Senator Baucus (D) and Representative Camp (R) are asking Congress to approve fast track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) even though members of Congress have not seen the agreement – which is over 1,000 pages long. TPP has been called “NAFTA on steroids” for good reason.
Under fast track, members of Congress would give up their right to make the trade deal better for Americans. Congress could only vote yes or no with no opportunity for amendments.
Call your member of Congress today to say NO to fast track and the TPP. Dial 866-937-4359. Fast track authority has been voted down before by Congress – this is a fight we can win!
Only corporate “subject matter experts” have had input to TPP trade negotiations. Do we really want to let corporate lobbyists have the final say on jobs and workers’ rights, environmental standards, food safety, patents and intellectual property rights?
Here are 10 of the hundreds of reasons to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP):
1. The offshoring of U.S. manufacturing, service, and even public sector jobs will increase. The U.S. is projected to lose more than 130,000 jobs solely due to the inclusion of Japan and Vietnam in the TPP.
2. U.S. sovereignty will be under- mined by giving corporations the right to challenge our laws before international tribunals. The TPP creates a special dispute resolution process that allows corporations to challenge any domestic laws that could adversely impact their “expected future profits.”
3. Our wages, benefits and collective bargaining rights will be eroded. As we saw with other trade agreements, the TPP will exacerbate the race to the bottom because it places our workers in competition with corporations operating in countries like Vietnam, which only have to pay a minimum wage of just 28 cents an hour.
4. Our ability to protect the environment will be undermined. Similar language in past agreements has led to over $14 billion in pending claims, mostly challenges to environmental laws in a number of countries.
5. Food safety standards will be eroded. The TPP would subject our food standards, labeling programs and specific-pesticide regulations to challenge by foreign corporations.
6. The federal government – and maybe state governments – would be prohibited from giving preferences to American made goods and services. Firms operating in any TPP signatory country must be given equal access to the vast majority of U.S. federal procurement contracts — rather than allowing us to recycle our tax dollars here to create American jobs. “Buy American”, “Renewable/Recycled”, and “Sweatshop Free” specifications could be challenged.
7. Medicine prices would increase, access to life saving drugs would decrease and the profits of big pharmaceutical companies would expand. Doctors without Borders stated, “The TPP agreement is on track to become the most harmful trade pact ever for access to medicines in developing countries.”
8. Wall Street would benefit at the expense of workers, businesses and global financial stability. The TPP would expand the rights and power of the same Wall Street firms that already wrecked our economy and would create the conditions for even more global financial instability in the future.
9. The TPP will reward authoritarian regimes, like Vietnam, that systematically violate human rights. The U.S. Departments of State and Labor, Human Rights Watch, Workers’ Rights Consortium and Amnesty International have documented Vietnam’s widespread violation of basic international standards for human rights.
10. The TPP would be forever. Once the TPP is signed it would have no expiration date and could only be altered by a consensus of all signatories — locking in its failed, extreme policies. Also, the TPP is intended as a “docking agreement” that other Pacific Rim countries could join over time if accepted by the signatory countries.
For more information on the arguments FOR and AGAINST each item, visit AT&T Shareholder Services
