Thursday, August 15, 2013

TPP opposition is growing around the world

Cracks continue to appear in support for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Big businesses’ favorite trade pact is now raising concerns from three Chilean senators, who are asking President Sebastián Piñera to open up the agreement to public debate.  Those questions come just one week before a meeting of trade representatives from Pacific Rim nations in Brunei, which they hope will seal this very bad deal.

The request comes as more and more nations are raising questions about whether the TPP will benefit working families rather than big corporations. Attendees at a Malaysian forum on the “free trade” agreement earlier this month openly questioned whether the deal would benefits their workers or just multinational corporations. They too are concerned what it would mean for jobs in their country.
Others have also spoken out against this unfair trade deal. The former prime minister of Malaysia announced his opposition to the deal in July. In the United States, nearly 170 House lawmakers raised concerns about textile provisions contained in the TPP last month. And 36 House freshmen urged the Obama administration to oppose the TPP in June.

Back in Chile, lawmakers want to know whether the Pacific Rim trade pact would be fair to workers. There is good reason for concern. They note the secrecy surrounding the TPP is raising worries that there may be little for Chile to gain from signing onto the agreement.
In the U.S., trade deals very similar to the TPP resulted in lost jobs, shuttered plants and hollowed-out communities.

Five million manufacturing jobs have been lost since NAFTA. And an Economic Policy institute report released last month showed a similar deal with South Korea that took effect a little over a year ago has already cost 40,000 American jobs.
Buffalo, N.Y., resident Peter Ciurczak, in a letter to the editor appearing in The Buffalo News earlier this week, summed up the TPP perfectly:
What has been revealed about this agreement is very distressing.
Exactly.