Thread: Oppose the U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty

In my morning email



Oppose the U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty

On July 11, 2013, the United States and Communist China agreed to restart negotiations on a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). Opting in favor of proceeding with further and more substantive negotiations, China dropped its previous opposition to a BIT, “namely, efforts to exempt a number of its industries and sectors (including the service sector),” according to The Diplomat.

“The two sides agreed to enter a more substantive stage of negotiation as soon as possible,” said Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng to reporters following the 5th round of the annual China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue, on July 11. “China announced its intention to negotiate a high-standard bilateral investment treaty with us that will include all stages of investment and all sectors,” said U.S. Secretary of Treasury Jacob Lew in his closing remarks. Lew went on to describe China’s announced cooperation as “a significant breakthrough, and the first time China has agreed to do so with another country.”

Although it is unclear when formal negotiations will commence, they will however lead to an official BIT between the U.S. and Communist China. Dr. Derek Scissors, Ph.D., a senior research fellow for economics at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, believes that “Congress is unlikely to approve a BIT before 2017.” Dr. Scissors noted the following in a recent article posted on the Heritage Foundation’s website, about the various obstacles facing a proposed BIT: The Senate already faces politically painful votes on Trade Promotion Authority (probably this year), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (probably next year), and, the Trans-Atlantic Partnership (possibly 2015). It would be very dubious politics to jump China ahead of American friends in the trade queue. But multiple political bloodlettings in a single year is almost as difficult to see as a pro-China vote during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Although the politics for a BIT may not be optimal at this time, the time for opponents to act is now while the negotiations are just beginning, and while there is still enough time to inform the electorate about the negative consequences of a Sino-U.S. BIT. According to China Daily, the state-owned Chinese Communist newspaper, on July 13, “the US pledged to treat Chinese investment equally and fairly and to welcome investment from China, including that from State-owned enterprises.”

The term “State-owned enterprises” is a misnomer and should be treated as such, considering that nothing is truly owned by just the “state” in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but rather by “the people, represented by the Communist Party,” as stated by numerous Chinese Communist and former Soviet Communist leaders. In other words, the “state,” or government, in countries like China and the former Soviet Union is owned and controlled by the Communist Party. This is why the highest title or position in authority in both the former USSR and the present-day PRC is that of “General Secretary of the Communist Party.” For example, Xi Jinping, the current President of the People’s Republic of China, is also the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). As General Secretary, Xi serves also as an ex officio member of the CPC Politburo Standing Committee.

Understanding the nature of the CPC’s politics is key to understanding the interlocking operation of the Chinese government and its “state-owned enterprises.” If a business is owned by the state, and the Communist Party in turn owns the state then it does not take much to logically deduce that the Communist Party of China thus owns such businesses or enterprises. The CPC and its key party members own any and all Chinese “state-owned” businesses and comprise the vast majority of China’s minority population of wealthy elites.

The ramifications of treating Chinese state-owned enterprises equally to U.S. enterprises and firms are of high importance when considering that such an acquiescence would further serve the interests of the Communist Party elites in China by giving them an unprecedented access to purchase U.S. businesses and properties. With the largest foreign currency reserves in the world, a reported $3.4 trillion, China would be capable of going on an extraordinary spending spree in the United States. Such a spending spree would have extraordinarily negative effects on our national independence and personal freedoms.

Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest producer of pork and other cold cut meats, based in Smithfield, Virginia, has agreed to a $4.72 billion deal with the Chinese state-owned company Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. The above photo shows Wan Long, chairman of Shuanghui and also a member of the Communist Party of China, making the communist clenched fist salute in front of a large number of employees also making the clenched fist salute. On September 6, 2013, the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment approved what is now the largest acquisition of a U.S. company by a Chinese state-owned company, thus putting one sliver of U.S. food production into the managing hands of the Communists. As more U.S. firms, businesses, factories fall under the control of Chinese Communists, through these foreign “investments,” local U.S. governments and regulations will likely be curtailed and amended as needed to facilitate the new foreign Chinese Communist “business owners.” While some Americans would see short-term economic gain and profit, it is clear that Communist China would reap the greatest benefits from the proposed BIT.

Please email your representative and senators and urge them to oppose the negotiations for a U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty based on the information above.

Phone calls can also be very effective, and of course, the most effective way to educate your congressmen is by making personal visits to their offices. Click here for contact information.

Thanks.

Your Friends at The John Birch Society

Watch the video on the link below.Wake up everyone..

TPP Protestors Scale Trade Building To Bring Attention to Secretive Deal

Kevin Zeese: The Trans-Pacific Partnership has nothing to do with trade or freedom, and ongoing demonstrations could encourage those on the inside to speak up - 3 min ago





for this item. → Suggest Context Links Here Bio

Kevin Zeese is co-director of It's Our Economy, an organization that advocates for democratizing the economy. He's also an attorney who is one of the original organizers of the National Occupation of Washington, DC. He has been active in independent and third party political campaigns including for state legislative offices in Maryland, governor of California and U.S. president, where he served as press secretary and spokesperson for Ralph Nader in 2004. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006 and was the only person ever nominated by the Green Party, Libertarian Party and Populist Party. His twitter is @KBZeese.

Transcript

JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore. Leaders of 12 countries considering an extensive trade pact will meet in Indonesia next week for negotiations. The Trans-Pacific Partnership would be the largest U.S. free trade agreement in history, covering 60 percent of the global economy. Now joining us in-studio to discuss all this is Kevin Zeese. Kevin, you're a lawyer, activist, and codirector of PopularResistance.org. Thanks so much for being with us.KEVIN ZEESE, ORGANIZER, POPULARRESISTANCE.ORG: Happy to be here. Thanks.DESVARIEUX: So, Kevin, first of all, you've written extensively about this, and you say that there's nothing about this pact that has to do with freedom or trade. Can you explain that?ZEESE: Well, free trade is pretty much their marketing term for this. What the reality is is rigged, a rigged agreement for the largest transnational corporations in the world. And they'll dominate these countries in Asia. Vietnam, Peru, Malaysia, all these countries will be dominated by JPMorgan, Halliburton. You know, all the big U.S. companies, Monsanto, will dominate their economies, because what this does is rig the economy for them. And it does this in a number of ways. But it gives a lot of power to corporations. And it does it by, for example, setting up these trade tribunals where corporations can sue governments if their profits, their expected profits are hurt, if they lose profits. Let's say Vietnam passes a labor law or a safety law or an environmental law or a health law and that costs the company money, costs them profits. The company can then sue for the expected profits. And they go to a special court, a trade tribunal with three judges, and those three judges, they come from the corporations. They're corporate lawyers on leave from their corporate job. They make a decision on whether or not their profits were lost. And then they go back to their corporations. That's just one way that this does this. It also just--it's really part of a neoliberal privatization of economies. It really tries to undermine any kind of public service from government. Health care will be more and more of a commodity. It'll really put Japan's health care program, which is one of the best in the world--Australia's also one of the best in the world, New Zealand's also--they'll all be put at risk by this privatization model making health care into a commodity. And that's true just not for health care but a whole series of issues. It also threatens our Internet. It's a--you know, a lot of things that the corporations couldn't get through the front door in Congress, like SOPA, that regulated the internet, they will try to get through the TPP, and so undermine our internet freedom. So whatever issue you're concerned about, whether it's internet freedom, workers' rights, wages, the environment, health care, safety, consumer safety, all these issues will be adversely affected by the TPP because become a corporate-dominated economy, a global economy. It's really a global corporate coup.DESVARIEUX: And really this--.ZEESE: So we should always call it regulated.DESVARIEUX: Regulate. Okay.ZEESE: I mean, not regulated [incompr.] rigged trade. It's not free trade. It's rigged trade. And we should stop letting that propaganda term of free trade out there. It's rigged trade.DESVARIEUX: Okay. And the opposition is growing for this. I know this deal is being really kept in secret and the American public, most of the American public doesn't even know that this deal is going on. Can you speak to this opposition and who--it's really a wide spectrum now. [crosstalk]ZEESE: Well, first the secrecy. You mentioned it's been kept secret. For four years now the Obama administration's been negotiating this. They've had 19 rounds of trade negotiations, and you've hardly seen it covered in the media at all. And so what we did last week: we actually went to the U.S. Trade Representative Office. We decided to expose the secret. So we were able to put on--some people wore workers' clothes and helmets, and we climbed up onto their building, and we dropped massive banners about this secret trade deal on their own building to try to expose the secret. And we're starting to do that. So more and more people are getting to know about it. And, in fact, a former trade representative, Ron Kirk, who negotiated most of this deal, who has now gone to work for a lobby firm for the transnational corporations, he was asked by the media: why are you keeping it such a secret? And his answer was: because if the people knew what was in it, it would be so unpopular it could never become law. If the people knew what was in it, it'd be so unpopular it could never become law. What kind of law is that? That's unacceptable. And so this is going to have a cross-partisan, across the political spectrum opposition. And we're already seeing that develop in Congress. Alan Grayson from Florida, a Democrat, he's been very aggressively trying to expose this and fight this.DESVARIEUX: A big progressive politician.ZEESE: Progressive. On the right, Michelle Bachmann is coming out against it, and Walter Jones from North Carolina, another Republican. Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut, another Democrat. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. So you're starting to see this interesting mix politically. It's just like the Syrian war, where you had this unusual coalition of people from all parts of the political spectrum saying, no, we don't want another war. Well, people aren't going to want another NAFTA either, and this global corporate coup is NAFTA on steroids. This is going to be bad for our economy. It's not going to advance us in any significant way. It really--and as more people know about it, as Ron Kirk said, more people will oppose it. So that's why Obama is doing two things: keeping it secret and trying to get fast track authority in Congress. What that means is basically cutting Congress out. Now, under the Constitution, under the Commerce Clause, the Congress is responsible for trade, just like under the Constitution, when the Syrian war--the War Powers Act--Congress is responsible for war. Well, Congress is responsible for trade.And we want to go to Congress and say, take your responsibility. Don't give the power to a supreme executive. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution says, you are responsible for trade. You should demand to see this trade agreement, debate it, have hearings on it, allow witnesses, allow amendments. You should not be giving the power to President Obama. It's your responsibility.DESVARIEUX: You mentioned NAFTA. How is this similar to NAFTA?ZEESE: This is basically NAFTA on steroids. It's the same kind of thing. These tribunals I talked about existed with NAFTA already, and they've been very successful to corporations. Corporations win 90 percent of the time when they sue in these trade tribunals under NAFTA. And with NAFTA you could see what happened with our economy. It resulted in massive loss of jobs, hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. Terrible for the Mexican workers as well. Small farmers were forced to compete with subsidized corn. They went out--a lot of them went out of business, had to move to the cities, caused economic disruption in the cities. And that was one of the causes of the undocumented immigration we saw in the United States was because of NAFTA, because we undermined that economy. Who gets rich from these agreements? The oligarchs and the wealthiest. And that's what we're going to see here. Just last week, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) came out with a report. The report was about what the TPP will do for our economy. And it was kind of remarkable. It's amazing this is even being pursued. Under--what CEPR said was there'll be a 0.1 percent increase in the GDP each year. That's one-tenth of 1 percent increase in the GDP each year. That's almost insignificant, one-tenth of one percent. And they also said that they also found that 90 percent of American workers will see their incomes and their wages go down, because we're starting this race to the bottom, continuing this race to the bottom in wages. And so our middle class will get weaker and you'll see the wealth divide expand. So what's good about this trade agreement? That's why I said earlier the more people know about it, the less likely it is to pass. And that's why they're keeping it a secret and trying to keep Congress out, because they don't want a debate on this, they don't want the facts to come out about this. They want to sneak this through and do--. And when NAFTA was passed, it was also passed by fast track. And one of the things that these kind of--NAFTA and World Trade Organization, these kinds of treaties, they have in them requirements that countries make their laws align with the treaty. And when the WTO passed, the World Trade Organization, for example, that's how we lost the separation between the investment banks and traditional banks. That's how we lost that separation which was so important to the economy, that separate regulatory structure, because that was required by the WTO. Well, this law is going to require all sorts of changes in our laws as well. For example, laws favoring U.S.-made products, that's a trade barrier. That'd be unfair. Laws favoring local green economy, that's unfair trade barrier. That'll be a problem. There's even people talking about farmers markets being under attack because of this. So--and we definitely won't be able to see GMO labeling. That's not going to happen with this. That'll be a trade barrier if you are required to label the foods [incompr.] GMO. So this law affects much more than just trade. A very small [incompr.] trade [incompr.] about tariffs. Okay, that's no big deal and you don't need fast track for that. But if you're going to change a whole economy and give more power to these transnational corporations, that's why they've got to do it in secret and that's why they've got to do fast track, because people when they hear that their food's not going to be labeled properly, that they're not going to be able--that their wages are going to go down, that their farmers markets will be threatened, that all sorts of regulations on food--we won't be sure how safe they are any longer [incompr.] environmental effects, there's so many negative things about this law that as it becomes known to the American people, I have no doubt it will fail. I think we're going to stop this law. And we're actually starting a project--next phase of this--we did these protests this week where we had the--take over their building and we did a fast track train through Congress, through the whole Washington, D.C., area to expose the TPP. We built a 35-foot train. It went throughout the city to expose it. Now we're going to the phase of really working on Congress. And every Tuesday we'll be up there with what we're calling the fair trade brigades, who will be pushing members of Congress to stand up for their constitutional responsibility, to do what the Commerce Clause says it's their job to do, regulate trade, and not approve fast track, not give that power to the executive, but do what the Congress is supposed to do: hold hearings, debate it, hear witnesses, get expert testimony, make amendments, put in place a law that puts the people and the planet before profits, not profits before the planet and the people.DESVARIEUX: Okay. Great. As you know, I'm on Capitol Hill, so it'll be good to connect.ZEESE: That'd be fun.DESVARIEUX: Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us in-studio, Kevin.ZEESE: Happy to do it. Thanks for having me.ZEESE: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.End

DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

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We Are 90 Days Away From The Total Loss of US Sovereignty

Breaking News | October 1, 2013



(Dave Hodges)


As America races toward her date with destiny, there is yet another “fundamentally transforming” event coming her way and that event is known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Many of us in the alternative media believe that some of the effects of the TPP will be felt before the coming war and martial law crackdown. However, after careful analysis, I am convinced that the brunt of the TPP will be felt after the America we know has been totally taken over in a post-war and post-economic collapse scenario. At the end of the day, it does not matter when the implementation of the TPP comes, because when it does, America will no longer be recognizable to anyone who has grown up in this once great country.
“We Are Five Days Away From Fundamentally Transforming America”

Many accuse the current President of being one of the most prolific liars to ever occupy the Oval office, and he is. However, with regard to his campaign promise to transform American, made five days prior to the ignorant sheep of this country electing him to the highest office in the land, he was telling the truth and we are now seeing evidence of this promise on several fronts. However, with regard to the TPP, his promise of transformative change could not be more accurate.

The Implementation of the TPP Is Progressing By Stealth

Some of you are reading these words have no idea what the Trans-Pacific Partnership consists of. Some of you have never heard of it. Some of you have heard tpp 2or read the term, but fail to realize the extreme danger that the implementation of this so-called trade agreement will mean to America and our way of life. A scant few are coming to realize just how dangerous the TPP truly is. For the record, the TPP is masquerading as a free trade agreement involving the US, Australia, Japan, Canada,Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore.

With regard to the TPP, ignorance of the organization is understandable. We in the alternative media have not fulfilled our duty to fully explore the ramifications of the TPP because so little is publicly known.Obama has taken full advantage of the cloudy environment and is preparing to even bypass the constitutionally required approval of the Congress before implementing the TPP through a process called “fast-tracking.”
Obama Is Effectively Attempting to Bypass Congressional Approval

President Obama is indeed seeking Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority for the TPP as he is feverishly attempting to get the deal done by the end of the year. If Obama does manage to sign the agreement without Congressional approval, this would effectively neuter Congress in the final approval process. Under such an agreement, this would permit Obama to sign the trade agreement “without Congressional approval.”

When something is secret and kept from you, it is usually very bad for you.
When something is secret and kept from you, it is usually very bad for you.

After “Fast-Tracking,” Obama would send the finalized agreement to Congress and this would subsequently force a vote within 90 days. Congressional debate would be very limited and no amendments would be permitted. Even if Congress wanted to protect the American worker and the American economy from devastation, they cannot if Obama obtains the power to fast-track the TPP.

obama ia m the law hereLet’s be clear, Obama is violating the separation of powers principle of the US Constitution by leaving Congress in the dark and by limiting their ability to use their Congressional powers as they would with any other legislation. The rumors of the TPP policies are so horrific that even the Kool-Aid drinkers from the Democratic party are calling on Obama to allow more transparency. Congress is asking Obama to allow for more transparency? I did not know that we passed a Constitutional amendment which states that Congress works for Obama.
The TPP Represents the Total Loss of US Sovereignty

The TPP is the brain child of the corporations. The TPP places all member nations directly under the control of the TPP instead of their respective national governments. Congress has been denied access to review any of the documents. Alan Grayson (D-FL) was granted a special exemption to view a small part of the TPP and he was told by TPP officials to keep his mouth shut as Grayson recalls that “They maintain that the text is classified information. I’m a member of Congress, but now they tell me that they don’t want me to talk to anybody about it because if I did, I’d be releasing classified information.” Do you realize what this means? The corporate controlled TPP has granted themselves the authority to exercise the governmental power of classifying documents and Congress is included in the exclusion. Do you understand that this means we are living in a corporate dictatorship? It gets even worse.
Meet Your New Government: Monsanto and Walmart

As if it is not egregious enough that Congress is not allowed to view TPP documents, the 600 corporate officials, who form the TPP panel (e.g. corporate officials from corporations such as Monsanto and Walmart), have complete control of the development process of the TPP. Obama can view any part of the process, Congress and the American public cannot.

tpp 4Further, a leaked chapter of the TPP speaks to the creation of a TPP Tribunal Council which will have the authority to force member nations to transform its laws, its civil procedures, its criminal procedures, even its electoral process, in order to abide by the TPP Tribunal dictates. The bottom line, is that we are witnessing the destruction of the Constitution and the entire legal code of the United States, because once the tribunal makes a ruling with regard to a national law, there is no appeal. The Tribunal consists of unelected bureaucrats who are appointed by the creators of the TPP. The term of office for Tribunal officials is unlimited.

The most disturbing aspect of this agreement is that the TPP totally eviscerates the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution. If, for example, the State of Arizona wanted to outlaw fracking, the TPP could overrule the local legislation if it so desired. To illustrate how far this unconstitutional corporate power extends, the TPP could declare cocaine trafficking to be legal and this could not be challenged.
The TPP represents the total obliteration of American sovereignty. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention another small set of details. How long do you think it will take until the TPP imposes a draconian version of cap and trade upon the American people and small businesses? The cap and trade version of what Obama tried to get passed in the Senate, when he first took office, consisted of reducing everyone’s energy consumption by 80% and utility rates “would necessarily skyrocket.”

Please pause for just one moment and ask yourself if you like would like an 80% reduction of individual and business energy use and what that dramatic reduction of energy use would look like? The rank and file in this country would effectively be living in 1890.
This is Agenda 21 and it is being fully implemented through the backdoor. That is why the TPP is being kept from Congress and the American people.
These facts leads me to state that this President needs to be arrested and tried for treason.
Conclusion

Even “they” don’t want the TPP.
Even “they” don’t want the TPP.

Obama’s fast tracking of the TPP is designed to be completed by the end of the year which would coincide with the commencement of many of Obama’s health care reforms.

I wish I could accurately state that the loss of sovereignty is the only threat that the TPP poses to the American people. However, to say so, would constitute a grossly inaccurate statement. Under the TPP, the alternative media will be destroyed, guns will be confiscated and the face of American employment will be forever changed in ways that you will not believe. If anything, this article has understated the threat posed to America by the TPP. The TPP is not a free trade agreement, it is a document which introduces a new era into American government. If the TPP passes, we will be living in an absolute corporate dictatorship.

These topics and more will be the subject of a follow up article to be published here later this week.

Finally, the government “officially” shut down tonight. I say let the government stay shut down. If my neighbor does not get her social security check, I will help feed her. We all need to reach out to those in need and help those who are impacted by this latest criminal action by our government. There is, however, a silver lining in a government shutdown. So long as the government is not officially operating, the TPP cannot be passed and while the government is shut down, perhaps this will give the people an opportunity to form a new government to take the place of the criminal government which has been hijacked by the central banksters who are bringing us the TPP.

3 thoughts on “We Are 90 Days Away from the Total Loss of US Sovereignty”

Tyranny ABounds
October 1, 2013 at 1:47 am

I have noticed that a lot of alternative news sites are starting to share stories more and more and it is starting to get the word out. I see a lot of these sites are calling for the impeachment of Obama. I think it is time that the same tactics of community organizing the left has used against us need to be used against them. There should be only one petition calling for the impeachment of Obama and shared by all the sites instead of several little petitions that never get enough signatures. The petition should be announced on as many radio stations, news sites and given to as many organizations as possible such as The truckers heading to DC to demand his impeachment, oathkeepers and others. This should have a dead line to allow it to be sent to Congress before the end of the year.

On the mention of Walmart in your article I find it interesting they have 40 shipping containers at each of our local Walmarts (3 of them). These containers only recently arrived. My husband and I drove to a Walmart 20 plus miles away and their small Walmart had the same. We went to their website and it informed that these would be used for “Lay away like in the 1930′s”. There is a hyperlink to the shipping container site and what grabbed my eye was this company provides Conex boxes for training to the military. They build “urban environments/towns for training. If these conex boxes are used to store layaways for free- who pays the cost of delivering the storage containers and paying the monthly rental fees. These containers are approximately 40′ long and have warnings on them that they have an alarm system. When I look at the history of DHS and Walmarts relationship, the security (video) I can’t help but wonder is this a staging area for something else.

Mark

October 1, 2013 at 2:29 am

“For the record, the TPP is masquerading as a free trade agreement involving the US, Australia, Japan, Canada,,Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore…”

Money Wars……… that’s it. The group listed above are the last of the hold outs to a dying dollar. The BRIC’s are not listed in this group. The world has rejected our ponzi scheme. Things are going to change alright, all for the worse. TPTB know their system is going down. They will fight it every step of the way. To hell with the country. To hell with the people. Whatever it takes, these pukes will try it. We will all suffer because of it.
War???? Most likely so. Our “enemy” will NOT be the one that the controlled media throws at us and my kids will not die fighting “their” war. My enemy is in Washington, New York, and the City of London.

When they “pop the clutch” on us. I think the American people might just have “other” plans as to the outcome.
chris

October 1, 2013 at 3:30 am

Our elected reps “have duty” to confront these unconstitutional acts. They do not do so because they fear the overwhelming storm they would face. But the truth is they and we will face a much worse storm in due time. For some reason people think things will get better – it will only get worse and so it is better to battle sooner than later.

Those criminals who are systematically destroying this sovereign nation know that they can succeed using the erosion method and the spineless won’t fight back. Distract the sheep, keep them busy and looking the other way. Tell them everything is okay. They want to believe and fall for the lie. It is a very effective strategy – straight from hell.

Once past the tipping point all timing is dictated by confidence of the perpetrators.

Article was first read at The Common Sense Show

- See more at: http://govtslaves.info/90-days-away-....xAQmkBE3.dpuf

Trans-Pacific Pact Negotiations Should Finish By Year’s End

1 day ago | US | Posted by Joshua Cook

The federal government may be “shut down,” but negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Pact are proceeding without delay. The TPP is a free trade agreement amongst a group of countries which comprise 40% of world trade. The partnership is yet another step toward globalization and the ceding of national sovereignty in favor of international control.
Though Obama emphasized his desire to bring jobs back to American shores on the campaign trail, the TPP would send more jobs overseas than any piece of legislation in recent history. Eliminating all trade barriers with low-wage countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico and Brunei would eliminate incentives for companies to stay in high-wage countries like the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
On a more ideological level, American sovereignty would be stripped in the name of free trade. American standards of cleanliness and safety (for instance food cleanliness and safety) would be deemed “illegal trade barriers” if they were stricter than international standards. Even labeling laws standardizing definitions of organic, animal-welfare approved and GMO-free would be considered barriers, as well as those identifying a product’s country of origin.

Essentially, all consumer protections would be drastically reduced, as well as animal welfare and environmental standards. Americans would have little to no say about picking products which aligned with their ethics or sanitary requirements, and might not even be able to reliably know which products were made with such standards. EU member countries have already experienced this lack of sovereignty; in 1981, Denmark’s attempt to limit the types of beverage bottles which could be used to make recycling more efficient was deemed an illegal trade barrier.
Department of Energy control over fracking would be diminished, and certain forms of taxes would be eliminated. In addition, aspects of the Stop Online Privacy Act would be reincarnated as part of the Pact. On an economic level, countries will be required to allow private competitors to public service sectors, and companies such as drug producers will be able to maintain a monopoly on their products for longer.
Some have expressed the concern that this deregulation will give corporations increased power over the citizens. Others may agree, on a basic level, with the notions of deregulation and private competitors to public service sectors. Neither of these gets to the heart of the issue, though. America cannot give up its own sovereignty and give those powers to an international organization. This will prevent it from serving the needs of its own citizens – for instance allowing pesticides and contaminants into the food supply – and could easily open it up to far more international control in the future.


The EU, for instance, started in 1946 as the merging of 6 European countries’ steel supplies. It evolved into a free trade area in 1993, and formed its own parliament, funded by the taxes of individual countries. Only last year, officials openly advocated creating a direct tax system from EU member state citizens to the EU. Countries who wish to leave now face crippling financial, legal and political barriers.
Was is striking about the TPP is its secret meetings that are conducted behind closed doors. According to Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D from TheNewAmerican.com, Walmart and Monsanto are given a seat at the table, but the elected representatives of the American people are shut out.
Wolverton states that the TPP may be “the last straw in the already weakened broom of American sovereignty.” The TPP is a threat to America’s sovereignty and the potential for further elimination of American rights and powers.
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Joshua Cook


Joshua Cook is a native and resident of the South Carolina Upstate. He received his MBA from North Greenville University and is actively involved in South Carolina politics.

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You are here: HomeEconomyEconomicsDespite Shutdown, President Pushes Hard to Finish TPP



Monday, 07 October 2013 19:50

Despite Shutdown, President Pushes Hard to Finish TPP

Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.








The “shutdown” may have blocked veterans from trying to visit memorials, but it hasn’t blocked President Obama from trying to surrender U.S. sovereignty to a body of globalist bureaucrats.

Although the president claims the shutdown kept him from making his scheduled trip to Asia, his surrogates are pushing ahead with negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), hoping to seal the deal before the end of the year.

Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman are in Bali on behalf of the stay-cationing Barack Obama.
"I do want to make clear none of what is happening in Washington diminishes by one iota our commitment to our partners in Asia, including our efforts to promote trade and investment throughout the region," Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday from Bali.

In other words, the Obama administration is content to let the “shutdown” leave the country open to terrorist attack, but they won’t let anything keep the United States from tying the financial well-being of the United States to Viet Nam and Malaysia.

Those nations and the United States' nine other “partners” in the TPP are, USTR Froman says, “strongly committed to working to conclude negotiations this year.”

This rush to wrap up the trade treaty is consistent with President Obama’s long-standing commitment to successfully draft a document as quickly as possible.

Perhaps just as disturbing as the joining of U.S. economic well-being to that of countries whose GDP is a fraction of ours is the fact that since the beginning, every round of TPP negotiations has been conducted in strict secrecy.

Even the people’s representatives in Congress have been stiff-armed when they have tried to pull down the veil of secrecy preventing Americans from learning about the frightening compromises being made by the Obama administration.

Zach Carter of the online Huffington Post reported that Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness, was stonewalled by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative when he attempted to see any of the draft documents related to the governance of the TPP.

In response to this rebuff, Wyden proposed a measure in the Senate that would force transparency on the process, and that was enough to convince the USTR to grant the senator a peek at the documents, though his staff was not permitted to peruse them.

Wyden spokeswoman Jennifer Hoelzer told the Huffington Post that such accommodations were “better than nothing” but not ideal in light of the well-known fact that on Capitol Hill the real work of drafting and evaluating legislation is performed by the representatives’ staff members who are often experts in particular areas of domestic and foreign policy.

“I would point out how insulting it is for them to argue that members of Congress are to personally go over to USTR to view the trade documents,” Hoelzer said. “An advisor at Halliburton or the MPAA is given a password that allows him or her to go on the USTR website and view the TPP agreement anytime he or she wants.”

It is instructive that a duly elected senator of the United States has to beg and plead and threaten legislation in order to see the TPP trade agreement negotiations, but corporate interests are given a password by the USTR that grants them a priori access to those same documents.
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) issued a statement criticizing the Obama administration for the lack of oversight into an agreement with devastating potential:

After more than a decade of broken promises from NAFTA, CAFTA, and normalized trade relations with China, we can now add a credibility deficit to the trade deficits we’ve seen. The leaked documents surfacing today only underscore the secrecy surrounding TPP negotiations and confirm worst suspicions about the direction trade negotiations are heading. It’s telling that it is easier for the CEO of a major corporation to access information about the negotiations than the American people’s elected representatives.

The negotiations must involve more transparency and bring more voices to the table.

In an interview with The New American, the president of Americans for Limited Government (ALG), Bill Wilson, said he sees a serious threat to sovereignty in the president’s grant of such an exclusive corporate prerogative.

“We are elevating private businesses up to the level of sovereign governments,” Wilson said. “Under NAFTA we gave companies the power to sue governments and the TPP does this as well. In this trade pact, we agree that our government can be sued by these foreign corporations who will be treated as sovereign nations. This is submerging the idea of sovereignty into a sea of regulatory bodies and international agencies and our freedom is drowning in it.”

“It is self-evident that the erosion of the right of citizens to control their own lives is progressing at a rate that we are little more than wage slaves to an oppressive government and its cadre of corporate backers that consider our lives and our liberties of little or no consequence,” he added.

Although the treaty negotiations are conducted behind black-out blinds, a draft document leaked to the Internet discloses that as part of its membership in the TPP, the United States would agree to exempt foreign corporations from our laws and regulations, placing the resolution of any disputes as to the applicability of those matters to foreign business in the hands of an international arbitration tribunal overseen by the secretary-general of the United Nations.

The leaked information also confirms the fears of many who from the beginning have opposed the entry of the United States into this trade agreement. The alarms sounded by several groups on the Left and the Right warning of the wholesale damage that the TPP could cause to commerce, copyrights, and the Constitution now seem vindicated.

As it did with NAFTA, The John Birch Society is mounting a bold defense to the TPP initiative’s attack on the Constitution. JBS CEO Art Thompson said:

For several decades, The John Birch Society has been warning Americans about the loss of our national sovereignty brought about by so-called free trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. We point out that political integration follows economic integration. We also point out how the European Union has followed this pattern by progressing from a free trade area of independent European nations in the 1950s all the way to a new political entity, the European Union, that is now absorbing the last vestiges of sovereignty from its member states.

We are now warning Americans about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a new free trade agreement that is currently being negotiated by a dozen or so Pacific Rim nations, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Canada. Since the United States Trade Representative’s website describes the TPP as “a vehicle for Asia-Pacific-wide economic integration,” we believe that eventual congressional approval of the TPP would lead to Asia-Pacific-wide political integration with the attendant loss of American sovereignty.
Americans who study the subject realize that the redrawing of national boundaries and domestic legal processes being carried out in secret by the globalists sitting around the TPP negotiating table is an attack on American laws, American courts, American freedom of expression, American sovereignty, and the right of Americans to hold lawmakers accountable for the laws they make.

Nonetheless, “complex hurdles” remain and the TPP train wreck can still be avoided by derailing the agreement before it obliterates the prosperity and sovereignty of the United States.

Though the hour is late and the president is pushing hard on the accelerator, there is still time for the American people to slam on the brakes. Americans committed to the Constitution should contact their congressmen and encourage them to tear down the wall of secrecy protecting the globalist attack on our law and liberty.

Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He is the host of The New American Review radio show that is simulcast on YouTube every Monday. Follow him Twitter @TNAJoeWolverton and he can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com.

^{Photo of President Obama: AP Images}

Related articles:
Monsanto and Walmart Influence Secret TPP Newgotiations
Japan Set to Join TPP as Secret Negotiations Continue in Malaysia
TPP Copyright Provisions Threaten Internet Freedom, U.S. Sovereignty
TPP Trade Agreement a "Top Priority" for Second Obama Administration
Regional Scheme for the Pacific Rim

http://www.thenewamerican.com/econom...-to-finish-tpp


This man is giving our sovereignty away, wake up!!!!