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
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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’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.”
“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.”
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