WATCH: TPP . . . Worse than thought . . . .

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Full Text of TPP Trade Deal Revealed -- and Critics Say It's Even Worse Than They Thought

[ http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/6/f ... -191067101 ]

November 06, 2015

The details are out on the the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and critics say the trade deal is worse than they feared. The TPP’s full text was released Thursday, weeks after the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations—a group representing 40 percent of the world’s economy—reached an agreement. Activists around the world have opposed the TPP, warning it will benefit corporations at the expense of health, the environment, free speech and labor rights. Congress now has 90 days to review the TPP before President Obama can ask for an up-or-down vote. We are joined by Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and a leading TPP critic.

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For more, we’re joined by Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, leading TPP critic.

Welcome to Democracy Now! So the TPP is out. What’s in the fine print? Lori, what surprised you most? What are you most concerned about?

LORI WALLACH: Well, it was worse than we expected, and we knew quite a bit, based on leaks and on admissions from negotiators, mainly from other countries. There are a couple of places where I was shocked to see that actually the TPP actually rolls back what was extremely modest progress, that congressional Democrats had forced on President Bush for his last set of agreements—three specific things.

One, in the area of access to affordable medicines, the TPP’s rules on patents, actually both for developing countries but also for us, would roll back that initial reform and make medicine more expensive in pretty dramatic ways.

Number two, the investor-state dispute resolution system is actually expanded out, in ways we should discuss, so that more kinds of laws can be attacked, and many more companies will be able to attack U.S. laws.

And then the third thing that was kind of a shocker is there is an expansion of the kind of attacks you can have on food safety, on imported food safety, which is really serious, because Malaysia and Vietnam, two of the TPP countries, are amongst the major importers of seafood and shrimp—a lot of their stuff gets stopped now for being unsafe—but this agreement would give them new rights to basically attack our stopping their stuff for food safety purposes and flood us with unsafe imports.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lori, on that food safety issue, what’s the potential effect on the United States, which obviously has a long-term and pretty well-developed food safety system?

LORI WALLACH: Well, I think it’s very telling that yesterday the agribusiness industry was the only major industry that was extremely enthusiastic when the text came out. And they said, "Wow, we got these great ways to stop these food safety attacks on our imports!" Well, they’re thinking of trying to jam our GMO foods into other countries. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, which means the same rules could mean that imports, particularly of—I don’t know how to put this, because people are probably having breakfast, but in Vietnam particularly, there’s a huge issue of farmed shrimp being farmed in pools that, among other things, are fertilized with human poop—can’t put it another way—and then lots of antibiotics are poured into the ponds before the harvest to deal with the diseases that come from the human waste. So we’ve got some really unsafe products. Right now we only inspect a small percentage. But we over-inspect for countries like Vietnam because we know there are big problems. One of the new rules I was surprised to see is you can challenge the inspection, both the way you sample, how you decide to pick out a particular country because they have problems, but also you have limits on how you can do testing, how long you can hold the product. I mean, practically, what does it mean? The TPP could mean poisonous food, that you can’t label from what country it comes from, on your kids’ plates. It could mean major public health issues.

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[ http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/6/f ... -191067101 ]

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Is “Worse Than We Thought” - 5 Items Global Research
[ http://www.globalresearch.ca/selected-a ... ht/5487133 ]


SELECTED ARTICLES:

The Full Text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)
[ http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-full-t ... pp/5486887 ]
By Global Research News , November 05 2015
Source: The full text was published on the website of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) The text of the Agreement was released by TPP Parties on 5 November 2015 and can be accessed by chapter.


Secret TPP Text Unveiled: It's Worse Than We Thought
[ http://www.globalresearch.ca/secret-tpp ... ht/5487015 ]
By Public Citizen , November 06 2015
Today's long-awaited release of the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership's (TPP) reveals that the pact replicates many of the most controversial terms of past pacts that promote job offshoring and push down U.S wages while further expanding the scope of the controversial investor-state system and rolling back improvements on access to affordable medicines and environmental standards…


TPP Fears Confirmed: "Environmental Risks, Runaway Corporate Power, Weakened Democracy"
[ http://www.globalresearch.ca/tpp-fears- ... cy/5486950 ]
By Telesur , November 06, 2015
Release of the Trans-Pacific Partnership text confirms concerns about environmental risks, runaway corporate power, and weakened democracy.


The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) A Trade Deal of Denial: Omissions and Sins
[ http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-trans- ... ns/5486957 ]
By Binoy Kampmark , November 06 2015
After five years of secret negotiations, the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement has finally come up to open air.[1] Kept secret, watched over carefully by delegates all too distant from their own constituencies, the TPP did not disappoint in its disappointments.


Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): 'Worse Than We Thought'. A Total Corporate Power Grab Nightmare
[ http://www.globalresearch.ca/trans-paci ... re/5487024 ]
By Deirdre Fulton , November 06 2015
As expert analysis of the long-shrouded, newly publicized Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) final text continued to roll out on Thursday, consensus formed around one fundamental assessment of the 12-nation pact: It's worse than we thought.


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