Protest never changes anything? Look at how TTIP has been derailed

[appal_jack]

Protest never changes anything? Look at how TTIP has been derailed

For those of us who want societies run in the interests of the majority rather than unaccountable corporate interests, this era can be best defined as an uphill struggle. So when victories occur, they should be loudly trumpeted to encourage us in a wider fight against a powerful elite of big businesses, media organisations, politicians, bureaucrats and corporate-funded thinktanks.

Today is one such moment. The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) – that notorious proposed trade agreement that hands even more sweeping powers to corporate titans – lies wounded, perhaps fatally. It isn’t dead yet, but TTIP is a tangled wreckage that will be difficult to reassemble.

Those of us who campaigned against TTIP – not least fellow Guardian columnist George Monbiot – were dismissed as scaremongering. We said that TTIP would lead to a race to the bottom on everything from environmental to consumer protections, forcing us down to the lower level that exists in the United States. We warned that it would undermine our democracy and sovereignty, enabling corporate interests to use secret courts to block policies that they did not like.

Scaremongering, we were told. But hundreds of leaked documents from the negotiations reveal, in some ways, that the reality is worse – and now the French government has been forced to suggest it may block the agreement.

The documents imply that even craven European leaders believe the US demands go too far. As War on Want puts it, they show that TTIP would “open the door” to products currently banned in the EU “for public health and environmental reasons”.

As the documents reveal, there are now “irreconcilable” differences between the European Union’s and America’s positions. According to Greenpeace, “the EU position is very bad, and the US position is terrible”.

More at link:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/05/protest-never-changes-anything-derailing-ttip-trade-agreement

So, WHY has the US been pushing these awful trade deals under a Democratic administration? TTIP and TPP are both modeled on the Korea Trade Deal, also brokered by the Obama administration. Since its passage, deficits with Korea have risen every year. The awful ISDS provisions that hand lawmaking and veto powers to unaccountable corporations are all there in TTIP and TPP too.

Anyone pushing these trade deals, and especially the secret negotiations where they are drafted, is not supporting democracy or peoples' rights.

-app

[NewImproved Deal]

1. The Clinton Machine...

...has never met a job-killing, anti-sovereignty, Globalist trade pact it didn't love...

[link:|

[Betty Karlson]

4. But these days, it is meeting its match: job-protecting, sovereignty-appreciating, voting citcizens.

Great news!

[Baobab]

10. Its not dead, this is likely to be political theatre. Good cop bad cop so that the US

can look like we were "forced" into the worst parts of the deal by the EU.

(actually, the opposite is closer to the truth)

Don't ever fall for this stuff, its now the rule rather than the exception. Don't forget they passed CAFTA by one vote in a late night lame duck session. And Fast Track lasts six years.

Its not dead. Seriously.

[appal_jack]

6. This is, indeed, a problem.

Clinton would surely push these deals if elected, popular will be damned according to her power brokers. And of course the 'R' power brokers would also push these deals, though Trump is actually talking a bit of a populist line at the moment (smoke & mirrors, no doubt).

I'd like a Democratic candidate who honestly, genuinely opposes secret trade deals. One with a consistent record going back decades. Who could that be...?

-app

[JDPriestly]

2. K&R.

[Enthusiast]

3. Kicked and recommended to the Max!

These trade deals benefit no one but the corporations.

Look at the results of the Korean trade deal. There is a fucking Kia everywhere you look and fewer jobs for American auto workers.

How does this benefit the American workers? Cheaper consumer goods? How long have they fed you that lie? How much are your shoes now? How about the quality?

Like they always say, "The jobs aren't coming back." How about we stop them from leaving in the first place?

It does not benefit the American worker no matter how times they lie and tell you it does.

And they lie. Damn do they lie! They lie to you everywhere on the internet and everywhere on the TV. There is an army of paid liars.

The liars are right here on DU. Pretend they're not here if that makes you feel better.

Maybe you believe the race to the bottom doesn't hurt you personally. But just wait, it will in the long run.

[appal_jack]

7. "An injury to one is an injury to all." -IWW nt.

[Egnever]

9. You are basing your observations on anecdotal data.

Kia sales have remained mostly flat since the Korea deal.

http://left-lane.com/us-car-sales-data/kia/

Japanese and U.S. brands also saw their sales increase more than 20 percent year on year last year.

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3013668&cloc=joongangdaily%7Chome%7Cnewslist1

Despite seeing Kia's everywhere the Korean trade deal was much better for american car manufacturers than it was for the Koreans.

[Enthusiast]

13. Tell someone that believes you. You're wasting your breath on me.

Last edited Sat May 7, 2016, 11:40 PM - Edit history (1)

[Jeffersons Ghost]

15. They are here! and they are attempting to hide my anti-Trump Opening Posts

Sadly, Clinton will serve gigantic corporate interests, with bad trade deals; but what is our option? Trump is lying about his intentions involving unbalanced trade deals!

[pampango]

5. A lot has changed since 2014 as more has become known about TTIP.

Moreover, there is a partisan divide on both TTIP and the transpacific agreement. Fully 60% of Democrats say TTIP is good for the United States, but only 44% of Republicans agree. At the same time, 59% of Democrats back the transpacific accord, but only 49% of the GOP supports it. This partisan divide, in which Democrats are more supportive of trade than Republicans, runs counter to conventional wisdom in the United States and abroad that Democrats are protectionists and Republicans are free traders. However, such assumptions about partisan views on trade are not borne out by Pew Research surveys that have shown for some time that Democrats are more supportive than Republicans of growing trade and business ties between the United States and other countries.

Young Americans (65%) are more likely than older ones (49%) to say TPP will help the United States. (Such findings comport with earlier Pew Research results showing that young Americans think Asia is more important to the United States than Europe. Older Americans think its Europe.)



http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/04/09/support-in-principle-for-u-s-eu-trade-pact/

The "conventional wisdom" in 2014 about partisan support for trade vs protectionism may have been turned on its head with the Donald nomination. He is a throw-back to the pre-FDR era of republican trade policy.

Just as well that the TTIP is dead. International negotiations are a good thing and the best way to resolve international problems but this one was not going to survive a change in administrations anyway. It is interesting how Europe's fear of the low-wage, non-union US mirrors our fear of low-wage, non-union Asia in the TPP negotiations. And yet the EU had a trade agreement with South Korea before we did and has been negotiating one with India for years - something we would not even think of doing.

I read that we actually have a bigger trade deficit with high-wage Germany on a per capita basis (the population of Germany is about 1/20 the size of China) than we do with lower-wage China. At present WTO rules govern our trade with both. It does not look like that is about to change - barring a President Trump, anyway.

[Egnever]

8. deficits with Korea have risen every year.

Faulty logic in that statement.

Yes Deficits with Korea have risen but the overall deficit has remained largely flat throughout Obamas tenure. That suggests that while imports from Korea have increased they decreased elsewhere.

Much better to be trading with people we have a range of agreements with than people we dont no?

Another thing that isn't mentioned in that stats is that while the over all deficit with Korea has increased so also has our access to their markets car sales and agricultural goods exports have both gone up considerably.

I get the binary thinking but when you look at the larger picture the story looks much different. If we get more from Korea now instead of China that is bad how?

[appal_jack]

11. I agree that deficits with particular countries are not the primary concern.

The biggest problem I see as very related to all these corporate-power trade deals is that they help suppress wages and unionization in the USA.

Had wages kept pace with productivity and had corporate power been limited and held accountable to democratic polities in reasonable manners, one could legitimately sing the praises of these agreements that increase the volume of international trade.

-app

[Egnever]

17. Do higher wages help exports?

I certainly agree with higher wages for the working class. I also agree that had the wages kept up with productivity people would be in a much different place and likely this would be a much different conversation. If nothing else we need a higher minimum wage just to wrest some of that back from the current theft that is going on.

But does that help our exports?

Higher wages make the price of our exports go up so other places turn to countries like Korea or elsewhere.

Higher wages would allow people to buy more cheap stuff but we would still be importing as much cheap stuff as we could get rid of. I don't think that in and of itself would fix the problem.

Maybe if we had tariffs we could control the prices of the imported stuff better but would that solve the problem? Seems like that leads to tariff wars which again would hurt our exports as the rest of the world would not have the same barriers.

I don't know what the answer is, I do know that looking at the deficit with Korea after the trade deal by itself paints a very limited picture of the actual effect of the trade deal. A misleading one at that IMHO.

[Dont call me Shirley]

12. Kill and bury the global corporate coup d'etats.

[Omaha Steve]

14. K&R!

OS

[awoke_in_2003]

16. It is not derailed

It is delayed. The only thing stopping Congress is the fact that PBO wants it.