{"id":58869,"date":"2015-06-01T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=58869"},"modified":"2015-05-29T15:33:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T14:33:58","slug":"stop-calling-the-tpp-a-trade-agreement-it-isnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/06\/stop-calling-the-tpp-a-trade-agreement-it-isnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Calling the TPP a Trade Agreement \u2013 It Isn\u2019t."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Photo:<\/a>

(Photo: Alex Garland Photography\/flickr CC 2.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

This is a message to activists trying to fight the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Stop calling the TPP a \u201ctrade\u201d agreement. TPP is a corporate\/investor rights agreement, not a trade agreement. Trade is a good thing; TPP is not. Every time you use the word trade in association with the TPP, you are helping the other side.<\/p>\n

Trade is a propaganda word. It short-circuits thinking. People hear trade and the brain stops working. People think, \u201cOf course, trade is good.\u201d And that ends the discussion.<\/p>\n

Calling TPP a trade agreement lets the pro-TPP people argue that TPP is about trade instead of what it is really about. It diverts attention from the real problem. It enables advocates to say things like, \u201c95 percent of the world lives outside the US\u201d as if that has anything to do with TPP. It lets them say<\/a>, \u201cWe know that exports support American jobs\u201d to sell a corporate rights agreement. It enables them to say nonsense<\/a> like this about a corporate rights agreement designed to send American jobs to Vietnam so a few \u201cinvestors\u201d can pocket the wage difference: \u201cExports of US goods and services supported an estimated 9.8 million American jobs, including 25 percent of all manufacturing jobs \u2026 and those export-supported jobs pay 13 to 18 percent higher than the national average wage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trade is good. Opening up the border so you can get bananas and they can get fertilizer is trade because they have a climate that lets them grow bananas and you already have<\/em> a fertilizer plant. Enabling companies to move $30\/hour jobs to countries with $.60\/hour wages so a few billionaires can pocket the difference is not trade<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Calling TPP a trade agreement lets TPP supporters say people opposed to TPP are \u201canti-trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

TPP Is a Corporate\/Investor Rights Agreement<\/strong><\/p>\n

TPP is a corporate\/investor rights agreement, and that is the problem.<\/p>\n

TPP extends patents, copyrights and other monopolies so investors can collect \u201crents<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

TPP elevates corporations and corporate profits to and above the level of governments. TPP lets corporations sue governments for laws and regulations that cause them to be less profitable.<\/em> Enabling tobacco companies to sue governments because anti-smoking campaigns limit profits has nothing to do with trade. Enabling corporations to sue states that try to regulate fracking has nothing to do with trade.<\/p>\n

While giving corporations a special channel to sue governments, labor, environmental, consumer and other \u201cstakeholder\u201d organizations do not get<\/em> a channel for enforcement. This helps enable corporations to break unions, force wages down and pollute without cost. This increases the power of corporations over governments \u2013 and us<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Who Says?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Krugman, \u201cThis Is Not A Trade Agreement<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

One thing that should be totally obvious, however, is that it\u2019s off-point and insulting to offer an off-the-shelf lecture on how trade is good because of comparative advantage, and protectionists are dumb. For this is not a trade agreement. It\u2019s about intellectual property and dispute settlement; the big beneficiaries are likely to be pharmaceutical companies and firms that want to sue governments.<\/em><\/p>\n

Josh Bivens at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in \u201cNo, the TPP Won\u2019t Be Good for the Middle Class<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u2026TPP (like nearly all trade agreements the US signs) is not a \u2018free trade agreement\u2019 \u2014 instead it\u2019s a treaty that will specify just who will be protected from international competition and who will not. And the strongest and most comprehensive protections offered are by far those for US corporate interests. Finally, there are international economic agreements that the United States could be negotiating to help the American middle class. They would look nothing like the TPP.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jim Hightower, \u201cThe Trans-Pacific Partnership is not about free trade. It\u2019s a corporate coup d\u2019etat \u2013 against us!<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

TPP <\/em>is a \u2018trade deal\u2019 that mostly does not deal with trade. In fact, of the 29 chapters in this document, only five cover traditional trade matters!<\/em><\/p>\n

The other two dozen chapters amount to a devilish \u2018partnership\u2019 for corporate protectionism. They create sweeping new \u2018rights\u2019 and escape hatches to protect multinational corporations from accountability to our governments\u2026 and to us.<\/em><\/p>\n

On OurFuture.org, \u201cEconomist Jeffrey Sachs Says NO to the TPP and the TAFTA Trade Treaties<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

Without touching on the unpopular Fast-Track mechanism necessary to pass these two treaties, Sachs laid out five reasons why, on the substance, they should not be passed or ratified:<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. They are not trade treaties, but agreements aimed at protecting investors.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Josh Barro, \u201cBut What Does the Trade Deal Mean if You\u2019re Not a Cheesemaker?<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

    Much of the controversy is because the TPP isn\u2019t really (just) a trade agreement. (There\u2019s a reason I called it an \u2018economic agreement\u2019 at the top.) A lot of it is about labor, environmental standards, intellectual property and access to markets for services like banking and accounting. And in contrast with the tariff cuts, there\u2019s a lot more reason to worry that some of the agreement\u2019s non-trade provisions would hurt the world economy even as they benefited specific industries.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Techdirt, \u201cIf You Really Think TPP Is About \u2018Trade\u2019 Then Your Analysis Is Already Wrong<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

    Instead, trade agreements have become a sort of secret playground for big corporations to abuse the process and force favorable regulations to be put in place around the globe.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2026 If you make the facile assumption that the TPP is actually about free trade, then you might be confused about all the hubbub about it. If you actually take the time to understand that much of what\u2019s in there has nothing to do with free trade and, in fact, may be the opposite of free trade, you realize why there\u2019s so much concern.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Timothy B. Lee at Vox<\/em>, \u201cThe Trans-Pacific Partnership is great for elites. Is it good for anyone else?<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

    In the past, debates about trade deals have mostly been about trade. \u2026 In contrast, debates over the TPP mostly haven\u2019t focused on its trade provisions.<\/em><\/p>\n

    [. . .] As the opportunities for trade liberalization have dwindled, the nature of trade agreements has shifted. They\u2019re no longer just about removing barriers to trade. They\u2019ve become a mechanism for setting global economic rules more generally.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2026 We expect the laws that govern our economic lives will be made in a transparent, representative, and accountable fashion. The TPP negotiation process is none of these \u2014 it\u2019s secretive, it\u2019s dominated by powerful insiders, and it provides little opportunity for public input.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Former IMF chief economist [Simon Johnson]<\/em> on the problems with TPP<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    The Trans Pacific Partnership is a notorious, secretly negotiated trade deal; from leaks we know that it continues \u2018Investor State Resolution\u2019 clauses that allow foreign companies to sue to overturn national labor and environmental laws. Johnson\u2019s analysis stresses that trade agreements can be good for countries, but they aren\u2019t necessarily good \u2014 and when they\u2019re negotiated in secret, they rarely go well.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Stop calling TPP a trade agreement. It is a corporate\/investor rights agreement.<\/p>\n

    ______________________________<\/p>\n

    Dave Johnson<\/em> is a fellow with Campaign for America\u2019s Future<\/a> and a senior fellow with Renew California<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

    This post first appeared at<\/em> Campaign for America\u2019s Future<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Go to Original \u2013 billmoyers.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    TPP is a corporate\/investor rights agreement. TPP extends patents, copyrights and other monopolies so investors can collect \u201crents.\u201d TPP elevates corporations and corporate profits to and above the level of governments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trade"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}