"Like Gravity" Fast-Track Trade Sinks Jobs and Wages

[marmar]

"Like Gravity" Fast-Track Trade Sinks Jobs and Wages

Wednesday, 22 January 2014 09:09
By Mary Bottari, PR Watch | Report


Rep. Dave Camp (R- MI) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) have introduced “Fast Track” legislation in Congress. It’s been 15 years since a U.S. president sought Fast Track authority, which strips Congress of its Constitutional authority to have a meaningful role in U.S. trade policy. If the Fast Track bill passes, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal involving 11 Pacific Rim countries could be completed and signed before it is sent to Congress for a vote. Then the far-reaching trade deal will be railroaded through with no amendments and only 20 hours of debate.

The original Fast Track was cooked up by Nixon, served up again by Clinton to pass the NAFTA and WTO agreements, and stirred up again in 2000 to jam China free trade through Congress. That all worked out well, didn’t it? The United States lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs in the NAFTA/WTO era, and our trade deficit with China is now one of the largest in history.

Today, President Obama is seeking Fast Track to get the TPP and the 27-nation Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) through Congress. His road is a rocky one. His trade team could not convince a single Democrat to author the bill in the House, and with hundreds of groups across the political spectrum -- from progressive environmental and consumer groups to the conservative Farm Bureau and Tea Party patriots -- lined up against it, it’s possible Fast Track can be defeated.

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Corporate Courts Facilitate Attacks on Consumer, Health, and Environmental Protections

Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) turned the conversation at the Fast Track hearing in a completely new direction by asking David Cote if he thought trade agreements should be used to attack consumer and environmental laws democratically enacted around the globe. Brown referenced the so-called “investor-state” provisions that have been included in U.S. trade agreements that allow corporations to directly sue governments for cash damages outside of domestic court systems and in friendly trade tribunals if they believe consumer, health, or environmental regulations harm their products.

Brown pointed to a new case in Australia, where U.S. firm Phillip Morris is suing Australia over a new plain packaging rule for cigarettes designed to reduce cigarette smoking among teens and other new users. Phillip Morris battled the rule in Australian courts and lost, so is taking it to a corporate-friendly trade tribunal. The rulings of these tribunals are binding, and there is no appeal. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/21371-like-gravity-fast-track-trade-sinks-jobs-and-wages

[SamKnause]

1. Just say NO to the TPP

Free Trade Deals=

poverty wages
workplaces abuses
maiming
death
and destruction of the planet

[WillyT]

2. K & R !!!

[LuvNewcastle]

3. We would be surrendering our sovereignty to those tribunals who could make us

pay damages in lawsuits. That is bullshit. No one has the right to circumvent our laws and sue us for making them. We the people reserve the right to tell others what they can do in our country. There should not be any treaties made in which we give up that right.