TPP Text Finally Released … It’s Even Worse Than We Thought, by Washingtonsblog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/11/tpp-text-finally-released-its-even-worse-than-we-thought.html
As we’ve noted in hundreds of articles, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a horrible pact which would destroy everything that America stands for. And see this, this, this and this.
The full text of the TPP was finally released today after years of secrecy … and it’s even worse than we thought.
One of America’s top TPP experts – Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch – said:
Apparently, the TPP’s proponents
resorted to such extreme secrecy during negotiations because the text
shows TPP would offshore more American jobs, lower our wages, flood us
with unsafe imported food and expose our laws to attack in foreign
tribunals.
***
From leaks, we knew quite a bit about the agreement, but in chapter after chapter the final text is worse than we expected
with the demands of the 500 official U.S. trade advisers representing
corporate interests satisfied to the detriment of the public interest.
Common Dreams explains how TPP would reduce our food safety:
With its provisions that tie the hands
of food inspectors at international borders and give more power to
biotechnology firms, “the TPP is a giveaway to big agribusiness and food
companies,” said
Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch executive director. Such
corporate entities, she said, want to use trade deals like the TPP “to
attack sensible food safety rules, weaken the inspection of imported
food, and block efforts to strengthen U.S. food safety standards.”
Last month, the Center for Food Safety outlined
the top five reasons “eaters should be worried about Obama’s new trade
deal.” At the top of the list was the TPP’s ability to undermine efforts
to label GMO foods. “More broadly,” the Center wrote in October, “any
U.S. food safety rules on labeling, pesticides, or additives that [are]
higher than international standards could be subject to challenge as
‘illegal trade barriers’.”
Indeed, according to Food & Water
Watch, the final text released Thursday indicates that under a TPP
regime, “agribusiness and biotech seed companies can now more easily use
trade rules to challenge countries that ban GMO imports, test for GMO
contamination, do not promptly approve new GMO crops or even require GMO
labeling.”
“The TPP food safety and labeling
provisions are worse than expected and bad news for American consumers
and farmers,” said Hauter. “Congress must reject this raw deal that
handcuffs food safety inspectors and exposes everyone to a rising tide
of unsafe imported food.”
And Tech Crunch notes that TPP could dramatically reduce our privacy