A TREATY THAT'S BAD FOR AMERICA by Terry Martin

[Tim Lintz]

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is supposed to be a free trade agreement between the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore & Vietnam. It is expected to eliminate tariffs on goods and services, tear down a host of non-tariff barriers and globally communize many laws & regulations when it's completed next year. The treaty guided by the Obama Administration has been wrapped in secrecy since its inception in 2009. In November WikiLeaks published a chapter on Intellectual Property Rights from the agreement. This document provides insights into President Obamas plans to surrender American sovereignty to international tribunals and courts. U.S. copyright laws, internet freedom, and web based publishing would be destroyed by the TPP. In addition it would usher in another wave of outsourcing similar to what we saw with NAFTA, as the remaining manufacturing and technology bases would be given incentives to move to Pacific Rim countries, resulting in millions of American job losses. The TPP is an all-out assault on our national sovereignty. It would unconstitutionally transfer legislative and judicial powers from city, county, state & federal governments to multi-national corporations and unaccountable international bureaucrats and judges within the World Trade Organization.

The biggest treaty concern is lack of transparency. TPP documents are not available to average Americans, only to “cleared trade advisors” These “cleared trade advisors” are representatives from industry, agriculture, services and public interest groups. While under this treaty corporate giants like Walmart and Monsanto have power to bypass Congress and the courts, the elected representatives of the people are kept from seeing a draft version of this agreement. Members of Congress have been forced to plead and threaten in order to view the secretive TPP documents. This type of secretive process has no place in our system of government, and puts Congress at a disadvantage since constitutionally they are the ones that are supposed to approve all treaties. Unfortunately the U.S. Trade Representative and the Obama Administration is pushing to “fast track” this treaty. Fast track is a negotiating and approval process that strips power to influence the terms of a trade agreement away from the public and our elected representatives, while maintaining and increasing the influence of large corporate interests. Fast Track expired for new agreements on July 1, 2007 however the Obama Administration is seeking restoration of this authority for the TPP treaty. If Congress approves this authority, it would allow an up-or-down vote on the entire treaty without discussion or objection to any of the issues discussed here. The obvious first step is to ask Congress to deny the White House fast-track authority so that the Trans Pacific Partnership can be fully debated and the public made aware of all of its unconstitutional details. Please contact your U.S. Senators and Representative asking them to deny the Obama Administrations request for Fast Track approval of the TPP. We do not want to be subject a treaty that takes away our jobs, our freedoms and our American sovereignty.

Terry Martin