Conservatives, libertarians and liberals should be worried about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The TPP has been one of the key issues of the 2016 presidential election. Republican nominee Donald Trump has lambasted the international trade agreement, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has flip flopped several times on the matter, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson has also flip flopped on the issue and Green Party nominee Jill Stein opposes the trade deal.
Despite dominating the election campaign and being the most important global trade agreement since NAFTA, most people, not even politicians, know what exactly it’s all about. Everyone continues to be told how it advances trade deals, even though a majority of those espousing such an idea haven’t read it.
Clinton referred to it as the “gold standard” of trade agreements, U.S. President Barack Obama is heavily pushing it and the likes of Canada, Japan, Australia and Mexico are urging swift and decisive action as soon as possible.
Much of what we know about the TPP so far is thanks in part to WikiLeaks. Up to this point, the entire ordeal has been surreptitious in the fact that we aren’t really informed about what’s inside the TPP. Is it because the crony capitalist elite don’t want you to know the specific contents or is it because our esteemed leaders haven’t perused even a fifth of the 2,000-page document? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.
(We all remember that no one in Congress even read the Affordable Care Act before it was passed.)
Trump has uttered a lot of inane and desultory statements in this election cycle, but he has been accurate about the TPP thus far.
Here is what he told a campaign rally this past summer:
“[The TPP] will make NAFTA, in my opinion, look like a baby. … Trans-Pacific Partnership — it’s over 5,000 pages long — every country that’s in that partnership has studied every word, every comma, every sentence, every paragraph; our guys probably haven’t even read it. This is the way we do business.”
Here is another statement made by Trump pertaining to the TPP:
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country — just a continuing rape of our country. It’s a harsh word, but it’s true.”
Trump is known for making grandiose speeches without any facts. This is the one time you should pay attention to what he has to say, even if he sounds like an Italian New Yorker mob boss.
Why exactly is it a “disaster”? Why is the TPP “raping” the United States? Why should all conservatives, libertarians and even liberals be frightened of the TPP? Why should the insouciant populace rise up and denounce the TPP? Well, let’s take a look at some of the reasons.
TPP Isn’t About Trade; It’s About ‘Lawfare’
The TPP meetings, talks, negotiations and document creations have mostly been held in secret. TPP proponents defend the secrecy by alluding to the fact that an agreement has yet to be formalized. Julian Assange was able to get his hands on some of the deal.
To the surprise of no one, most of the TPP has nothing to do with trade at all. In fact, just five of the 29 chapters are related to trade. The remaining chapters are about corporate control, global big government and regulation of the Internet. It’s essentially the magnum opus of global government and crony capitalism.
Here is what Assange recently told Democracy Now:
“The others are about regulating the internet, and what information internet service providers have to collect, they have to hand it over to companies under certain circumstances, the regulation of labor conditions, regulating the way you can favor local industry, regulating the hospital, health care system, privatization of hospitals, so essentially every aspect of a modern economy, even banking services are in the TPP. “
What makes it worse is that taxpayers would be on the hook for these costs moving forward.
For instance, if the government constructs a hospital nearby a private hospital then the owner of the private hospital can file a lawsuit against the taxpayers regarding the expected loss in future profits. This is concerning because the profits haven’t even been made or lost yet, but the private hospital can sue the taxpayers.
Moreover, U.S. companies would not be permitted to sue the state. Only multi-national corporations would be allowed such luxuries.
The private sector should be building hospitals, but suing a competitor for simply existing, even if it is the state constructing a hospital, is a form of crony capitalism. It is evident that a private hospital would put the government hospital out of business because it would provide better customer service. The threat of a lawsuit for just competing isn’t free market or free trade at all.
A multinational will have the TPP on its side and could potentially bankrupt an American, Mexican or Chilean town or municipality.
When it comes to labor, the TPP makes it harder for non-union labor to compete against union workers as it enhances union power in all of the participating countries.
Let’s take a look at the Internet. The Obama administration says the TPP would curb Internet censorship. In fact, it would be quite the opposite. The TPP would actually curb Internet freedoms.
Under TPP laws, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would be mandated to police your activities. Also, it would take down Internet content and even reduce Internet access for user-generated content. You could be in violation of TPP rules for a YouTube video or you would face a mandatory fine if you share a copy of copyrighted material.
How does this advance free trade in any way? It doesn’t.
Of course, corporations favor this because it doesn’t require innovation, satisfying the consumer or competing in the free market. Should it be any surprise that Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Unilever, Chevron, Caterpillar, UPS, Walmart, Chase and Citi are ardent supporters of the TPP?
In a way, you could call the TPP a form of lawfare. If you value the U.S. Constitution or laws in your own country then be prepared to see these freedoms diminished under the TPP.
The TPP is One Step Closer to Global Government
If the TPP is ratified and put in place like NAFTA then you can say goodbye to any form of sovereignty.
Right now, the TPP exempts foreign corporations from domestic laws. But the TPP goes beyond that. It is actually one step closer towards global government. It expands international regulatory control, it establishes even more international organizations and creates even more global bureaucracy and red tape. The TPP, alongside the likes of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), NAFTA and other international trade agreements, easily create some kind of conflict for jurisdictions, small businesses and individuals.
At first, the TPP was started as a trade agreement between four nations – Brunei, New Zealand, Singapore and Chile. Eventually, it grew into 12 as the U.S. encouraged other nations to join. Who knows if even more nations will hop on the TPP train?
Nations have their own laws, but the TPP would eradicate those laws. An example of this is U.S. law would be injected, like strict patent laws for medicines, into the TPP. Whether or not you agree with this legal provision, the likes of New Zealand and Chile would be mandated to accept the American legal parameters. This would have you believe that the U.S. government is helping out big pharmaceutical firms in this regard.
Here is what Assange averred to the news outlet:
“And so, that is erecting and embedding new, ultramodern neoliberal structure in U.S. law and in the laws of the other countries that are participating, and is putting it in a treaty form. And by putting it in a treaty form, that means—with 14 countries involved, means it’s very, very hard to overturn. So if there’s a desire, democratic desire, in the United States to go down a different path—for example, to introduce more public transport—then you can’t easily change the TPP treaty, because you have to go back and get agreement of the other nations involved.”
Akin to hospitals, the private sector should take charge of transportation. However, the idea that the U.S. would need permission from Chile to spend money on public transit is absurd. Ditto for Singapore or Canada. This is a glimpse of what would happen in a one-world government.
A Battle Against China
China is not a signatory of the TPP. Why? Because it’s a trade agreement designed to impact China in a negative way. If you detest China then you would likely support the TPP. The TPP is essentially a global war on China, a method to minimize China’s reach in the region and around the world.
Here is a statement purported by President Obama in Oregon just last year:
“We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy. And we should do it today, while our economy is in the position of global strength. Because if we don’t write the rules for trade around the world – guess what – China will. And they’ll write those rules in a way that gives Chinese workers and Chinese businesses the upper hand, and locks American-made goods out.”
Although China has been adamantly opposed to the TPP from the beginning, it has taken a more relaxed stance over the last 12 months. It wants to take a wait and see approach in the meantime.
Nations like Singapore and Vietnam urged the U.S. and other non-Asian countries to join because they wanted to limit their dependence on China. This hasn’t pleased Chinese officials because they want to be the Goliath that regional jurisdictions need to rely on. But is that a fight the U.S. needs to participate in? Nope.
Relations between the U.S. and China are already strained. By partaking in the TPP, the U.S. is further heightening tensions with a country that is likely the next superpower.
For now, the U.S. wants to flex its muscle on the world stage. It wants to maintain its economic power. The only way to achieve this is to limit China’s reach, and a global trade agreement, disguised as free trade, accomplishes this.
EU-Style Mass Migration
If you take a look at Europe right now, it is being swarmed by refugees. Germany is experiencing a refugee crisis, Swedish officials are urging citizens to adapt to the cultures of refugees and one of the reasons why Great Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU) is because of the immigration policy.
This mass migration is creating a plethora of negative effects across Europe. Well, the Obama administration wants EU-style mass migration, and will achieve it with the TPP and the TTIP.
According to several insiders who have studied the contents of the TPP, there are provisions that would eviscerate domestic border controls. Similar to EU nation-states, the U.S. would no longer have the right to control its own border. The same would be applied to Canada or Australia.
Curtis Ellis, executive director of the American Jobs Alliance, wrote in The Hill last year:
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes an entire chapter on immigration. It is a Trojan horse for Obama’s immigration agenda. House members who were ready to defund the Department of Homeland Security to stop President Obama’s executive action on immigration must not give him TPA [Fast Track], which he will use to ensure his immigration actions are locked in when he leaves office.”
TPP proponents dismissed his warnings as tommyrot.
The architects of the TPP cite the EU model pertaining to immigration. And this is troubling. Today, EU member states have extreme difficulty in restricting or at least limiting migration because of EU court judgments. If the TPP crafters look to the EU for ideas on immigration then you should have a level of consternation.
TPP is Forever
Lastly, the TPP would last forever. There is no way you can absquatulate from it. Once Hillary Clinton, Justin Trudeau or Enrique Pena Nieto sign on the dotted line, the nation will serve a life sentence without parole.
Final Thoughts
Every time a politician supports a free trade agreement for the purpose of expanding free trade then be afraid. Be very afraid. Free trade agreements never actually enhance free trade at all. They’re back room globalist deals that benefit politicians, lobbyists, the elite and cronyists.
As legendary free market economist Murray Rothbard opined, if an actual free trade policy came to fruition then you would guarantee that odious politicians and corporations would wage war against it.
“If authentic free trade ever looms on the policy horizon, there’ll be one sure way to tell. The government/media/big-business complex will oppose it tooth and nail. We’ll see a string of op-eds ‘warning’ about the imminent return of the nineteenth century. Media pundits and academics will raise all the old canards against the free market, that it’s exploitative and anarchic without government ‘coordination.’ The establishment would react to instituting true free trade about as enthusiastically as it would to repealing the income tax.
“In truth, the bipartisan establishment’s trumpeting of ‘free trade’ since World War II fosters the opposite of genuine freedom of exchange. The establishment’s goals and tactics have been consistently those of free trade’s traditional enemy, ‘mercantilism’ — the system imposed by the nation-states of sixteenth to eighteenth century Europe.”
(You can already witness this in the New York Times.)
Right now, all you can see are politicians, unions, big business and former military men promoting TPP. You must always be on guard when these groups form an alliance because they’re nothing but big government opportunists.
Again, as Rothbard pointed out, “genuine free trade doesn’t require a treaty.”
The only thing that international trade agreements achieve is accelerating government power. It’s rare to find pro-free market provisions inside these trade pacts. It’s rarer than Hillary Clinton telling the truth. Trade agreements tend to demolish any path that leads to the direction of decentralizing power.
If an American merchant wants to freely exchange with a Mexican merchant then why would you ever need a trade agreement to facilitate the arrangement?
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