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Trans-Pacific Partnership

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed regional regulatory and investment treaty. As of 2014, twelve countries throughout the Asia Pacific region have participated in negotiations on the TPP: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

The proposed agreement began in 2005 as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4). Participating countries set the goal of wrapping up negotiations in 2012, but contentious issues such as agriculture, intellectual property, and services and investments have caused negotiations to continue into the present, with the last round meeting in Ottawa from 3–12 July 2014. Implementation of the TPP is one of the primary goals of the trade agenda of the Obama Administration in the United States of America.

On 12 November 2011, the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership countries announced that the TPP intended to "enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, to promote innovation, economic growth and development, and to support the creation and retention of jobs." Although the text of the treaty has not been made public, Wikileaks has published several documents since 2013. A number of global health professionals, internet freedom activists, environmentalists, organized labor, advocacy groups, and elected officials have criticized and protested against the treaty, in large part because of the secrecy of negotiations, the agreement's expansive scope, and controversial clauses in drafts leaked to the public.”

In Arguing for TPP President Obama Gets Carried Away in Resting on His Credentials as a Foe of Wall Street

 

From the Center for Economic and policy Research: Published: 10 May 2015

“In an interview with Matt Bai, a political columnist with Yahoo, President Obama took issue with Senator Elizabeth Warren's claim that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other trade deals that could be allowed special rules under fast-track status, could unravel financial regulation put in place by Dodd-Frank.

"'Think about the logic of that, right?' he went on. 'The notion that I had this massive fight with Wall Street to make sure that we don’t repeat what happened in 2007, 2008. And then I sign a provision that would unravel it?'

“'I’d have to be pretty stupid,' Obama said, laughing."

President Obama may not want to rest the case for TPP on the strength of his status as a foe of Wall Street. He has not always been the strongest proponent of financial reform. Among other noteworthy items:

1) He has not sought the criminal prosecution of any executives at major banks for issuing or securitizing fraudulent mortgages, nor against executives at credit rating agencies for knowingly granting investment grade ratings to securities containing large numbers of improper or fraudulent mortgages;

2) He opposed the Brown-Kauffman bill, which would have broken up the big banks;

3) He did nothing to push cram-down legislation in Congress, which would have required banks to write-down the value of some underwater mortgages to the current market value of the home;

4) He supported the stripping of the Franken Amendment from Dodd-Frank. This amendment (which was approved by a large bi-partisan majority in the Senate) would have eliminated the conflict of interest faced by bond-rating agencies by having the Securities and Exchange Commission, rather than the issuer, pick the rating agency. (The line from opponents was that the SEC might send over unqualified analysts. Think about that one for a while.)

5) He only began to push the Volcker rule as a political move to shore up support the day after Republican Scott Brown won an upset election for a Senate seat in Massachusetts.

6) The administration had to be pushed by labor and consumer groups to keep a strong and independent consumer financial protection bureau in Dodd-Frank.

If President Obama wants to push the case for TPP he should probably rely on something other than his status as a foe of Wall Street.

Addendum:

It is worth noting that the fast-track legislation being requested by President Obama would extend for five years. This means that if a Republican is elected in 2016, they would be able to have future trade agreements approved on a straight up or down vote by a majority in Congress. If it is difficult to see how President Obama can assure Senator Warren, and other critics of fast-track, that a future Republican president would not use this power to weaken financial regulation, if they could not otherwise get the 60 votes needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.”

President Obama Demands Critics Tell Him What's Wrong With TPP; Of Course We Can't Do That Because He Won't Show Us the Agreement

From techcdirt

“From the most-transparent-administration-in-history dept:

President Obama is apparently quite annoyed by the fact that his own party is basically pushing against his "big trade deals" (that are not really about trade). Senator Elizabeth Warren has been pretty aggressive in trashing the TPP agreement, highlighting the fact that the agreement is still secret (other than the bits leaked by Wikileaks). In response, President Obama came out swinging against the critics of TPP arguing that "they don't know what they're talking about."

He insists that it's unfair to compare TPP to NAFTA because they're different deals:

“You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago.”

Well, Mr. President, I would love to do that, but I can't because you and your USTR haven't released the damn text. It takes an insane lack of self-awareness for the guy who once declared his administration "the most transparent in history" to demand people tell him what's wrong with his trade agreement, when that agreement is kept entirely secret.

Furthermore, multiple experts concerning things like the corporate sovereignty ISDS provisions and the intellectual property chapters have gone into great detail as to why the leaked versions have problems. They're not complaining about NAFTA. They're actually complaining about the latest drafts -- but the USTR won't acknowledge them because they're talking about leaked versions.

In fact, the only real complaints I've seen relating to NAFTA concern the fact that the government says one thing about these big agreements, but the reality is something different.

Of course, he attacks the fact that people are complaining about the secrecy as well, by arguing (misleadingly) that the deal is not at all secret:

“The one that gets on my nerves the most is the notion that this is a ‘secret’ deal,” Obama said. “Every single one of the critics who I hear saying, ‘this is a secret deal,’ or send out emails to their fundraising base saying they’re working to prevent this secret deal, can walk over today and read the text of the agreement. There’s nothing secret about it.”

I'm a critic. I can't walk over today and read the text of the agreement. Obviously, President Obama is only talking about elected members of Congress. But that's not what they're complaining about. They're complaining about the fact that the American public cannot see the text of the document or discuss the specifics of what's in there. And that's absolutely true.

And even the fact that members of Congress can actually see the document is tremendously misleading. Yes, members of Congress are allowed to walk over to the USTR and see a copy of the latest text. But they're not allowed to take any notes, make any copies or bring any of their staff members. In other words, they can only read the document and keep what they remember in their heads. And they can't have their staff members -- the folks who often really understand the details -- there to explain what's really going on.

And it all comes back to the point that Senator Warren has been making for a long time: that former USTR Ron Kirk has admitted that a big reason why they keep the document secret is that when they tried being more transparent in the past, the agreement failed. As Warren says, if being transparent with the American public means the agreement will fail, then the problem is with the agreement, not the public.

“When I keep on hearing people repeating this notion that it’s ‘secret,’ I gotta say, it’s dishonest,” Obama continued. “And it’s concerning when I see friends of mine resorting to these kinds of tactics.”

Here's a little test: can we see the current TPP documents today? No? Then it's secret. Claiming otherwise is what's dishonest.”

“We the People” can stop current trends in the United States of America (The Bosses and Law Enforcers): if we legally use our voices, writings, phone calls, emails, social media postings (tweets, posts, shares, etc.), protests, and votes in fact based truth to change the grave situations in our Democracy!

 

For two weeks “We the People” (Constituents and Voters): have tried to express our frustration to the smaller of the Congressional Legislative Bodies; The Senate.

For less than 24 hours “We the People” temporarily saw some hope: when you did not move the TPA (Fast Track Legislation) forward. The highlighted link in the previous sentence expressed true and verifiable facts and reasons we did not want the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Next, “We the People” discussed that what we needed to do and then expressed what our Federal Government must do! Did you hear us? The simple answer is “NO”: the United States Senate went back to business as usual!

When “We the People” observed this happening we respectfully shared that transparency showed that Stakeholders (values based people) needed Shareholders(multinational non-values based entities) to be removed from power in our democracy: we expressed that we knew the difference between; Right (good) and Wrong (evil) Governance in the United States of America!

“We the People” then expressed how $1.18 billion in 2014 Campaign Donations to Congress had led to complete Collusion and Corruption of politician legislators because of 
Fraud and Quid Pro Quo: we then respectful express to you what needed to be done tocorrect this situation.

Well, “We the People”, who are still being ignored, now need to request impeachment of President Obama for openly stating fraudulent facts in the U.S. Public Media; a gross crime or misdemeanor!

Additionally, any U.S. Congressional member not understanding “We the Peoples” issues tell our elected officials that “We the People” will legally request our Countries laws across the Nation by: moving "We the People" to first: through legalrevolutionary repair of the United States of America.

Finally, this battle will be over and when it is: “We the People” need the following legislative items completed in an expeditious (few weeks) order!