[Ngo-sanrm] Trans-Pacific Partnership faces mounting opposition abroad and at home

Thu Dec 12 09:20:03 GMT 2013

Thanks Chuck. I included Ms. Phi Van here, she shared a lot of concern with
me before on this TPP.  

Best Regards,

Van Anh

From: ngo-sanrm-bounces at ngocentre.org.vn
[mailto:ngo-sanrm-bounces at ngocentre.org.vn] On Behalf Of Sustainable
Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Working Group
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2013 10:19 AM
To: Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Working Group
Subject: [Ngo-sanrm] Trans-Pacific Partnership faces mounting opposition
abroad and at home

Viet Nam is getting a lot of pressure from the U.S. to sign the TPP.  Last
year their Embassy staff in Washington told me that they were feeling the
heat from Hanoi to "negotiate" faster during meetings being held somewhere
in Virginia.  The negotiations are secret, no one but corporate lawyers and
lobbyists is allowed to take part.  Not even members of Congress are allowed
to see the working texts.  WikiLeaks, however, has disclosed some of the
information, and many worries are confirmed:  For example, Vietnam would no
longer be able to sell cheaper drugs that compete with much more expensive
international brand names, because this would be "unfair" to the global
pharmaceutical corporations.  

Vietnam should also be concerned that TPP would have major impacts on food
safety, environmental protections, and agricultural production and exports.

Vietnam must be very wary.  The government's rush to sign the TPP makes some
Vietnamese wonder if the government is really looking after their interests,
or trying to please the U.S. Embassy and international investors.

CHUCK

Thursday, Dec 12, 2013 12:56 AM +0700 

Not so fast! Massive giveaway to Exxon and Pharma hits road bump 

Trans-Pacific Partnership, a mammoth NAFTA-style trade deal, faces mounting
opposition abroad and at home 

Josh Eidelson <http://www.salon.com/writer/josh_eidelson/> 

 <http://media.salon.com/2013/12/exxon_truck.jpg> Not so fast! Massive
giveaway to Exxon and Pharma hits road bump(Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

Key Democrats and leading labor and liberal groups blasted the Obama
administration's handling of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - a
dozen-nation trade deal that advocates warn could expand to be bigger than
NAFTA - after the latest round of negotiations ended without a hoped-for
agreement. As I
<http://www.salon.com/2012/06/14/trans_pacific_partnership_larger_than_nafta
/> 've reported, progressives have raised alarm about a battery of reported
proposed provisions in the TPP, including a tribunal system under which
private companies could bring suit against governments for passing policies
that hurt their profits.

"The failure in Singapore makes clear that the administration is far from
reaching an agreement with other countries," Rep. Rosa DeLauro told
reporters on a Tuesday conference call. "And I also add emphatically that it
should be clear that it is far from reaching a deal that Congress can
support." DeLauro was joined by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and by the
heads of the Sierra Club, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch and three
unions.

"When are we going to sign a trade agreement that's good for America, that
opens up markets and puts Americans to work here to ship good American
products overseas?" asked Teamsters Union president James Hoffa. "Isn't that
the answer? Shouldn't that be our goal? Unfortunately that's not the goal of
this administration."

United States Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman told reporters
Tuesday that the four days of talks in Singapore had been "very successful
in that the TPP ministers really accomplished an enormous amount across the
various texts of the TPP agreement by working together in a collaborative
way to identify potential landing zones on the great majority of the
outstanding issues."

Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Public and Media Affairs
Nkenge Harmon told me last year that "[n]othing in our TPP investment
proposal could impair our government's ability to pursue legitimate,
non-discriminatory public interest regulation." Global Trade Watch's Todd
Tucker called that "a misrepresentation" of the issue, saying that "once
public interest laws are passed," proposed language would leave them
"susceptible to attack by multinational companies, and taxpayers could be on
the hook to pay multinational companies for the privilege of passing that
public interest law."

"There's nothing in this for the American people," Communications Workers of
America President Larry Cohen told reporters. DeLauro charged that her early
efforts to engage then-USTR Ron Kirk on seafood contamination yielded "no
reciprocal effort by the USTR to work together," and said, "I don't see any
openness on the administration's part to change their tactics in dealing
with this agreement." She also alleged that "on a whole variety of issues,
the U.S. has been strong-arming other countries."

Documents leaked to the Huffington Post suggest that such concerns are
shared by some of those currently negotiating across the table from the
United States. Reporter Zach Carter quoted
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/08/tpp-trade-agreement_n_4409211.html
>  a memo from another country charging the U.S. had "shown no flexibility
on its proposal" for investor dispute tribunals; Carter reported that with
such language, "companies could challenge an even broader array of rules"
than under NAFTA, the deal he noted companies like Exxon Mobil and Dow have
used to fight Canadian rules on issues from drilling to drug patents. The
same memo said the U.S. "shows zero flexibility" on its push for
restrictions on bank regulation, and had reintroduced a widely opposed
proposal to restrict governments' negotiations to push down drug prices. A
USTR spokesperson told Carter that "some elements" in those documents were
"outdated, others totally inaccurate," but did not specify which.

Congresswoman Slaughter and allies highlighted an expected administration
request for "fast track" authority, which would make any proposed TPP deal
easier to pass and harder to amend, as a key coming front in their fight.
"Fast track," she charged, "is an undemocratic seizure of power that usurps
our ability to represent the American people." DeLauro touted letters signed
by a combined 185 members of Congress as a sign that "if the current fast
track procedures are not changed, then there will be opposition," and
pledged to keep organizing further resistance. "The politicians keep telling
us the same song and dance," said United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard,
"that never comes out to the truth."

Others have also voiced concern. In a statement e-mailed Tuesday, U.S. Sen.
Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, warned that "The lack of meaningful consultation on
trade negotiations, and the perception of secrecy around the TPP, will only
make the president's request for Fast Track that much more challenging for
Congress to consider." Brown, the author of the book "Myths of Free Trade,"
told
<http://www.salon.com/2013/09/27/most_underrated_liberal_hero_the_sherrod_br
own_interview/>  Salon in September that he believed Obama and Froman
understand that "trade policy's not worked for us as a nation"; he said that
"doesn't mean they're as aggressive and forward-looking as I would like to
be, but we're always making the battle."

While Obama has already signed off on trade deals developed under President
Bush and opposed by organized labor, the key work on the TPP has taken place
since Obama was elected in 2008 - on a Democratic Party platform that
pledged, <http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=78283>  "We will not
negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the government from
protecting the environment food safety, or the health of its citizens; give
greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors; require the
privatization of our vital public services; or prevent developing country
governments from adopting humanitarian licensing policies to improve access
to life-saving medications."

Asked in September whether Obama's pursuit of TPP provisions opposed by
labor suggested a weakness in union strategy, Gerard told me
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/176113/us-labor-secretary-american-workplace-
has-evolved>  it was "too early to try and blame the labor movement," as
"the fact of the matter is that we're going to fight that." Gerard said the
AFL-CIO had "a good relationship with the administration. Do we always get
things the way we want them? No, but we always get a chance to have our
voice heard, which is different from what we get under Republicans."

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