Did you know, beyond closed doors, there is a massive trade agreement being crafted? It's called TPP or Trans Pacific Partnership and this one makes NAFTA look like the stepping stone that it is. This is one bad mother.
This is a trade agreement between Chile, Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam and the United States. Japan as well as China may also join. The countries involved isn't the problem. What's being negotiated is.
For those who think they won the SOPA/PIPA battle, think again. The below video clip does a good job explaining how SOPA/PIPA are being reintroduced via TPP negotiations.
TPP will also outlaw Buy American, as weak as those policies are currently. Sixty-nine Congress representatives wrote a letter in protest to the administration.
We write in strong support of Buy American procurement policies, including the various federal programs that have been in place since the enactment of the Buy American Act in 1933 and passage by many states of similar preference policies. We are concerned about proposals we understand are under consideration in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement negotiations that could significantly limit Buy American provisions and as a result adversely impact American jobs, workers, and manufacturers.
Odds are this letter won't make a dent or pause of 15 minutes as did a letter from 30 lawyers demanding negotiations be transparent.
Other elements to TPP are making U.S. food safety a barrier to trade importing even more food that doesn't meet U.S. safety standards, financial deregulation through trade agreements, longer and more monopolistic drug patents, ridiculous expansion of copyrights and of course, offshore outsourcing of millions of jobs.
U.S. trade representative Ron Kirk was presented with a Corporate Power Tool award and now he does public relations end runs as corporations, lobbyists and the politicians who represent them continue to craft the TPP. Below is a cute, yet factual video trying to get the word out. Public Citizen created www.tpp2012.com
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