authors recommended pursuing both the Trans Pacific
Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) as
“the most realistic way to reclaim U.S. economic leadership.” The
agreements have “deep strategic implications” since they would provide
the US with a leading “role in setting the global rules of the road.”
While the TPP “would help define the standard for economic integration
in Asia,” the TAFTA “would give American and European businesses an edge
in setting industrial standards for tomorrow’s global economy.” While
“the erosion of support for FTAs [free trade agreements] in Congress and
among the public is likely to hamper this effort,” the memo reminded
Obama that public opinion must be disregarded in the corporate interest:
“
the time has come to launch new initiatives in these spheres.”
In
early 2013, the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue merged with the
European-American Business Council to become the Transatlantic Business
Council (TBC), a group consisting of corporate executives who hold
“semi-annual meetings with U.S. Cabinet Secretaries and European
Commissioners (in Davos and elsewhere),” acting as the “business advisor
to the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC).” It represents some 70
major corporations, including: AIG, AT&T, BASF, BP, Deutsche Bank,
EADS, ENI, Ford, GE, IBM, Intel, Merck, Pfizer, Siemens, TOTAL, Verizon,
and Xerox,
among others.
In
January of 2013, the Transatlantic Business Council (TBC) met in Davos,
Switzerland during the annual World Economic Forum, holding a meeting
with high level officials in the U.S. and E.U. Michael Froman, President
Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic
Affairs, spoke at the TBC meeting, declaring that “the transatlantic
economy is to become the global benchmark for standards in a globalized
world.” Froman and the leaders of the TBC “agreed that
support from corporations operating on both sides of the Atlantic is crucial to advance transatlantic trade.”
Tim Bennett, the Director General of the TBC, stated that the structure of the TBC “allows for a combination of
strong business message to policy makers
as well as substantive input through working groups,” referring to high
level meetings in Washington and Brussels. Other participants at the
TBC meeting included the Secretary General of the OECD, Angel Gurria,
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, European Commission Director-General
for Trade, Jean-Luc Demarty, European Commission for Trade official,
Marc Vanheukelen, and a former Citigroup executive.
On the Transnational Business Council (TBC)’s
website,
they promote specific think tanks as providing “resources”: the
Atlantic Council, Bertelsmann Foundation, Brookings Institution, Center
for Transatlantic Relations, Chatham House, the German Marshall Fund,
and the Peterson Institute for International Relations.
The Final Report: Time to Do What the Corporations Demand!
On
February 11, 2013, the U.S.-EU High Level Working Group (HLWG) on Jobs
and Growth released their final report in which they predictably
recommended harmonizing standards and regulations in “a comprehensive
trade and investment agreement.” The report recommended “a further
deepening of economic integration... to achieve a market access package
that goes beyond what the United States and the EU have achieve in
previous agreements.” The report further recommended increasing
“government procurement,” a euphemism for privatization and state
subsidies for corporations, noting: “the goal of negotiations should be
to enhance business opportunities through substantially improved access to government procurement opportunities at all levels of government.”
Two
days following the publication of this report, on 13 February 2013, a
joint statement was issued by Barack Obama, European Council President
Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso,
stating: “We, the Leaders of the United States and the European Union,
are pleased to announce that... the United States and the European Union
will each initiate the internal procedures necessary to launch
negotiations on a
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.”
With the announcement of the TTIP in February, then-U.S. Trade representative Ron Kirk stated that, “[f]or us,
everything is on the table,
across all sectors, including across the agricultural sector, whether
it is GMOs or other issues.” He explained that “we should be ambitious
and we should deal with all of these issues.” João Vale de Almeida, the
European Union ambassador to the United States, wrote in an article that
“an ambitious economic agreement between us would send a powerful
message to the rest of the world about our leadership in
shaping global economic governance in line with our values,” which is to say, corporate “values.”
The German media – and government officials – erupted in admiration of the potential for this “
economic NATO”
in creating “the world’s largest free trade zone.” One German
publication noted that “a new economic alliance” between NATO powers was
appropriate, since “the old industrialized nations fear they are
falling behind the emerging economic power of China.” Another German
publication noted that not only would a “trans-Atlantic free-trade zone”
have major economic “benefits” and implications, “but it also makes
clear that only an ever-closer West can succeed in decisively helping to
determine global policy.”
The corporate world expressed
immediate admiration for the announced negotiations, with the chairman
and CEO of Caterpillar “commending” US and EU leaders and the High-Level
Working Group “for promoting much needed economic growth and job
creation.” The president of the Business Roundtable (BRT), John Engler,
noted that the Roundtable itself “was an early advocate” for such an
agreement, and that “negotiations should
launch as soon as possible.”
C.
Boyden Gray, a member of the Atlantic Council’s board of directors and
former U.S. ambassador to the European Union, published a report for the
Atlantic Council in February of 2013 entitled,
An Economic NATO: A New Alliance for a New Global Order.
Gray warned that unless the Atlantic powers “rise to the challenge...
of the post-recession era together... they risk ceding to rising powers
their economic and political influence.” This must not be simply a “free
trade agreement,” but rather, the US and EU “must put economic
cooperation on the same robust footing as military security...
we need to create an ‘economic NATO’.”
The
Wall Street Journal
noted that the announcement “represents a nod to business interests by
Mr. Obama,” noting that it was less about ‘trade’ and more about
establishing global standards. European Commission president Barroso
expressed as much when he said, “this is going to be
the biggest free-trade agreement ever done,
[and] it will certainly have an impact on global standards.” Obama’s
international economic policy adviser Michael Froman noted that the
agreement would “further integrate our economies and help set global
rules.” EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht added: “What we want to do
is
make an internal market between the US and EU.”
The
Financial Times
noted that while it was “commonplace” to imagine that the future
belonged to the emerging economies, “the old economic powers can still
pack a punch.” The agreement “promises
a prize whose political value
is even greater than its considerable economic benefits.” Hence, we
must understand these “free trade agreements” as, in actuality,
cosmopolitical corporate consolidation agreements.
While
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Berlin in late February,
he endorsed the agreement, suggesting that it “can lift the economy of
Europe, strengthen our economy, create jobs for Americans, for Germans,
for all Europeans and create one of the
largest allied markets in the world.”
The
German press warned that Internet activists, environmental, labour and
consumer groups were “preparing to fight the treaty with all means at
their disposal,” as they feared that “bad compromises will be made at
the expense of consumers in secret negotiations between the European
Commission and the Obama administration.” Enforcing equal standards for
food products worries many in the EU regarding American-produced
genetically engineered food products, such as corn, soybeans and beets;
while intellectual property rights issues increasingly threaten the
freedom of the Internet for the benefit of corporate and financial
interests, such as through the failed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (ACTA), which was overcome by a large Internet campaign and
protests against it. One of the organizers for the anti-ACTA movement,
Jérémie Zimmermann, stated: “Millions of citizens can be mobilized if
their freedoms are threatened.” Still, despite the growing unease and
opposition to such an agreement, which would be based primarily around
these highly contentious issues as opposed to actual “trade” or tariffs,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared the deal as “
by far our most important project for the future.”
Max Baucus, the chairman of the U.S. Senate finance committee, wrote an article for the
Financial Times in which he stated that the agreement was “
a deal that must be done,
it must be done now, and it must be done right... As chairman of the
committee overseeing US trade, I will support a deal only if it gives
America’s producers the opportunity to compete in the world’s biggest
market.”
Speaking at Harvard in early March, Karel de
Gucht referred to the agreement as “the cheapest stimulus package you
can imagine,” adding that it was “
a policy laboratory
for the new trade rules we need – on issues like regulatory barriers,
competition policy, localization requirements, raw materials and
energy.”
Barack Obama stated that he was “modestly
optimistic” about the agreement, as the US was moving “aggressively”
while the EU was “
hungrier for a deal
than they have been in the past.” Speaking to the President’s Export
Council, composed of executives from major corporations acting as
‘advisors,’ Obama reaffirmed that, “
we want our Fortune 500 companies to be selling as much as possible.”
John Kerry told a group of French business leaders that, “if we move
rapidly... [the agreement] can have a profound impact on
the rest of the world.”
Robert
Zoellick, former president of the World Bank, strongly endorsed the
agreement, noting that it could “set a precedent” in setting standards
for the global economy, adding: “
We need to create a new structure for the global system.”
However, he warned, agriculture was “going to be one of the most
difficult issues,” due to the concern over genetically modified
organisms. Barroso warned that, “the EU will only go so far.” Lori
Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch observed:
“This whole negotiation is about eliminating ‘trade irritants’ but in
the US consumer movement we envy and admire and seek to emulate the
European food safety standards, while
industry is seeking to kill them.”
In
April of 2013, a “coalition” was launched to promote the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership called the Business Coalition for
Transatlantic Trade (BCTT), which “seeks to promote growth, jobs, and
competitiveness on both sides of the Atlantic through an ambitious,
comprehensive and high-standard trade and investment agreement.” The
Steering Committee for the BCTT consists of a number of multinational
corporations and business associations, and the secretariat is the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. The corporate co-chairs for the coalition include
Amway, Chrysler, Citi, Dow, FedEx, Ford, GE, IBM, Intel, Johnson &
Johnson, Lilly, MetLife, UPS, and JPMorgan Chase. Partner associations
of the BCTT include the Business Roundtable, Coalition of Service
Industries, the Emergency Committee for American Trade, the National
Association of Manufacturers, the National Foreign Trade Council, the
Transatlantic Business Council (TBC), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
the U.S. Council for International Business. The initial objective of
the BCTT was to urge the formal launching of negotiations by June or
July of 2013, as well as “sustaining broad bipartisan support and on
providing detailed inputs once negotiations are underway.”
At
the launch of the BCTT, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president
and head of international affairs, Myron Brilliant, noted that there was
“vast support” for the agreement “both in the government and the
private sector.” The business community, he explained, “is committed to
assisting with the negotiation of a transatlantic agreement... and
we will continue our efforts
to encourage both governments to get this deal done quickly.” The
Business Roundtable, a member of the BCTT, endorsed the new coalition in
a statement from John Engler, who explained, “
we look forward to working with Congress and the Administration
to ensure a comprehensive and ambitious agreement.” While speaking to
an American business group, the British ambassador to the United States
said that financial services would also be “covered by these
negotiations,” noting that the U.S. and U.K. are home to “the two most
significant
international financial centres, on either side of the Atlantic,” on Wall Street and the City of London.
According
to an Obama administration official involved in the talks, the
agreement “would grant corporations new political power to challenge an
array of regulations both at home and abroad.” Environmental, consumer,
and other interest groups fear that the agreement “will lead to a
rollback of important rules and
put multinational companies on the same political plane as sovereign nations.”
This would be facilitated by an “investor-state dispute resolution”
mechanism, which means that corporations could directly sue governments
over what they perceive as “barriers to investment” – possibly through
an international tribunal (perhaps even through the World Bank). Such a
tribunal “would be given authority to impose economic sanctions against
any country that violated its verdict.”
Such provisions,
noted a trade specialist with the Sierra Club, “elevate corporations to
the level of nation states and allow them to sue governments over
nearly any law or policy which reduces their future profits.” These
mechanisms are “terribly risky for communities, the environment, and our
climate.” The “dirty little secret,” noted Public Citizen’s Lori
Wallach, “is that
it is not mainly about trade,
but rather would target for elimination the strongest consumer, health,
safety, privacy, environmental and other public interest policies on
either side of the Atlantic.”
Thomas Donohue, the
president of the US Chamber of Commerce, couldn’t be happier. “If they
made a deal tomorrow,” he said in April of 2013, “US and European
companies are sitting on a boatload of cash and they’d be moving this
thing up as fast as they can move.” Corporations would be able to make a
profit faster than anticipated, he noted: “You open a door and say
there’s money on the other side, there’s opportunity to expand, to
export, to sell their products, to make partnerships... You think
they’re going to wait around till 2027? They’ll be through the door
before you know it.” Donohue encouraged negotiations to begin as soon as
possible, “they must, they need to,” adding: “
We don’t need to take our time.”
A Transatlantic Agenda for Austerity, Exploitation and Corporate Consolidation
On
April 22, 2013, there was a conference hosted at the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York in co-operation with the European Commission’s
Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs, “bring[ing]
together
US-and Europe-based policy makers, regulators, market analysts and academics.”
The aim of the conference was to “evaluate the prospects for
sustainable economic growth and financial stability, and discuss
challenges to transatlantic economic relations posed by the recent
episodes of the economic crisis.”
Speakers included
New York Fed president William Dudley and Vice President of the
European Commission, Olli Rehn. [For a list of other participants, see
Appendix 9]
William Dudley
has been president of the New York Fed since 2009, when the previous
president – Timothy Geithner – became Obama’s Treasury Secretary. Prior
to his new position, Dudley was a partner and managing director at
Goldman Sachs; and currently he also serves as chairman of the Committee
on the Global Financial System at the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS), and is vice chairman of the Economic Club of New
York.
Dudley opened the ‘invitation only’ event by
suggesting, “in a global economy with a global financial system...
regulation and supervision have a decidedly national orientation.” Thus,
he explained, “we [must] seek to balance our domestic needs against the
benefits from
having a harmonized and integrated global system.”
What is needed, said Dudley, is “growth.” But there was “good news” in
the U.S., the housing sector was re-inflating – what’s called
“recovering,” the middle class “household sector” was struggling under a
heavy debt burden (called “deleveraging”), but the banking sector was
“healthier” (meaning more profitable), and “the corporate sector is
highly profitable and awash in cash.” That’s the “good news.”
A Bloomberg article from 2010 referred to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as “
a black-ops outfit for the nation’s central bank,”
noting that it was in fact a “quasi-governmental institution,” whose
leadership is appointed by the major banks of Wall Street to represent
their interests, and was “the preferred vehicle for many of the Fed’s
bailout programs.” The New York Fed is actually a private bank with a
great deal of public authority, and is subject to a “culture of secrecy”
which was described as “pervasive.” On the board of directors of the
New York Fed is Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, as well as
several other bankers.
In his speech, Dudley explained
that he has guided the New York Fed to purchase long-term U.S.
Treasuries (U.S. government debt) and mortgage-backed securities (the
same purchases which helped create the previous housing bubble) to the
tune of
$85 billion “each month.”
Noting that the United States has begun down the path of national
austerity – “fiscal consolidation” – and must continue deeper, there was
a “tug of war” between having a good economy and having austerity,
which is a delicate way of saying that the austerity measures will
destroy the economy (something the Europeans already know very well).
Thus, as Dudley explained, with immense corporate and bank profits, an
asset bubble, and a coming austerity-driven economic nose-dive, “the
level of uncertainty about the near-term outlook in the United States
remains quite high.” But the United States was not geared “toward a
growth path” based upon “business investment” and “trade,” instead
having only focused on debt-based consumption.
In
Europe, however, the outlook was “less bright.” But again, there was
“good news,” since the “peripheral countries” such as Greece, Spain,
Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and others, were successfully imposing harsh
austerity measures, despite resistance from the population being
impoverished. This, Dudley calls, “substantial efforts to bring down
their structural budget deficits.” There was also progress on improving
their “international competitiveness,” which is to say they are opening
up to exploitation and plundering, though there was still “an
opportunity for further structural reforms in labor and product
markets.” Though of course this shouldn’t be done “just in the
periphery,” that type of “opportunity” exists everywhere, in order to
bring efficiency in exploitation, and thus, more profits: “to increase
productivity and
strengthen long term growth prospects.”
Sadly,
noted Dudley, there was also “bad news” in the EU, since the economy
was “still in a recession” – or what could more accurately be described
as a deep depression in the so-called “periphery” countries – where it
was becoming harder to impose austerity measures and impoverish
populations: “the political support for further rounds of
budget-tightening has clearly lessened.” Without “growth” – meaning,
without corporate and financial profits – “then the political support
for continued fiscal and structural adjustment could further erode.”
Europe also needed to pursue “deeper integration” at the governance
level, and the development of a “pan-European banking union with the ECB
[European Central Bank] as the primary overseer” was a “critically
important next step.”
Olli Rehn,
European Commission Vice President and Commissioner for Economic and
Monetary Affairs – a major driving force behind the austerity and
adjustment programs – gave the keynote speech at the New York Fed
conference. He began by welcoming the newly announced Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership, explaining that they must work hard to
make it “a reality.” Europe, however, is “deleveraging” – which is to
say the continent is being crushed by a heavy debt burden whose owners
demand ‘austerity’ and ‘adjustment’ in addition to bailouts – and this
“deleveraging process is going to take time, and we need to find new
sources of growth to ease the burden of adjustment.” Thus, Rehn
explained, “
opening up global trade opportunities is so very important.”
While many EU countries were continuing with harsh austerity measures,
“structural reforms” – which facilitate exploitation of labour and
resources – “are the key to raising the growth potential of the European
economy.”
He finished his speech, stating: “we must
stay the reform course. We need to deliver in terms of free trade,
financial sector reform, structural reforms that boost growth potential,
and consistent consolidation of public finances. We must do so in order
to create the foundations for sustainable growth and job creation.
Facing these challenges,
we are indeed partners on both sides of the Atlantic.”
A Call for Trans-Atlantic Resistance to Corporate Tyranny
Europe
is eating itself through austerity, plunging its population into
poverty while simultaneously undertaking “structural reforms” designed
to facilitate the unhindered exploitation of resources, markets and
labour by transnational corporations. The United States has also been
implementing austerity measures, though opting instead to create
fallacious ‘debt dramas’ involving the pompous parading of meaningless
words – ‘fiscal cliff’ and ‘sequester’ – to avoid the blatant promotion
of ‘austerity,’ which might encourage people to correctly think of
Greece as an example.
So-called “free trade” agreements
function as transnational austerity and ‘structural reform’ treaties:
they grant corporations unlimited access to markets, protect them from
competition, heavily subsidize them, privatize anything and everything,
deregulate as much as possible, destroy the environment, and facilitate
the unimpeded plundering of resources and exploitation of labour.
Make
no mistake: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
is little more than a transatlantic corporate coup. Corporations created
the demand for the agreement, lobbied and promoted the agenda with
political elites, and direct the entire process, ensuring that their
interests are met.
It would seem, then, that it is time
for activists, intellectuals, and communities and organizations of
people to reach out across the Atlantic in an effort to create an
organized resistance to transatlantic corporate tyranny, consolidation
and colonization.
Corporations are undertaking
unprecedented drives for the accumulation of profit and power, promoting
agendas and projects which re-shape the world in their image, treating
governments as toys, the environment as an enemy, and impoverishing
populations around the world. We are witnessing a transnational social
engineering project, driven by large corporations, aimed at facilitating
economic, financial, political and social consolidation into their
hands.
Welcome to the era of Cosmopolitical Corporate Consolidation and Colonization.
Will
you accept that as legitimate? Will you accept such an agreement? Who
agreed to it? Did you? Were you consulted? Have you even heard of it
before?
The real question is: will we sit passively as
we are led to Extinction Inc., or will we actually stand up, organize,
and do something about it?
Appendix 1: Leadership of the Atlantic Council
Among
the leadership on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council are
Brent Scowcroft, former U.S. National Security Adviser (to presidents
Ford and Bush, Sr.), Richard Armitage, James E. Cartwright, Wesley
Clark, Paula Dobriansky, Christopher Dodd, Stephen Hadley, Michael
Hayden, James L. Jones, Henry Kissinger, Thomas Pickering, Anne-Marie
Slaughter, James Steinberg, John C. Whitehead, and with a group of
honorary directors including: Madeleine Albright, James Baker, Harold
Brown, Frank Carlucci, Robert Gates, Michael Mullen, William Perry,
Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, James Schlesinger, George Shultz, and
John Warner,
among others.
On
the Business and Economics Advisors Group to the Atlantic Council,
there are executives and management from the following companies and
institutions: Deutsche Bank, Institute of International Finance, Center
for Global Development, AIG, BNP-Paribas, Rock Creek Global Advisors,
the Stern Group, Harvard, and the Peterson Institute for International
Economics. The International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council
includes Josef Ackermann (Chairman of Zurich Insurance), Shaukat Aziz
(former prime minister of Pakistan), Jose Maria Aznar (former PM of
Spain), Zbigniew Brzezinski (former US National Security Advisor), and
with top executives from: Occidental Petroleum, SAIC, the Coca-Cola
Company, PwC, News Corporation, Royal Bank of Canada, BAE Systems, the
Blackstone Group, Thomson Reuters, Lockheed Martin, Bertelsmann,
Novartis, and Investor AB,
among others.
Appendix 2: Leadership of the German Marshall Fund
The
board of trustees of the GMF includes a host of corporate executives
and news commentators, and their funding also comes from a coterie of
governments, major foundations, and multinational corporations
including: Bank of America Foundation, BP, Daimler, Eli Lilly &
Company, General Dynamics, IBM, NATO, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and
USAID,
among many others.
Appendix 3: Leadership of the Business Roundtable
Other members of the executive committee include
the CEOs of
Honeywell, Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble, MasterCard, Xerox,
American Express, Eaton, JPMorgan Chase, Wal-Mart, General Electric,
Caesars Entertainment, Caterpillar, McGraw-Hill, State Farm Insurance,
AT&T, Frontier Communications, and ExxonMobil.
Appendix 4: Leadership of the ERT
As
of 2013, members of the ERT included the CEOs of Ericsson, Siemens,
Telecom Italia, BASF, Nestlé, Repsol, ThyssenKrupp, TOTAL, Rio Tinto,
Fiat, Nokia, EADS, ABB, Lafarge, GDF SUEZ, BMW, Eni, BP, Royal Dutch
Shell and Investor AB, among many others.
Appendix 5: Corporate Partners of BusinessEurope
BusinessEurope
counts among its “partner companies,” notable multinational
conglomerates that make up the Corporate Advisory and Support Group who
“enjoy an important status within BUSINESSEUROPE,” including: Accenture,
Alcoa, BASF, Bayer, BMW, BP, Caterpillar, Diamler, DuPont, ExxonMobil,
GDF Suez, GE, IBM, Microsoft, Pfizer, Shell, Siemens, Total, and
Unilever,
among many others.
Appendix 6: Companies Represented on the Board of the US Chamber of Commerce
The
board of directors of the Chamber includes top executives and
representatives from the following institutions and corporations:
Accenture, Allianz of America, AT&T, Pfizer, FedEx, The Charles
Schwab Corporation, Xerox, Rolls-Royce North America, Dow Chemical,
Alcoa, UPS, Caterpillar, New York Life Insurance Company, Deloitte, the
Carlyle Group, 3M, Duke Energy, Siemens, Verizon, IBM, and Allstate
Insurance,
among many others.
Appendix 7: Task Force Members
Other
task force members represented such institutions as: Tufts University,
Foreign Policy magazine, Standard Chartered Bank, the Business and
Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD, Facebook, a former EU
Ambassador to the US, a former senior VP of the World Bank, Deloitte
Touche, and Susan Schwab, a former United States Trade Representative.
Appendix 8: Corporate Representatives on the PEC
Obama’s
PEC includes CEOs and executives from Boeing, Xerox, Dow Chemical, UPS,
Walt Disney Company, Warburg Pincus, Caesars Entertainment, Ford,
Verizon, JPMorgan Chase, Ernst & Young, and Archer Daniels Midland,
among others.
Appendix 9: Participants in New York Fed Conference
The program
for the event was to include opening remarks from the president of the
New York Fed, William Dudley, and would also include the EU’s ambassador
to the United States, Joao Vale de Almdeida; the European Commission’s
director-general for Economic and Financial Affairs, Marco Buti; and
individuals from Columbia University, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies, MIT, the Brookings Institution, University of
Cambridge, the EU-based think tank Bruegel, Morgan Stanley, European
Banking Authority, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was
chair of the panel on ‘Transatlantic Dimensions of Financial Reform,’
and with Olli Rehn, Vice President of the European Commission and
Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs (a central figure of the
‘austerity’ hierarchy) as the ‘keynote’ speaker.
