Jane Hamsher - What Foreign Corporations Will Obama Empower to Undermine Environmental Laws Near You?
April 30, 2012  Australia |
 New Zealand |
 Brunei |
 Peru |
 Chile |
 Singapore |
 Malaysia |
The White House wants to fast track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “free trade” agreement with Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. Japan is waiting in the wings, Canada and Mexico want in, Taiwan has announced its intention to meet membership requirements and China says it will “earnestly study” whether to seek entry into the agreement.
Basically, the TPP is NAFTA on steroids. The White House wants to reach a deal prior to the election because they know all the apparatchiks feeding on the $1 billion in Obama campaign money flowing through the system will launch tribalistic attacks on anyone organizing against it (activists, labor unions, workers) for “helping Mitt Romney win” — thus facilitating its easy passage.
Under TPP, foreign corporations would receive:
- Compensation for loss of “expected future profits” if local health, labor or environmental laws limited their ability to do business
- Rights to acquire land, natural resources and factories without government review
- Risks and costs of offshoring to low wage countries eliminated
- Special guaranteed “minimum standard of treatment” for relocating firms
- Right to move capital without limits
- New rights covering a vast definition of investment: intellectual property, permits, derivatives
- A ban performance requirements and domestic content rules (no “made in the USA,” “buy local” or “green jobs”). An absolute ban, not only when applied to investors from signatory countries
- Ability to extend drug patents and limit production of generic medicines that are used for global health programs
- Rollback of regulations that were put in place to prevent another global economic crisis such as “too big to fail” remedies
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