I wonder how much the NSA has been âhelpingâ the US trade negotiator?
In summary, what can we conclude from these data? Canada, with by far the most sole-country proposals, seems like it is up to something.
Something good or something eeeeeeeeeevil?
âŚif it is brutal to give poor people in the United States the freedom to buy shoes from Vietnam without paying 20 percent tariffs, while also giving poor people in Vietnam the freedom to buy food from U.S. farmers and ranchers, will you please change my username to Bruteus Maximus?
Whatâs your point?
Anyone who, by this time, doesnât realize that these things are almost always instigated by the United States is a damn fool.
Hi @Ygret, my point is just that free trade helps poor people, and historically free trade agreements have been good things. One thing the TPP would do is reduce trade barriers, so I think it is silly to call the agreement âbrutalâ as the headline does. At the end of the day I hope people will look at the overall agreement before judging it pro or con. Thanks!
This is most assuredly NOT true. In fact, free trade helps corporations at the expense of people by turning wages into a zero sum game with the peoples of different nations competing with each other for who can work for less. Large portions of the masses of Bangladesh, Thailand, Jamaica, China, etc., went from subsistence farming in the countryside to diseased, polluted shanty towns where they donât have enough to eat. Sure a very small segment of these societies prosper, but that is not good enough to justify impoverishing and sickening the vast majority.
Actually, most all of these trade barriers, tariffs in other words, are gone already. TPP is more about US companies dominating via patent and copyright expansions and locking poorer nations into being police for US corporations while opening up even more of their national livelihood to corporate domination: if a nation wants to provide a service of benefit directly to their people forget it, the TPP doesnât allow for expansion of social programs. Companies will be able to sue poor countries for âlost expected profitsâ anytime a nation passes an environmental law or wants to regulate an industry they can be sued for massive âdamagesâ. The history of âtrade agreementsâ from NAFTA onward have been a travesty for first world workers and third world workers alike. And the TPP helps to cement these changes in place while gutting sovereignty once and for all.
If it was merely about cheaper sneakers for the poor you might be right. Unfortunately the reality is much worse than the fantasy youâve been fed. Ask yourself, when has the global corporate structure ever done anything that helped the people of the world over its own bottom line? Given that the global corporations are salivating over this TPP it is obvious who will benefit. And who will suffer.
Here is a techdirt post on just this issue: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131119/16513725296/where-is-free-trade-tpp-ip-chapter.shtml
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