TransPacific Partnership TPP

TPP summary

Dan Crawford | November 22, 2013 1:54 pm

Via Alternet Jim Hightower offers a simplified look at the possible consequences of this trade deal:

Twenty years later, the gang that gave us NAFTA is back with the TPP, a “trade deal” that mostly does not deal with trade. Of the 29 chapters in this document, only five cover traditional trade matters! The other chapters amount to a devilish “partnership” for corporate protectionism:

—Food safety. Any of our government’s food safety regulations (on pesticide levels, bacterial contamination, fecal exposure, toxic additives, etc.) and food labeling laws (organic, country-of-origin, animal-welfare approved, GMO-free, etc.) that are stricter than “international standards” could be ruled as “illegal trade barriers.” Our government would then have to revise our consumer protections to comply with weaker standards.

—Fracking. Our Department of Energy would lose its authority to regulate exports of natural gas to any TPP nation. This would create an explosion of the destructive fracking process across our land, for both foreign and U.S. corporations could export fracked gas from America to member nations without any DOE review of the environmental and economic impacts on local communities — or on our national interests.

—Jobs. US corporations would get special foreign-investor protections to limit the cost and risk of relocating their factories to low-wage nations that sign onto this agreement. So, an American corporation thinking about moving a factory would know it is guaranteed a sweetheart deal if it moves operations to a TPP nation like Vietnam. This would be an incentive for corporate chieftains to export more of our middle-class jobs.

—Drug prices. Big Pharma would be given more years of monopoly pricing on each of their patents and be empowered to block distribution of cheaper generic drugs. Besides artificially keeping everyone’s prices high, this would be a death sentence to many people suffering from cancer, HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis and other treatable diseases in impoverished lands.

—Banksters. Wall Street and the financial giants in other TPP countries would make out like bandits. The deal explicitly prohibits transaction taxes (such as the proposed Robin Hood Tax here) that would shut down speculators who have repeatedly triggered financial crises and economic crashes around the world. It restricts “firewall” reforms that separate consumer banking from risky investment banking. It could roll back reforms that governments adopted to fix the extreme bank-deregulation regimen that caused Wall Street’s 2007 crash. And it provides an escape from national rules that would limit the size of “too-big-to-fail” behemoths.

—Internet freedom. Corporations hoping to lock up and monopolize the Internet failed in Congress last year to pass their repressive “Stop Online Piracy Act.” However, they’ve slipped SOPA’s most pernicious provisions into TPP. The deal would also transform Internet service providers into a private, Big Brother police force, empowered to monitor our “user activity,” arbitrarily take down our content and cut off our access to the Internet. To top that off, consumers could be assessed mandatory fines for something as benign as sending your mom a recipe you got off of a paid site.

—Public services. TPP rules would limit how governments regulate such public services as utilities, transportation and education — including restricting policies meant to ensure broad or universal access to those essential needs. One insidious rule says that member countries must open their service sectors to private competitors, which would allow the corporate provider to cherry-pick the profitable customers and sink the public service.

Lori Wallach, director of Global Trade Watch, correctly calls the Trans-Pacific Partnership “a corporate coup d’etat.” Nations that join must conform their laws and rules to TPP’s strictures, effectively supplanting U.S. sovereignty and canceling our people’s right to be self-governing. Worse, it creates virtually permanent corporate rule over us.

In short, countries would have to abandon any efforts to learn from the mistakes of the U.S. and its experience with the DMCA over the last 12 years, and adopt many of the most controversial aspects of U.S. copyright law in their entirety. At the same time, the U.S. IP chapter does not export the limitations and exceptions in the U.S. copyright regime like fair use, which have enabled freedom of expression and technological innovation to flourish in the U.S. It includes only a placeholder for exceptions and limitations. This raises serious concerns about other countries’ sovereignty and the ability of national governments to set laws and policies to meet their domestic priorities.

According To The BBC

The TPP is one of the most ambitious free trade agreements ever attempted. Its supporters have billed it as a pathway to unlock future growth of the countries involved in the pact. The critics have been equally vociferous, not least because of the secrecy surrounding the negotiations of the agreement. Despite the criticism, the countries involved have been pushing for a deal to be reached soon and they are confident that even more economies will want to join the pact in the coming years.

The pact is aimed at deepening economic ties between these nations. The TPP is expected to substantially reduce tariffs, and even eliminate them completely in some cases, between member countries and help open up trade in goods and services. It is also expected to boost investment flows between the countries and further boost their economic growth. The member countries are also looking to foster a closer relationship on economic policies and regulatory issues.

The eleven countries that are currently part of the negotiations have a combined population of more than 650 million. A free trade agreement could turn this into a potential single market for many businesses.

Criticism of the deal is on various fronts. Like many other free trade agreements, there are fears over the impact TPP may have on certain products and services in member countries. Some campaign groups have raised concerns about the impact such a wide-ranging agreement may have on intellectual property laws and patent enforcement. They fear the deal may extend the scope of patents in sectors such a medicine and prevent the distribution of generic drugs. Meanwhile Japan, which has expressed an interest to join the negotiations, has raised concerns about the agreement impacting its agriculture sector. But the biggest criticism has been of what the campaigners allege to be secretive negotiations.

They say that the delegates have not been forthcoming about details of the issues that they have been discussing, and what the scope of agreement in those areas is likely to be, and how it will impact trade. Last year, a group of lawyers even sent a letter to Ron Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, to express what they called “profound concern and disappointment at the lack of public participation, transparency and open government processes in the negotiation of the intellectual property chapter of the TPP.”

However, those working on behalf of the TPP organizers say the reason why the negotiations have not been made public is because there is no formal agreement as of yet. They also state that free trade agreements attract a lot of criticism from campaign groups, and that in this case the delegates may be wanting to keep the discussions under wraps to avoid any pressure from such groups.

The stated goal of the TPP is to unite the Pacific Rim countries by “harmonizing” tariffs and trade rules between them, but in reality, the “intellectual property” chapter in a massive trade agreement that will force changes to copyright and patent rules in each of the signatory countries. Accepting these new rules will not just rewrite national laws, but will also restrict the possibility for countries to introduce more balanced copyright laws in the future. This strategy may end up harming other countries’ more proportionate laws such as Chile, where a judicial order is required for ISPs to be held liable for copyright infringement and take down content. Such systems better protect users and intermediaries from disproportionate or censorship-driven takedowns. If the final TPP text forces countries to adopt a privatize notice and takedown regime, this could imply the end of the Chilean system. It would also undermine Canada’s notice-notice regime.

The content industry can, has and will continue to pay and distort facts to affect changes in laws that protects their sole interests, and what they want more than anything is for us to remain passive as they tighten the screws. They did it with SOPA, ACTA, and now it’s the TPP. I

The TPP is slated for conclusion this October, but it should be our main objective to get the worst of these copyright provisions removed from it. Demand an open transparent process that allows everyone to analyze, question, and probe any initiatives that will make new regulations to the Internet. The secrecy of this agreement is not acceptable.

TPP And The GMO Horror Show

The TPP would force Japan to accept an unlimited amount of GMO foods and seeds. Additionally, rules dictate that the Japanese government can not require GMO foods to be labeled, or disclose the origin of the foods to ensure that consumers will not be able to even guess whether the food they are about to feed their children are genetically modified or not.

While politicians use tax dollars to pay extravagant subsidies that are designed to gain farmers support for TPP, it would be better for the Japanese people to focus on the quality and safety of the food that will enter the market. Currently, around two-thirds of all crops grown in the U.S. are genetically altered. More than sixty percent of the food consumed in Japan comes from the U.S., and China. Japan should expect that most of the food imported from the U.S. would be genetically modified. Japan’s acceptance into the TPP will result in the U.S. agricultural giants taking over Japan’s farmland, and forcing farmers to pay licensing fees for patented GMO seeds, courtesy of Monsanto, the same company that brought Agent Orange to S.E. Asia, and Okinawa, DDT’s to the world’s farmlands, lawsuits against farmers that didn’t want their crops contaminated by GMO cross-pollination in the first place, and the total destruction of the once booming agricultural industry of India.

When Dr. Pusztai fed genetically modified potatoes to rats, they developed pre-cancerous cell growth, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and a damaged immune system. Dr. Pusztai stated during a televised interview, “If I had the choice I would certainly not eat it”, and that” “I find it’s very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs.” Two days later, his 35-year career at the Institute was ended amid persistent phone calls to the director from Downing Street. Dr. Pusztai was silenced with threats of a lawsuit, but eventually, he was invited to speak before Parliament, his gag order lifted, and his research published in the prestigious Lancet.

In Latin America, the research by the embryologist Andrés Carrasco, director of the Laboratory of Molecular Embryology, at the University of Buenos Aires, had a similar occurrence. In 2010, he showed that Roundup, the Monsanto herbicide sold in conjunction with most genetically modified crops, caused defects in the brain, intestines, and hearts of amphibian fetuses. His research confirmed reports from peasants that they suffered adverse health consequences after using Roundup. Later, a violent gang prevented him from giving a speech on his findings.

In an interview with GM Watch, Professor Carrasco said, “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy. In spite of the evidence, they still tried to run down thirty years of my reputation as a scientist. “They are hypocrites, lackeys of the big corporations, but they are afraid. They know they can’t cover up the sun with one hand. There is scientific proof and, above all, there are hundreds of affected towns, which are living proof of this public health emergency. I have confirmed that glyphosate is devastating for amphibian embryos, even at doses far below those used in agriculture. Roundup causes many, and varied types of malformations.”

Ohio State University plant ecologist Allison Snow was one of many scientists to have their supply of seeds terminated after she discovered problematic side effects in genetically modified sunflowers, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences blocked further research by withholding access to genetically modified seeds and genes.

Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey suffered the same fate after they found significant reductions in cancer-fighting isoflavones in Monsanto’s genetically modified soybeans. After publication, Hartz, the company that supplied the seeds told them they would no longer provide samples.

And when Hungarian Professor Bela Darvas discovered that Monsanto’s GM corn hurt endangered species in his country, Monsanto shut off his supplies. Dr. Darvas later gave a speech on his preliminary findings and discovered that a false and incriminating report about his research was circulating. He traced it to a Monsanto public relations employee, who claimed it mysteriously appeared on her desk, so she faxed it out.

A further problem in the industry is conflict of interest. Many individuals have switched between jobs with responsibility for regulating the biotech industry, and working for Monsanto. The following are some examples:

Dr. Michael A. Friedman, formerly the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deputy commissioner for operations, joined Monsanto in 1999 as a senior vice president. When Linda J. Fisher left her role as an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), she became VP of Monsanto, from 1995 to 2000, she then returned to the EPA as deputy administrator the next year. William D. Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, and Mickey Kantor, former U.S. trade representative, each served on Monsanto’s board after leaving government. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney in Monsanto’s corporate-law department in the 1970s. He wrote the Supreme Court opinion in a crucial G.M-seed patent-rights case in 2001 that benefited Monsanto and other seed companies.

What does all this mean? The U.S. agricultural industry is one of the biggest proponents of the TPP and has the political clout to ensure that any trade pact will pay big benefits. The truth is that no one really knows what the long-term effects of GMO on humans are, mostly because few scientists are looking for those answers, and when those few scientists find results that negatively impact the bottom line of companies like Monsanto, they are discredited, sued, financially ruined, and run out of town. Much like what Monsanto does to farmers that don’t want their crops contaminated with genetically modified cross-pollination.

With all this evidence staring in the face of Japan’s agricultural industry, the TPP advocates are willing to trust Monsanto and other politically connected companies that GMO foods are safe for the Japanese populace. Unfortunately there is no scientific evidence to prove that genetically modified foods are safe.

Monsanto, Obama, and the TPP trade negotiations with Japan

President Obama knows that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the regulatory powers of government. On the campaign trail in 2007, he promised, “We’ll tell ConAgra that it’s not the Department of Agribusiness. It’s the Department of Agriculture. We’re going to put the people’s interests ahead of the special interests.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. Much like Obama’s promise to get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, that campaign rhetoric turned out to be nothing more than lies.

Starting with his choice for USDA Secretary, the pro-biotech former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, President Obama has let Monsanto, Dupont and the other pesticide and genetic engineering companies know they’ll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration. President Obama has taken his team of food and farming leaders directly from the biotech companies and their lobbyists.

• • Michael Taylor former Monsanto Vice President is now the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods.

  • Roger Beachy is the former director of the Monsanto-funded Danforth Plant Science Center. He’s now the director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

  • Islam Siddiqui. Siddiqui is currently the U.S. Trade Representative’s Chief Agriculture Negotiator, was Vice President of CropLife America, the notorious lobbying group that represents pesticide and genetic engineering companies, including the six multinational corporations that control 75% of the global agrichemical market: Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Dow and DuPont. CropLife is the group that infamously chided the First Lady for planting a pesticide-free organic garden at the White House. Siddiqui should be of great interest to Japan’s concerns about Monsanto and GMO patents. As part of the U.S. Trade office, Siddiqui would have considerable influence over the terms of the TPP free trade agreement, if not a personal hand in the negotiations. Remember that the U.S. advocates the elimination of food labeling that would allow consumers to avoid genetically engineered food products. Before CropLife, Siddiqui was a chemical farming and biotech booster in Clinton’s USDA. It was his idea in 1997-98, rejected by the organic community to allow GMOs, sewage sludge and irradiation in organic production. (The Organic Consumers Association spearheaded the successful campaign to save organic standards from Siddiqui.) Siddiqui was an Obama campaign donor and fundraiser.

  • Rajiv Shah is the former agricultural-development director for the pro-biotech Gates Foundation (a Monsanto partner), served as Obama’s USDA Under Secretary for Research Education and Economics and Chief Scientist and is now head of USAID.

  • Elena Kagan who, as President Obama’s Solicitor General, took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready alfalfa case. She now sits on the Supreme Court.

  • Ramona Romero corporate counsel to DuPont, has been nominated by President Obama to serve as General Counsel for the USDA.

Click to graphic above to enlarge it.

One of the interesting aspects of Monsanto’s push to sow its genetically engineered seeds across the world is the issue of contamination. Cross-pollination of crops is not something anyone can control. So an organic farmer who sits adjacent or downwind from a field of GMO crops will easily become contaminated. This causes several problems for the organic farmer. For example, genetically engineered seeds do not reproduce viable seeds for the next planting season. So, farmers will discover that their contaminated crops do not yield viable seeds. Monsanto sees this as a feature and not a problem as their intent is to force farmers to purchase licensing agreements to gain access to GMO seeds every year, ensuring a market in perpetuity. Organic farmers would also not be able to sell their contaminated crops as organic.

Worse, however, are patent laws, which protect Monsanto. Of course, these patent laws will be part of the TPP free trade agreement. Over the past decade, Monsanto’s aggressive marketing tactics, political lobbying and promises of increased yields have swept the farming world by storm. Don’t ever believe that farmers care about healthy crops. They care only about healthy profits. Farmers who refuse to switch to Monsanto’s expensive seeds and chemicals are targeted for lawsuits under the guise of patent infringement. In reality, it’s the farmer’s crops that have become contaminated through cross-pollination, often intentionally to force those farmers to join the “club” or be financially ruined. As the wave of GM crops spread, many independent farmers who did not buy into the hype were discovered to have patented genes in their fields, and were then financially ruined by expensive lawsuits brought on by Monsanto’s army of litigious lawyers. An independent farmer cannot stand against a corporate giant that has infiltrated every government agencies, and the courts that are supposed to protect that farmer rights.

Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy. So, the winds, bees, butterflies, and birds, which are part of the pollination process and owe no allegiance to either side, contaminate the organic farmer’s crops, ruin his business and Monsanto sues them for growing crops containing their patented genes. Must I add that bees, which pollinate most of the world’s food are dying in mass numbers, all due to being poisoned by Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides.

No bees, no food. No food, no seeds. No seeds no profits. No profits, no people. No people, no shareholders. No shareholders, no Monsanto. Any questions?

Our anonymous farmer speaks out. “We have a right to be secure on our farms and to be free from Monsanto’s GMO trespass. If Monsanto contaminates us, not only is the value of our organic seed crop extinguished but we could also be sued by Monsanto for patent infringement because their contamination results in our ‘possession’ of their GMO technology. We have farmers who have stopped growing organic corn, organic canola and organic soybeans because they can’t risk being sued by Monsanto. It’s not fair and it’s not right. Family farmers need justice and we deserve the protection of the court.”

It’s a situation only a corrupt government could create. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that president Obama, who is desperately pushing for Japan to join the TPP free trade agreement, is one of the leading proponents of Monsanto’s GMO scheme.

Former Monsanto executive, Michael Taylor, who serves in Obama’s administration as the “food czar.” His duties to the public include ensuring that food labels contain clear and accurate information, overseeing strategy for food safety and planning new food safety legislation. Taylor is the first individual to hold the position and he has failed miserably. Instead, he does all he can to see to it that Monsanto receives everything it desire for domination, ownership and control of the world’s seed supplies.

Mary Christ Massacre from the GMO masters of delusion.

The problem for Japan, and other nations is that the provisions within the TPP eliminate labeling for GMO, meaning that the consumer would have no way of knowing if the food was genetically engineered or even where it was grown.

In Japan, food may be labeled as containing GMO ingredients or as being GMO-free, but this would change if a key clause in the TPP agreement was to be implemented. According to the Sustainability Council of New Zealand, “The U.S. has made clear that a priority for it in the proposed TPP is the abolition of laws requiring the labeling of GMO foods, as well as the acceptance of the import of such products.” This clause would apply to the Japanese market and Japanese consumers as well as any other country that agrees to the terms of the TPP.

Critics of the GMO business claim that many health hazards exist, but that they have been swept under the rug by the companies involved, and by systematically infiltrating key government positions.

Japan is an isolated nation, with little knowledge of what goes on outside of the island chain. Acceptance of the relative terms of the TPP would force Japanese farmers into paying huge royalties, and entering into perpetual patent agreements. Farmers would be told that their crops yield would increase, and as a result receive greater profits. Nothing could be further from the truth. A 2003 study showed that Monsanto’s GMO cotton grown in India produced between five to seven times less net incomes than the indigenous variety according to an official governmental report. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of farmers taking out expensive loans they could not afford, and when their crops did not yield the results they were guaranteed, they could not pay back the debt incurred against those loans. Many lost their lands, and to date more than three quarters of a million farmers have committed suicide.

Are these the prices that unsuspecting small farmers, and the consumer of foods must continually pay in order for a company that is responsible for millions of deaths to continue to report quarterly profits, and for corporate criminals like Hugh Grant to receive multimillion dollar bonuses?

The TPP is about to change life in Japan forever. Yet, there will be no benefit for the Japanese people. The TPP will only result in importing the corruption of the U.S. government into Japan’s agricultural industry. Japan already has enough problems with the corruption within its own government and is a nation still reeling from the affects of TEPCO and the radiation debacle.

There is significant opposition to the introduction of biotechnology outside the U.S., especially in Japan, the EU, and Australasia. According to the UK’s Soil Association 2008 report, GMOs have cost the U.S. farmer 12 billion in lost exports since 1999. Monsanto, has a large stake in this aspect of agribusiness, but suffered a setback in 2003, the British government released the results of three studies on the effects of GMOs, wherein lasting damage to the environment was predicted if GMOs were introduced. In addition, a British poll showed that 93% felt that not enough was known about the long-term effects of the so-called GMO Frankenstein food products, and 86% said they would not eat it. This popular reaction and these findings forced an effective halt to Monsanto’s research operations in the UK, and in other European nations as well.

It would seem imperative for the Japanese TPP negotiators to be aware of the ramifications associated with this aspect of the partnership, and to think carefully before allowing Japanese consumers and the Japanese ecology to be unwittingly exposed to a technology imposed from outside, the effects of which have yet to be objectively and definitively assessed.

Already protests from Sendai to Tokyo have been underway. Recently, 3,000 protesters staged a rally in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park that was organized by agricultural and consumers groups. “If the government announces Japan’s participation in the TPP without building a national consensus, it can only be described as an act of betrayal against its citizens,” their joint statement said.

According to a recent article in the Japan Times, Akira Banzai, who heads the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, accused the government of being high-handed and deliberately only disclosing information that casts Japan’s potential entry into the TPP negotiations in a positive light. “Unless the government gives up on its plan to join the discussions, our fears will persist,” he said.

The Japan Association of Corporate Executives issued a statement the same day urging the government to participate in and advance high-level talks on free-trade agreements, including the TPP.

The renewed momentum among both those in favor of and against the TPP was triggered last week, when Tadashi Okamura, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, appealed to trade minister Yukio Edano for the government to arrive at a swift decision on Japan’s participation in the multilateral TPP discussions.

You may remember that Edano was the chief liar communicating to the world that there was no meltdown concerns at Fukushima’s Daiichi nuclear facility. Since that time we have learned that there were already three meltdowns occurring, he was aware of this, but kept lying to the public. Expect Edano to continue in massive distortion when it comes to the TPP, Monsanto, and free trade.

Japan formally announced the nation’s interest in joining the TPP talks as of November 2012. Officials have since held a number of consultations with countries already involved in the negotiations to win their approval over Tokyo’s participation. Recently, those nations, including Canada, and the U.S. have officially invited Japan to become the 12^th TPP nation.