March 28, 2024

Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Good for the United States?

On October 5, 2015, the U.S. trade representative joined 11 trade ministers from around the Pacific Rim to announce the successful conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). A press release was issued stating the following: “After more than five years of intensive negotiations, we have come to an agreement that will support jobs, drive sustainable growth, foster inclusive development, and promote innovation across the Asia-Pacific region. Most importantly, the agreement achieves the goal we set forth of an ambitious, comprehensive, high standard and balanced agreement that will benefit our nation’s citizens.”

The trade agreement involved countries representing 40% of the global economy. The TPP is a trade agreement between several Pacific Rim nations dealing with a variety of matters of economic policy. Among other issues, the TPP will seek to lower trade barriers such as tariffs, establish a common framework for intellectual property, enforce standards for labor law and environmental law, and establish an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism.

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions from Alabama is concerned that TPP is more than a trade agreement and it is similar to the European Union where nations lost their sovereignty.

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions found out that the TPP agreement provides for the establishment of a Transpacific Partnership Commission that would guide the development of the TPP block of nations along the lines of the European Union. Senator Sessions stated the following: “This nation has never seen an agreement that compares to the TPP, which forms a new Pacific Union. This is far more than a trade agreement, but creates a self-governing and self-perpetuating Commission with extraordinary implications for American workers and American Sovereignty.”

The goal of the TPP agreement is 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.” The TPP is an expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4) which was signed by Brunei, Chile, Singapore, and New Zealand in 2006. Beginning in 2008, additional countries joined for a broader agreement: Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam, bringing the total number of participating countries to twelve.

The TPP trade deal negotiations—after nearly six years of secretive talks—were finalized in Atlanta. The TPP agreement, encompassing 12 nations, the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, has come under fire from both conservative Republicans and from most Democrats due to fear it will cost U.S. jobs.

Congress will have only 45 days to approve the TPP agreement before it would take effect—something that is almost certainly going to be a battle for proponents of the trade deal. If Congress takes no action, the TPP will automatically be approved. When Congress approved the Obama’s Trade Promotion Authority, which helped it with regard to fast-tracking the TPP deal, there was considerable opposition.

Congress cannot amend the Trans-Pacific deal under fast-track authority and the Senate cannot filibuster the trade deal, as Trade Promotion Authority lowered the vote thresholds down to a bare majority of 51 votes. When the Trade Promotion Authority was approved in June 2015 by the House of Representatives and Senate in June 2015, it barely passed through the House of Representatives with just 218 votes in favor to 210 votes against it. In the Senate there were 60 votes in favor to 37 votes against it.

Implementation of the TPP is one of the primary goals of the trade agenda of the Obama administration. The TPP is a cornerstone of Obama’s “Pivot Toward Asia,” policy with the goal of preventing China, the world’s second largest economy, from filling a void with its own less-free standards for trade and investment governance as well as less environmental protection.

On October 5, 2015, President Obama said that “We can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules, opening new markets to American products while setting high standards for protecting workers and preserving our environment.”

The White House stated that thousands of taxes and tariffs will be eliminated on trade across the 12 countries. The concerns of the Trans-Pacific trade deal are how to harmonize standards, remove unfair competition, and cut bureaucratic barriers to trade and investment in the TPP. It has a long timeframe for implementation and many exceptions for various countries that will moderate some of the gains. TPP will have to attract other major countries, such as South Korea, and large emerging markets like India and Indonesia to be successful. South Korea has already said it wants to join. TPP allows other countries to join.

New World Order and planetary government advocate Christine Lagarde, who is the International Monetary Fund Managing Director, stated the following: “The agreement is not only important because of the size…. it also pushes the frontier of trade and investment in goods and services to new areas where gains can be significant. I expect that the TPP can pave the way to a new generation of deep trade integration efforts.”

Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund Managing Director, supported the TPP agreement.

Obama is pushing for an even more ambitious free-trade pact deal with the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), currently under negotiation. European Union Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said the TPP was good not just for world trade, but also “good news for the trade negotiations between the United States and the European Union because with TPP done, we will be able to approach our TTIP negotiations with an even greater focus from both sides.”

Thomas J. Donohue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who is in favor to end the Cuban embargo, issued the following statement of support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement:

“The U.S. Chamber appreciates the efforts by U.S. negotiators and those of other participating nations to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. While a high-standard trade agreement covering nearly 40% of the world economy is a worthy goal that enjoys our full support, we reserve judgment on the agreement pending review of the final text with our members. Too often, U.S. companies are forced to compete with one hand tied behind their back in the Asia-Pacific region. High tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and other measures at times deny a level playing field for U.S.-made products and services. Further, a web of more than 140 trade agreements has spread across the region, providing advantages for participating nations, while the U.S. is often stuck on the outside, looking in. If the goal of eliminating these barriers and establishing high standards for the region is met, the TPP could prove to be a game changer for American workers, farmers, and companies. The U.S. business and agricultural communities agree we must tear down the barriers that shut out U.S. goods and services and put fairness and accountability at the fore in our trade relations with this vital region. We look forward to learning more details about the agreement in the days ahead.”

Criticism of the TPP treaty

Joe Wolverton wrote an article titled “United States, 11 Partners Approve the Still-secret TPP Pact” which was published in New American on October 6, 2015.


Wolverton pointed out that rather than rely on Congress for approval of the trade pact, the U.S.Trade representative and his colleagues said that they “look forward to engaging with stakeholders on the specific features of this agreement.” It is that sort of disregard for constitutional separation of powers and related checks on power that is indicative of the TPP plan, which would subvert U.S. sovereignty in the name of “integration” with Pacific nations in the trade agreement.

Wolverton stated the following: “Integration is a word that is painful to the ears of constitutionalists and those unwilling to surrender U.S. sovereignty to a committee of globalists who are unelected by the American people and unaccountable to them. Integration is an internationalist tool for subordinating American law to the globalist bureaucracy at the United Nations. Economic and political integration will push the once independent United States of America into yet another collectivist bloc that will facilitate the complete dissolution of our country and our states into no more than subordinate outposts of a one-world government. As with the multitude of similar trade pacts the United States has formed, the ultimate aim of the TPP is the creation of a regional super government, thus the stonewalling of federal lawmakers who dare seek to assert some sort of oversight. In the case of the TPP, the zone would be called the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).”

Wolverton explained that although the Obama administration has gone to great lengths to keep the details of this destructive document a secret from Americans, a few proposed paragraphs have been released. In November 2013, portions of the TPP draft agreement, which were published by WikiLeaks, indicated that President Obama’s plans to surrender United States sovereignty to international tribunals.

It was revealed that the president was trying to surrender sovereignty over U.S. environmental policy to international bureaucrats interested in lowering those standards to mirror those of the other TPP partner nations. The green lobby, which is an ally of Obama, criticized this terrible concession and organized demonstrations opposing the agreement. U.S. copyright laws, Internet freedom, and web-based publishing companies would also be destroyed by the TPP trade agreement. Even worse, the TPP would give the global government sweeping surveillance powers and civilian disarmament, an objective of Obama.

Wolverton wrote that even though the American people, as well as the people of all nations involved in the trade pact, are prevented from seeing or commenting on the trade treaty being negotiated on their behalf, multinational corporations have seats at the trading table. TPP gives U.S. multinationals, such as Walmart and Monsanto, the power to bypass Congress and the courts. The elected representatives of the American people are kept from even seeing the draft version of the agreement.

In June 2015, Wolverton wrote about the potential use of so-called fast track trade authority by the president to implement civilian disarmament. He stated the following: “If Congress grants the president the power to unilaterally negotiate and contract trade agreements with foreign powers, these executive agreements can cover any topic that the White House considers trade. That includes firearms. If the TPA passes, then the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) would not need to be subject to senatorial debate. In fact, it would not be up for debate at all. TPA calls for a simple up or down vote on such presidentially brokered international agreement. Within two weeks of that warning, Congress capitulated to President Obama, granting him power beyond that which the Constitution allows. That power, then, might be the crowbar with which he removes guns from the hands of Americans.  In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising to find that the TPP requires the federal government to disarm its citizens in the name of safety.”

The New American’s senior editor, William Jasper, is aware of the great danger of disarmament in the now completed TPP. He stated the following: “This is not an out there question; it should be a genuine concern of all who treasure the Second Amendment. Constitutional champion Michael Hammond, the long-time executive director of the Senate Steering Committee, has warned that there is ample time to insert firearms import bans (with the force of statutory law) into the TPP and/or TTIP. Barack Obama has been rabid in his zeal to destroy the Second Amendment community, Hammond notes. Over and over again, he has experimented with a wide variety of schemes to ban guns by regulatory fiat: eliminating credit, banning ammunition, compiling a gun registry, encouraging state bans, reclassifying common guns, banning the import of guns, and so forth. Hammond, who is now general counsel for the Gun Owners of America, notes that despite Obama’s notorious anti-gun record, the Republican leadership in Congress didn’t see fit to even purport to prohibit the Obama administration from using a trade agreement to impose a statutory gun import ban.”

In a comprehensive constitutional review of the reasons Americans should oppose the TPP trade agreement, William Jasper exposes this fallacy as follows: “As with NAFTA and every other pseudo-free trade agreement, there are many politicians, lobbyists, and think tanks making pie-in-the-sky claims that TPP and TTIP will usher in new prosperity and a wave of good-paying jobs. We’ve been there before. In 1993, the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) released its influential study, NAFTA: An Assessment, which predicted that with NAFTA, U.S. exports to Mexico, will continue to outstrip Mexican exports to the United States, leading to a U.S. trade surplus with Mexico of about $7 billion to $9 billion annually by 1995. It also predicted that the U.S. trade surplus with Mexico would increase to $12 billion annually between 2000 and 2010.”

Jasper continued to explain the following: “The actual result was quite different. In 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, the United States had a $1.66 billion trade surplus with Mexico; by 1995, the first year after NAFTA had entered into force that changed to a $15.8 billion deficit. By 2000, that annual deficit had soared to $24.5 billion, and by 2007 it hit $74.7 billion. For 2014, our trade deficit with Mexico dipped to only $53.8 billion. In 1993, the year before NAFTA, we imported around 225,000 cars and trucks from Mexico. By 2005, our imports of Mexican-made vehicles had tripled to 700,000 vehicles annually, and in 2012, Mexico’s export of vehicles to the United States surpassed 1.4 million. Chrysler, Ford, and GM transferred major production facilities (and jobs) from the United States to Mexico. Our trade deficits with Canada have followed a similar path since adoption of NAFTA. The PIIE authors and other pseudo-free trade propagandists had cherry-picked data and simply invented statistics to fraudulently sell their product: NAFTA. If they were car salesmen, they would have gone to jail for fraud and misrepresentation. Instead, they are back doing the same thing, concocting rosy statistics to sell the TPP and TTIP.”

Joe Wolverton concluded his excellent article by saying the following: “Americans who study the subject realize that the redrawing of national boundaries and domestic legal processes completed in secret this week by the globalists sitting around the TPP negotiating table in Atlanta is an attack on American laws, American courts, American freedom of expression, American sovereignty, and the American Constitution. The American people must unite in firm opposition to the TPP and convince Congress to tear down the wall of secrecy built and maintained by globalists seeking to shield their attack on our law and liberty from congressional oversight. Assuming the TPA-empowered president gives them a chance to vote on the agreement, Congress must be convinced to reject the TPP. If they are not given that chance or if they are allowed to vote on the TPP and they approve it, then such an act might finish the integration — economic and political — begun by NAFTA and it may be the last straw in the already weakened broom of American sovereignty.”

As already explained by Wolverton, although the text of the treaty has not been made public, WikiLeaks has published several leaked 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.

The TPP deal is not complete until all the 12 countries ratify it and the biggest challenge will be the White House persuading Congress to back it. Members of Congress have already attacked the deal as selling out to the majority of United States businesses and losing thousands of jobs in the nation.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, a crucial Republican voice on international trade stated that “While the details are still emerging, unfortunately I am afraid this deal appears to fall woefully short.” All U.S. labor unions and other social groups have warned that it could turn out like the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, which they say sent thousands of U.S. jobs to Mexico and Canada. Critics explained that the TPP is not really about free trade but about managed trade, with the main beneficiaries being select multinationals and industries to the detriment of many others.

Public Citizen, a Washington liberal group, attacked the trade agreement for lengthening protections for drug patents, especially for a cutting-edge category of drugs called biologics. Peter Maybarduk, director of the program on medicines of the Public Citizen organization stated the following: “People everywhere trying to understand why medicine prices are so high find a disheartening answer in the TPP negotiations: The pharmaceutical industry has purchased tremendous influence with political leaders.”

A TPP critic, Adam Hersh of the Roosevelt Institute, said that projections of TPP benefits show very little overall to U.S. economic growth, while agreements on auto parts and textile imports will benefit non-TPP members including China. Hersh did not like the part of the TPP which allows foreign investors to try to settle disputes with governments in an independent tribunal which gives investors great leverage against national laws and policies. Hersh stated the following: “Most of what the agreement is about is changing the rules on how investors relate to governments. It’s been pretty clear that what’s going on here is not about free trade, but which special interests get access to these things.”

On October 5, 2015, Donald Trump gave an interview to Breitbart News where he blasted the TPP agreement. Trump stated the following: “The incompetence and dishonesty of the President, his administration and—perhaps most disturbing—the Congress of the United States are about to place American jobs and the very livelihoods of Americans at risk. The only entities to benefit from this trade deal will be other countries, particularly China and Japan, and big corporations in America. The small business operators, farmers, manufacturers and others will again be burdened with unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, exploitation of cheap labor, an onerous tax code and no help coming from the very people charged with putting America first. If crony capitalism were not bad enough, then sticking it to unions, small businesses and everyday Americans seems to be the new blood sport inside the DC Beltway.”

Trump said that the lack of transparency throughout the secret negotiations should prove that the deal is horrendous. “If this was such a good deal, why was there not more transparency?” Trump said. He raised the following questions regarding the TPP deal: “Why are we striking trade agreements with countries we already have agreements with? Why is there no effort to make sure we have fair trade instead of ‘free’ trade that isn’t free to Americans? Why do we not have accompanying legislation that will punish countries that manipulate their currencies to seek unfair advantage in trade arrangements? Why has the Congress not addressed prohibitive corporate tax rates and trade agreements that continue to drain dollars and jobs from America’s shores?

Since TPP agreement was announced one of TPP’s supporters Senator Thom Tillis, Republican from North Carolina, came out against the deal. He said the following: “Breaking the long-standing tradition of not picking winners and losers in trade agreements, the Obama administration has decided to use the TPP as a laboratory for partisan politics by discriminating against specific agricultural commodities. This sets a dangerous precedent for future trade agreements, and I will not only vote against the TPP, but actively work to help defeat its ratification in the Senate.”

If nine more TPP supporters join Senator Tillis, the TPP deal would not pass the Senate. Similarly, with more pressure expected to build in the House—especially with Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates including Dr. Ben Carson, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and more opposed to the deal—Obama cannot afford to lose many supporters of the trade deal when TPP comes up for a vote in the Senate. The Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is a strong opponent of TPP.

Senator Marco Rubio’s support for the controversial TPP agreement will hurt him politically, especially if many conservative and liberal Americans reject the deal, once its dirty secret details are known. My advice to the bright and charismatic Senator Rubio is that he needs to reconsider his ill-advice support for the TPP treaty and reject the deal when it comes to a vote in the Senate. This is assuming that Senator Mitch McConnell allows it to come to a vote.

A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that 51% of Republican voters believe that trade agreements are going to lead to U.S. job losses. And 50% of GOP voters also believe that trade agreements like this one will lead to depression of American workers’ wages.

Conclusion

This writer believes that the TPP trade agreement is a diabolical and dangerous treaty for the United States. He agrees with all of the reasons stated above opposing this trade deal. But the most important reason this writer is opposed to the TPP treaty, as it has been explained, is the fact that the Pacific Rim treaty is direct attack on American laws, American courts, American freedom of expression, American sovereignty, and the American Constitution.

Advocates for the New World Order and a planetary government support all trade deals to integrate the economies of many nations and eventually to take away their sovereignty, such as was done by the European Union. The members of the globalist elite represented in the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission believe it would make it easier to eventually consolidate all nations under a United Nations world government but controlled by them.

These globalist organizations have spent years planning and secretly meeting to implement this TPP agreement as part of their regional government strategy for bringing about a New World Order. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions found out that the TPP agreement provides for the establishment of a Transpacific Partnership Commission that would guide the development of the TPP block of nations along the lines of the European Union. Senator Sessions stated the following: “This nation has never seen an agreement that compares to the TPP, which forms a new Pacific Union. This is far more than a trade agreement, but creates a self-governing and self-perpetuating Commission with extraordinary implications for American workers and American Sovereignty.”

When New World Order and planetary government advocate Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund Managing Director, supported TTP deal and said “I expect that the TPP can pave the way to a new generation of deep trade integration efforts,” one has to be extremely concerned.

This writer blames the Republican leadership in Congress for its most serious mistake to enable Barack Obama, the architect of the destruction of our beloved nation, to again violate the Constitution. The TPP agreement is a TREATY that involved 11 other nations. Therefore, according to the Constitution, all TREATIES must have the consent of 2/3 of the Senators and not a simple majority, as it was voted June 2015 to create the Trade Promotion Authority with its fast track component!

We all need to contact our representatives and senators in Congress to voice our opposition to this misguided TPP trade agreement and request them to help defeat its ratification. TTP would not only cost the loss of thousands of jobs in the United States but also threatens our sovereignty. It is one more step to establish a world government.

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