For TPP Negotiators, Perhaps a New Caterer?

In a recent editorial lamenting the slow pace of negotiations on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, The Washington Post pointed out that Japanese trade negotiators barely said hello before they said goodbye at a September 24 session.

As U.S. and European Union negotiators discussed the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – the latest proposed trade deal that threatens U.S. jobs, working conditions, environmental protections and more, CWAers and activists from Citizens Trade Campaign, Sierra Club and other coalition partners were out in force, protesting the special rights for corporations and investors that some negotiators want to include in trade deals like TPP and the TTIP.

They left so fast – within an hour – that they did not touch a lunch spread their American hosts, anticipating a full day of negotiations, had prepared for them.

If only U.S. negotiators guarded our nation's economic interests as steadfastly as the Japanese do. Japanese negotiators have refused to give ground on opening its agricultural and automobile sectors to increased imports.

America's trade negotiators, meanwhile, continue to roll American workers in trade deal after trade deal. With each successive deal, more American jobs are shipped overseas and more sectors of the American economy are undermined as foreign goods flood our markets.

Here's an example of how truly out of whack things are. Under TPP, NAFTA and other trade deals, the interests of corporations and investors trump all others, including laws passed by the elected representatives in the partner countries, through something called investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS.

TPP is the latest in a string of trade deals that would allow corporations to challenge the laws and regulations that our elected representatives have enacted. How? Foreign investors simply have to show that future profits may be affected by a country's environmental standards, or public health laws or even a "Buy American" program. Then, the corporations can bypass a country's courts and directly sue national governments in international UN or World Bank tribunals. Three private attorneys sit on the tribunal and get to determine whether the country must compensate a corporation for losses in profits. These attorneys are not accountable to the citizens of any country. There is no outside appeal. This process makes a mockery of our democracy.