Global Corporate Dictatorship

Leaked TPP Draft: Global Corporate Dictatorship

Democracy Now!

WASHINGTON, D.C.-- A leak today of one of the most controversial chapters of the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) reveals that extreme provisions have been agreed to by U.S. officials, providing a stark warning about the dangers of "trade" negotiations occurring under conditions of extreme secrecy without press, public or policymaker oversight, Public Citizen said.

"The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of TPP negotiations," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade and in a move that will infuriate left and right alike have agreed to submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don't want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do."

• Although the TPP has been branded a "trade" agreement, the leaked text of the pact's Investment Chapter shows that the TPP would:

• limit how U.S. federal and state officials could regulate foreign firms operating within U.S. boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms; 

• extend the incentives for U.S. firms to offshore investment and jobs to lower-wage countries; 

• establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt U.S. courts and laws, directly sue the U.S. government before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for financial, health, environmental, land use and other laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges;

• and allow foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. financial or environmental regulations that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms.

While 600 official U.S. corporate advisors have access to TPP texts and have a special role in advising U.S. negotiators, for the public, press and policymakers, this leak provides the first access to one of the prospective TPP's most controversial chapters. In May, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee's Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness -- the committee with jurisdiction over the TPP -- filed legislation to open the process after he and his staff were denied access to even the U.S. proposals for the TPP negotiations.

Last month, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk defended the unprecedented secrecy of TPP negotiations by noting that when the draft of a major regional trade pact was released previously, it became impossible to finish the deal as then proposed.

"The top U.S. trade official effectively has said that the administration must keep TPP secret because otherwise it won't be able to shove this deal past the public and Congress," said Wallach. "The airing of this one TPP chapter, which greatly favors foreign corporations over domestic businesses and the public interest and exposes us to significant financial liabilities, shows that the whole draft text must be released immediately so it can be reviewed and debated. Absent that, these negotiations must be ended now."

The TPP is the first trade pact the Obama administration is negotiating. Today's leak further complicates the administration's goal of completing TPP negotiations this fall. Already the TPP timeline was generating political headaches for the Obama re-election campaign, as repeated U.S polling shows that majorities of Democrats, Independents and GOP oppose more NAFTA-style trade deals.

The TPP may well be the last trade agreement that the U.S. negotiates. This is because TPP, if completed, would have a new feature relative to past U.S. trade pacts: It would remain open for any other country to join later. Last month, USTR Kirk said that he "would love nothing more" than to have China join TPP.