TRUMP CANCELS TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP (TPP) TRADE DEAL

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By Miriam Raftery

January 25, 2017 (San Diego) – President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to cancel the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact with 12 Pacific Rim nations.

The action is being hailed by even many Trump opponents who did not support the trade deal, but has drawn criticism from others, particularly in the business community.

“The victory against the TPP belongs to the people,” says Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group that organized some of the largest protests against the TPP.  “An unprecedented international movement of people and organizations from across the political spectrum came together and led nothing short of an uprising that stopped an outright corporate takeover of our democratic process.”

The TPP was initially supported by the Obama administration but ultimately failed to win passage in Congress.  Top leaders and presidential candidates in both parties ultimately turned against the TPP following a public outcry that made support toxic for those seeking election or reelection.

Trump campaigned on withdrawing the U.S. from the proposed TPP, arguing that free trade agreements such as the TPP, NAFTA and CAFTA benefited global special interests at the expense of U.S. workers.  Signing the order, he called it a “great thing for the American worker.”

The Obama administration’s arguments for the TPP included opening new markets for US manufacturers to sell goods overseas, which could have increased jobs in U.S. factories.  Obama’s team also believed the TPP would provide an opportunity to raise environmental and labor standards in the member nations and limit growing Chinese influence. Pulling out of the pact, the President and supporters of the TPP argued, would benefit China and the remaining nations now apt to form their own trade deal without the United States.

The TPP would have phased out around 18,000 tariffs those other 11 countries have on imported goods from the U.S.  It also would have established rules for international trade including digital commerce, intellectual property rights, human rights and environmental rights.  While that could help prohibit practices such as child labor overseas, opponents argued that some U.S. labor standards would be weakened, along with environmental standards. 

Some Republicans objected to the TPP because it would have limited monopoly protections on brand-name drugs made by big pharmaceutical companies.

Organized labor and many Democrats opposed the deal because it lacked what they viewed as enforceable protections against manipulation of currency values by other countries.

Many also raised concerns that the TPP would open the door to foreign interests suing through special trade tribunals to block local, state or federal policies in the U.S. such as consumer safety or environmental protections.   Some also feared internet censorship and erosion of creators’ copyrights.

The TPP was carved out largely in secret, and though some objections were addressed with side agreements, but the public was not allowed to see what went on behind closed doors.

Fight for the Future’s leader Evan Greer concludes, “Corporations attempted to turn the deal into a wish list for policies they knew they could not pass through a more transparent process. But an unlikely band of labor unions and tech companies, environmentalists, hackers, and Tea Party patriots took on the world’s largest and most powerful corporations, and we won.”


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