The full text of the latest “free trade” agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP was finally published in November after seven years of secret negotiations.
Prior to that, in June, the United States Senate gave President Obama what’s known as “Fast Track” authority, even before they had seen the agreement. Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress is supposed to write the laws and set trade policy. Thus, trade agreements are subject to amendment by Congress prior to ratification. This makes life complicated for presidents trying to have it all their own way. It makes it tough for corporations and lobbyists to foist their greedy agendas on the public because they can be exposed by some rogue senator or representative whom they haven’t been able to buy.
That’s the nefarious beauty of Fast Track. It means that 90 days after the president submits the agreement to Congress for approval, they can only vote yes or no on the entire package. They cannot offer amendments or filibuster, and debate time is severely limited.
Fast Track was invented during the Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon presidency. It’s only been used 16 times in history and it’s what gave us the North American Free Trade Agreement that cost America over 5 million manufacturing jobs, 3,100 of them in Hawaii.
Fast Track also gave us the World Trade Organization. Do you think you should have the right to know where the meat you buy comes from? You did until last December when the WTO forced Congress to repeal the COOL (Country Of Origin Labeling) law by threatening to fine us $2 billion per year if they didn’t.
And then there’s something called the “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) system.
This gem is already in place under NAFTA and will include 11 more countries under the TPP. I can’t understand why people haven’t been screaming about this. Maybe they have but I never heard of it until earlier this month when TransCanada Corporation filed a legal action under NAFTA claiming that President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline was “arbitrary and unjustified.” The pipeline would have cost $3 billion dollars to build, yet TransCanada is suing for $15 billion to be paid by American taxpayers. Under the ISDS system, a foreign corporation may sue for the loss of “expected profits!” International corporations like TransCanada can argue under NAFTA — often successfully — that we don’t have the right to protect our own environment in our own country, protect our citizens’ health or fight climate change if it costs them profits.
You might think that this lawsuit would be heard in a U.S. court by impartial federal judges, but you would be sorely mistaken. Under the ISDS system it will be heard by an “investor-state tribunal” composed of three private-sector attorneys. These are people who rotate between one day suing a government on behalf of a corporation and the next day being the judge — I’m not making this up! There are no conflict of interest rules and they all hear cases amongst themselves. They even call themselves “The Club.” There’s no outside appeal, and there’s no limit on how much money they can order a government to pay. And if a government doesn’t pay, the company has the right to seize government assets to extract our tax dollars. This is under NAFTA and other so-called free trade agreements. If the TPP passes, it would expose Hawaii and U.S. policies to a staggering increase in ISDS liability and a ruling by “The Club” will overrule U.S. and Hawaii regulations.
Got Democracy? Not hardly. On Thursday, the 12 nations who are party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership will formally sign the agreement in New Zealand. But Congress must still approve it. Thanks to the ISDS system, “Free Trade” agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and TTIP are surreptitiously destroying national sovereignty in favor of rule by the international investors who own the major corporations. They are more likely to get passed using Fast Track where scrutiny and debate is limited and amendments are not allowed. To their credit, Sens. Hirono and Schatz voted against authorizing Fast Track and Rep Gabbard expressed opposition. Now we have to urge them to vote no when the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes to a vote.
Aaron “Jake” Jacobs has lived in Kailua-Kona since 1975. He currently works as a 747 pilot for a worldwide cargo company and writes a monthly column for West Hawaii Today