In Secret Negotiations, U.S. Officials and
Corporate Representatives Trade Our Human and Constitutional Rights for
Corporate Profit
by Christopher Fisher / November 11th, 2013
When “Everything That’s Fit to Print” Doesn’t Include the Content
of a Proposed Trade Agreement, Who Represents the Public Interest at
the Bargaining Table?
The New York Times – likely the most influential newspaper on the planet – last week
editorialized in
favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade and investor
rights agreement currently being negotiated in Washington D.C. by the
United States Trade Representative (USTR) and eleven other nations which
border the Pacific Ocean. Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam are all
currently participating in the talks.
The
Times’ editorial is of great interest – given the enormous
influence the paper has upon public debate – and may represent yet
another low point in the paper’s 21st century journalism, despite its
benign title, “
A Pacific Trade Deal.”
As the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
recently pointed out, the text of the TPP remains a secret, known only
to the trade representatives involved in the talks and the 600 corporate
representatives who have been invited to comment on it. The EFF’s Maira
Sutton wrote:
That raises two distressing possibilities: either in an
act of extraordinary subservience, the Times has endorsed an agreement
that neither the public nor its editors have the ability to read. Or, in
an act of extraordinary cowardice, it has obtained a copy of the secret
text and hasn’t fulfilled its duty to the public interest to publish
it.
So which is it – subservience to elite, undemocratic decision-making,
or a cowardly deference to the exclusive authority of those elites?
Endorsing a trade agreement which has yet to be seen by the public,
public interest groups, or our representatives in the House or Senate
raises alarming questions about the
New York Times’ view of the
role of journalism in a functioning democracy. If all parties to public
policy discussions agree that the policies in question should remain a
secret, and the institutions of journalism which are indispensable to an
informed citizenry find that acceptable, how is the public to voice its
opinion of those policies?
U.S. negotiators have made no secret of their rationale for keeping
the nearly-complete text of the agreement from the public. According to
former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, once the mayor of Dallas,
Texas and a golfing partner of President Obama, releasing the text
before finished could raise such public opposition to the agreement that
participants might later refuse to sign it. Kirk suggested in an
interview with
Reuters that
this was the case in 2001, when the administration of George W. Bush
released a highly edited, draft text of the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas and subsequently failed to reach a final agreement.
Congress, it seems, is no more inclined to demand a review of the
trade documents in question, much less insist upon more public input.
This is despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution grants Congress
exclusive authority to negotiate the terms of trade agreements between
states and with foreign countries.
In June, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) sent Obama’s nominee to replace Kirk, Michael Froman, a
letter requesting
the TPP text, stating “I believe in transparency and democracy, and I
think the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) should too.” The USTR’s
argument against releasing the text was, Warren wrote, “exactly
backward.”
“If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a
trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of
the United States.”
On June 19, 2013, Sen. Warren
announced that
she would not vote for Froman to take the trade office position due to
his refusal to release the TPP text, even in an edited or redacted form.
The Senate approved Froman’s nomination that day by a vote of 93 to 4,
with few other senators willing to join Warren’s stand for transparency
and the public interest. California Senator Barbara Boxer voted
“present.”
Good Reason to Fear the TPP
According to information leaked from the secret negotiations over the past several years, as well as
Public Citizen,
Food & Water Watch,
and other public interest organizations, there are numerous areas in
which the public should be concerned as the negotiations conclude. Many
of the proposed rules in the agreement read like an extended Christmas
wish list for corporate predators. Rules currently being negotiated
would allow corporations to:
- Buy land, natural resources, and factories without governmental review
- Demand compensation from member countries for loss of “expected
future profits” due to member countries’ health, labor, or environmental
laws
- Sue governments directly, before tribunals of private sector lawyers
A primary goal corporations have pushed the TPP to achieve has been
the elevation of individual corporations and their investors to an equal
standing with member nations; citizens of the member nations have no
standing under the proposed TPP rules, and no legal recourse.
There are numerous other areas of concern:
- Food safety - U.S. food safety laws governing
pesticide residues, bacteria, and additives could be outlawed and
weakened. Food labeling laws such as organic, animal-welfare, and GMO
identification could be eliminated as an “illegal trade barrier.” Many
TPP nations are huge farmed fish producers which use chemicals and
antibiotics prohibited in the U.S. The TPP would increase the import of
unsafe fish into the country.
- Local foods - “Buy local,” “Buy American,” or other
preferential purchasing programs, designed to strengthen local food
systems and economies could be declared barriers to trade, with
corporations and investors suing to force their elimination.
- Fracking - The TPP would remove the Department of
Energy’s authority to regulate natural gas exports to TPP member
countries, eliminating DOE review of environmental and economic impacts
of fracking on our communities. Given Japan’s insatiable demand for
natural gas – representing a third of the world’s import market –
pressure to increase fracking in the U.S. would certainly grow. This
would also increase pollution and carbon emissions in the U.S., as the
energy required to cool and liquefy natural gas into an exportable state
renders it nearly as dirty as coal production.
- Jobs - The TPP gives incentives to corporations to
relocate jobs to lower wage TPP member nations, by guaranteeing both low
risk and lower cost of doing so.
- Banking - The TPP prohibits transaction taxes
currently being discussed worldwide as a means to control financial
speculation, which repeatedly threatens the international economy with
financial crises. It also limits national “too big to fail” rules and
reforms that separate consumer banking from riskier investment banking.
- Internet - Despite their failure to pass last
year’s wildly unpopular Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was derided
as a gift to corporate desires to control and profit from the internet,
many of SOPA’s provisions were folded into the TPP. The agreement would
empower corporations to monitor our activities, arbitrarily cut off our
internet access, remove content, and impose fines.
Fast-Track Authority
The White House and other participants to the TPP talks recently
stated they’re on target to complete the trade negotiations by the end
of the year.
Consequently, Obama has requested that Congress grant the
administration fast track authority as the deal is finalized.
Fast track authority limits Congressional oversight – and therefore
our only public analysis and input – of international trade deals. In
recent years public interest advocates, activists, and others have
successfully brought fast track to the public’s attention by pointing to
its inherently anti-democratic nature – limiting public debate,
Congressional review, and oversight removes the sole means by which the
public can influence trade deals which impact us all.
Unfortunately the limited response of corporate negotiators and their
associated friends and allies in the United States has been to rebrand
fast track authority as “trade promotion authority” (TPA).
Senate Finance Committee leaders, Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-UT) recently
stated they will be working with their counterparts in the House to grant Obama the TPA he’s requested very soon.
Public interest groups are attempting to mobilize public opinion to
oppose fast track authority and focus attention upon the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, but time is running short. A group of fourteen
organizations recently sent members of Congress a
letter urging
them not to grant the Obama administration fast track authority, citing
the secrecy surrounding the TPP’s negotiation and the subsequent lack
of accountability to the public that fast track would encourage.
The letter read, in part:
The American public has a right to know the contents of
the international agreements its government is crafting. Corporations
cannot be the only interests represented in this agreement, since they
do not advocate for policies that safeguard or even represent the
interests of the public at large. Given the administration’s complete
lack of transparency in negotiating the TPP, it is vitally important
that democratically elected representatives are at least given the
opportunity to conduct a review and push for fixes.
Conclusion
Economist Dean Baker
commented recently on the
New York Times’ endorsement of the TPP.
Bizarrely, the NYT editorialized in favor of the TPP, concluding its piece:
A good agreement would lower duties and trade barriers on most
products and services, strengthen labor and environmental protections,
limit the ability of governments to tilt the playing field in favor of
state-owned firms and balance the interests of consumers and creators of
intellectual property. Such a deal will not only help individual
countries but set an example for global trade talks.
Yes, boys and girls, Goldman Sachs, Exxon-Mobil and Pfizer will put together a deal that does all these things. This is serious?
Citizens concerned about the health and well-being of our
communities, our food supply, our environment, jobs, freedom of speech
and association, and the corporate takeover of our human rights are
encouraged to contact their elected representatives and discuss the TPP
with their colleagues, friends, and relatives.
Ask your reps to deny the administration the inherently undemocratic
fast track authority. Insist upon a thorough, public review of the TPP
by Congress. Though our nation increasingly appears to be run by, and
for, the benefit of corporate America, those corporate elites and their
benefactors’ greatest fear is an informed citizenry which is actively
involved in the civic and political life of the country. We the people
have the power. We have only to exercise it.
Resources for further information and for exercising your rights:
Contact your elected representatives
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and intellectual property rights
Expose the TPP
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
Public Citizen
• This article originally appeared at
The Raucous Rooster
Christopher Fisher is an independent Sonoma County journalist whose work has appeared at
Truthout,
Civil Eats,
Grist, and the
Petaluma Bounty
blog. He is also the Vice President of the recently reborn Petaluma
Grange, one of the rapidly growing California Granges, which support
democratic communities, sustainable agriculture, and fair local food
systems.
Read other articles by Christopher.
