TTP musings

Supporters call opponents alarmists and anti-trade.  Congress is passing fast-track legislation to pass the treaty without debate.  No one in the public has seen a draft of the trade agreement.  Robert Reich hates it (see here) as does Joe Firestone (see here).

Reich says:


They’re more interested in making sure other countries don’t run off with their patented designs and trademarks. Or restrict where they can put and shift their profits.

In fact, today’s “trade agreements” should really be called “global corporate agreements” because they’re mostly about protecting the assets and profits of these global corporations rather than increasing American jobs and wages. The deals don’t even guard against currency manipulation by other nations.

Firestone writes:

But we do know that “ . . . the TPP would empower another 25,000 foreign corporations to use the investor state tribunals, against the United States . . . an expansion many times the US’s current level of exposure.  We also know that Ecuador is currently facing a judgment against it awarded to Occidental Petroleum in the amount of $2.3 Billion for Ecuador’s lawful termination of a contract for drilling rights. For Educador, a judgment of that size is comparable to one of $340 Billion against the United States, denominated in a foreign currency it cannot issue. (The Dollar is Ecuador’s unit of account and official currency right now, but, of course, it is a currency Ecuador cannot issue.)
If you think this possibility is far-fetched, consider that ISDS actions are a business for multinational corporations experiencing rapidly accelerating and perhaps exponential growth. They and the ISDS Courts, staffed by lawyers who play the roles of judges for those Courts one day, and representatives of the potential plaintiffs in these Courts the next, have little incentive not to expand this line of business to the maximum the traffic can bear. Here’s what Elizabeth Warren thinks about this issue:

ISDS advocates point out that, so far, this process hasn’t harmed the United States. And our negotiators, who refuse to share the text of the TPP publicly, assure us that it will include a bigger, better version of ISDS that will protect our ability to regulate in the public interest. But with the number of ISDS cases exploding and more and more multinational corporations headquartered abroad, it is only a matter of time before such a challenge does serious damage here. Replacing the U.S. legal system with a complex and unnecessary alternative — on the assumption that nothing could possibly go wrong — seems like a really bad idea.

The trade agreement creates more opportunities for global corporations by decreasing national sovereignty.  Is this good?