Summary:
This article highlights some of the political opposition facing President Obama as he and the GOP try to dump the Trans-Pacific Partnership onto the US and the world by enacting "fast-track" authorization. Obama and the republicans are pushing for fast-track approval because it prohibits lawmakers from making any changes or adjustments to several highly controversial trade deals. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) somehow managed to slither out of his chair and voice his opposition to fast-track approval after almost a year of mounting pressure from labor and environmental groups, as well as many of the nation's top economists.
Analysis:
These trade deals, especially the Trans-Pacific Partnership, grant sweeping power to the corporations who negotiated them. If this agreement is approved, millions of jobs could be sent overseas where either a) environmental and labor regulations are virtually non-existent, or b) the trade agreement itself reverses the environmental and labor laws set in motion by the people of sovereign nations. This trade agreement essentially elevates corporations above the law, and if a country were to renege on any part of the deal they would be subjected to lawsuits via corporate tribunals. Many existing environmental protections would be lost and the world's already suffering ecosystems would be brutalized even more extensively. Labor laws like age restrictions and wage agreements would be reversed. The agreement would ban "Buy American", "Buy Local", and GMO labeling initiatives, as well as limit online information about the corporations involved in every single country that signs on to the agreement, including the US. Despite the president's hollow commitment to decrease income inequality and increase social justice, it seems as if his true loyalty belongs to the corporations who are destroying the planet and what's left of human integrity.
Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/business/reid-pushes-back-on-fast-track-trade-authority.html?_r=0
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