ICYMI: Secretary Kerry & Empty Promises on TPP Trade Deal

Washington, DC – The Los Angeles Times published a recent op-ed from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that, after delving into Asian-U.S. foreign policy topics, focused on the Administration’s support for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact.  According to Secretary Kerry, the TPP would “support American jobs,” set “high labor and environmental standards,” and protect “human rights.”  

While Secretary Kerry mentions the right buzzwords, lessons from past trade pacts show why the American people deserve more than empty promises when it comes to the TPP:

• TPP Will Create American Jobs? That’s What We Heard Re. Past Trade Deals: Secretary Kerry claims that the TPP would “support American jobs,” yet similarly rosy projections regarding job growth have failed to materialize in past trade deals. A recent Economic Policy Institute analysis found that America experienced a net loss of 680,000 jobs to Mexico after NAFTA and over 40,000 jobs to Korea after passage of the U.S./Korea trade deal. The reality of these net job losses undermine the empty promises of American job creation made on behalf of those trade deals. As the study notes, “The TPP would significantly increase the threat that rapidly growing trade deficits and job losses in the United States would be locked in if the TPP is completed.”

• Rewarding Labor & Human Rights Abusers: Secretary Kerry notes the importance of protecting human rights and setting high labor standards, yet the TPP also would reward bad actor countries such as Vietnam with trade benefits, instead of holding them accountable for their deplorable human and worker rights records as the US has already done with Bangladesh.  Vietnam was recently named by the U.S. Department of Labor as one of only three countries in the world that uses child labor in apparel manufacturing. Additionally, a report by Worker Rights Consortium titled “Made in Vietnam” described major human rights and working rights problems in the nation, such as forced labor and child labor; pregnancy and gender-based discrimination; health and safety hazards; excessive working hours and inadequate wages.  Human Rights Watch has also testified that conditions have actually become worse since Vietnam entered into TPP negotiations.

• An Environmental Race to the Bottom: The TPP includes provisions that would enable corporations to challenge environmental, public health, and other public interest policies and regulations if they interfered with the corporation’s “expected future profits” or that would pose a change to the corporation’s “expectation of a stable regulatory environment.” Such corporate-led challenges would take place in private tribunals that would circumvent the sovereignty of the U.S. judicial system.

Based on our 20-year experience with the broken promises made on behalf of earlier trade deals, it is clear that we should proceed very cautiously with the TPP – the largest trade deal in U.S. history. We must have a rigorous and open debate about the TPP and reject attempts to “fast track” the TPP in Congress.

While Secretary Kerry mentioned key and critical issues for international discussion in his op-ed, he failed to explain how the TPP would be any different than previous free trade agreements that have had an adverse impact on   American jobs, labor rights, human rights, and environmental goals.

Contact: Kendra Marr Chaikind at CWA, 202-434-1168 or Trey Pollard at Sierra Club, 202-495-3058