Happily ever NAFTA: New trade pact could boost corporations and harm environment

[xchrom]

http://grist.org/politics/free-trades-just-another-word-for-secret-lawsuits-the-tpp-the-environment-and-you/

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I grew up around the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was all grownups talked about in Detroit: the Sound of NAFTA. Although not much rhymed with that phrase, the hills were indeed alive with the sounds of grouchy tool and die workers, complaining that all of our jobs were going to Mexico.

As a kid, I found it hard to see what was so exciting about jobs. My dad worked in a tool and die shop with bad ventilation and no heat, and every winter he would come down with a case of bronchitis that was one order of magnitude worse than the last. But it didn’t matter what we thought, anyway. George Bush Sr. was for NAFTA, and Bill Clinton was for NAFTA, and the only guy who wasn’t was Ross Perot — which is always a sign your cause is in trouble.

Now, at nearly 20 years of age, NAFTA is almost old enough to drink responsibly. The number of people I knew who worked in tool and die shops went from everybody to nobody, and while on the whole the consensus has been this is Not Great, it’s also been years since my dad has had trouble breathing.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that NAFTA was not just about jobs. Chapter 11 of the agreement contained a provision that has had, and has continued to have, major effects on the environment and environmental regulations.

[djean111]

1. Read the whole article - TPP is horrific, unless you are a corporation.

Corporations can tell countries what to do, and not do.
And spare me the drivel of oh, corporations won't really do that - they already do, under other "trade" treaties.

For instance:

"the TPP will not be a precise twin of NAFTA. In certain ways, it’s worse. In what seemed to be a measure designed to curry favor with Japan, now the world’s largest natural gas importer, the TPP would legally obligates the U.S. to export gas to Japan — right when, says Solomon, the U.S. should be scaling down its natural gas operations in order to meet its emissions goals, instead of building new pipelines, refineries, and export terminals."

Up until now, evidently, the United States has not been successfully sued very often because the corporate trade agreements were largely not with countries who have a lot of investment here. The TPP will change that.

TPP will render things like this moot - because corporations will be more important than countries. Look at this:

In other situations — as under the rules of the World Trade Organization, which came into being in 1995, a year after NAFTA, and has a similar arbitration setup, but allows for nations suing nations rather than corporations suing nations — the U.S. gets sued often by other WTO members. Often, it loses — as it did last spring, when a WTO appellate panel ruled that labeling American tuna “dolphin safe” was hurting the Mexican tuna industry.

Makes me wonder why corporations even bother with state and federal lobbying and payoffs - just get their shit into trade agreements, and a country's laws and regulations are toothless.

[jsr]

2. Dangit, for the 1984th time, TPP does not exist!

Fast-Track Trade Bill Deal Said to Be Reached by Congress
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014671811