TPP To Be Declassified "Four Years After Entry into Force" by @Gaius_Publius

TPP To Be Declassified "Four Years After Entry into Force"

by Gaius Publius

We've been writing lately about TPP and the new leaked chapter dealing with extra-judicial "trade courts." These would allow any corporation to sue any foreign government for lost future profit due to, for example, regulation, or "buy local" programs, or ... anything really that would cost them money. For example, did you know that much of our fish is literally processed by slaves (my emphasis)?

A year-long AP investigation reveals the global fish market feeds off a robust slave fishing trade benefitting everyone involved except the slaves, who are reportedly kept in cages and whipped with toxic fish when they get tired. Sounds pretty bad!

So how does the free-labor fish get into your cat food and onto your dinner table? The AP managed to get inside one fishing operation, where the slaves—usually Burmese citizens—are forced to live in cages on a "tiny tropical island" in Indonesia called Benjina. Despite days spent catching food, they are not allowed to eat the fish, for it is apparently deemed too valuable for them.

This is a perfect example. If a country that processed fish in this way were to sign TPP — and Indonesia is considering it — their fish processing corporations could sue any TPP-signing government that banned slave-labor seafood. Would the corporations win? That's for the TPP "trade court" (not the national court) to decide. But if the nation being sued were small enough (poor enough), it might not even mount a defense. And if a large nation's government were wealth-captured enough, they might not either.

This is what extra-judicial "trade courts" — "tribunals" that operate outside any nations legal system — do; this is what they make taxpayers in every signing nation liable for. There are "trade courts" already; NAFTA and CAFTA have them, for example, as well as a great many bilateral (two-country) trade agreements.

Four Years Into the Agreement, Its Text Will Remain Secret

Here's page two of the WikiLeaks PDF — page one of the original (source here) — which specifies document handling and declassification (click to enlarge):

To put this another way, the document is so "sensitive" — so toxic — that its authors don't want it released to the public until four years after TPP is already in force. That's toxic. And its authors are right; this is really poisonous stuff — poisonous to nations that sign it; poisonous to the passage of the deal.

I'll say again — the only people who want this deal are global billionaires, the mega-corporations they control, and the politicians who serve their interests. Why else keep the text and other details secret from the citizens of every nation considering it?

Elizabeth Warren on "Investor-State Dispute Settlement"

The legal phrase for what this chapter covers — the right of companies to sue countries for "lost" profit" — is "investor-state dispute settlement" (ISDS). ISDS documents like this one establish "tribunals" where companies (and only them) can sue government entities (and only them). Here's Elizabeth Warren on how bad that idea is:

Warren's examples are stunning:

"A French company sued Egypt because Egypt raised its minimum wage."

"A Swedish company sued Germany because Germany decided to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster."

"A Dutch company sued the Czech Republic because the Czech Republic didn't bail out a bank that the Dutch company partially owned."

I discussed this at greater length here, and included a look at the damage done by the recent KORUS (Korea–U.S.) trade agreement. As usual, that one too promised "more jobs, bigger trade surplus," a promise that was, quelle surprise, 180 degrees wrong.

TPP — like NAFTA, this time with jobs. You've heard that song before. Just say No.

Democrat Ron Wyden & TPP

Right now, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) holds the key to Fast Track and TPP. If it can't get out of the Finance Committee (he's the Ranking Member), it can't get to the floor. If Wyden won't support it, Senate corporatists will find it hard to break a filibuster, which is promised.

But if Wyden says Yes to Fast Track and TPP, it's likely to head to the House for a vote there. And we know Obama's just dying to sign it; a TPP-friendly industry trade publication quotes Sen. Orrin Hatch calling this an Obama "legacy" item (subscription required):

In remarks to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the Finance chairman [Sen. Orrin Hatch] said President Obama desperately needs a “legacy” issue. The two trade deals that the Administration is negotiating – the TPP and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – could be that legacy.

Ron Wyden's contact information:

Senator Ron Wyden
221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C., 20510
tel (202) 224-5244
fax (202) 228-2717

As the commenter at the link, Lambert Strether, notes, "a letter is better than a phone call, a phone call is better than email."

I'll make one more suggestion regarding Mr. Wyden. This could prove an electoral problem for him. He's getting a lot of pressure from MoveOn, DFA and labor. Let's make sure he feels it, with a challenge to his job. One courted primary challenger was Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, but he's reportedly uninclined to challenge Wyden this time.

Nevertheless, Wyden needs a primary, in my view for even pursuing what's called "a path to yes" as hard as he's pursuing it. He's asking for changes to Fast Track legislation at the margins only, and Obama is pushing Orrin Hatch, chair of the committee of which Wyden is Ranking Member, to say yes to Wyden and get this thing done.

In other words, Wyden is already complicit, already a problem. Punish him now, or after it's too later to change his behavior, after he's already pulled the trigger on TPP and gone home? If you live in Oregon — I know many of you do — and especially if you're a MoveOn or DFA member, you can do three things:

Help find Wyden a primary challenger.
Tell Wyden you're helping find a primary challenger.
And if you have the nerve, tell him you'll withhold your vote even if he makes it out of the primary.

Nothing frightens some people like the loss of a high-profile job, which means that pressure can go both ways. Be sure to tell him — You're doing what we're doing now, since he's doing what he's doing now. By negotiating a "path to yes," he's already over the progressive line, working to take back progressive territory.

Ron Wyden is a member of Senate "class 3" — his next election is in 2016. He'll probably tell you then, "Because Republicans!" Tell him No, Democratic Senate or not. Again, pressure can go both ways, and there does need to be a price for very bad deeds. As most of us see it, enabling TPP is a very bad deed indeed. Like NAFTA has done, TPP will do its damage when your grandparents are dead and your children have children of their own.

Say no to TPP today by saying no to Ron Wyden today. And tell him you're doing it.

GP