The release Thursday of the 5,544-page
text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a
trade and investment agreement involving 12 countries comprising nearly
40 percent of global output—confirms what even its most apocalyptic
critics feared.
“The TPP, along with the WTO [World Trade Organization] and NAFTA
[North American Free Trade Agreement], is the most brazen corporate
power grab in American history,” Ralph Nader told me when I reached him
by phone in Washington, D.C. “It allows corporations to bypass our three
branches of government to impose enforceable sanctions by secret
tribunals. These tribunals can declare our labor, consumer and
environmental protections [to be] unlawful, non-tariff barriers subject
to fines for noncompliance. The TPP establishes a transnational,
autocratic system of enforceable governance in defiance of our domestic
laws.”
The TPP is part of a triad of trade agreements that includes the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade in
Services Agreement (TiSA). TiSA, by calling for the privatization of all
public services, is a mortal threat to the viability of the U.S. Postal
Service, public education and other government-run enterprises and
utilities; together these operations make up 80 percent of the U.S.
economy. The TTIP and TiSA are still in the negotiation phase. They will
follow on the heels of the TPP and are likely to go before Congress in
2017.
