Obama and US trade crowd selling out the workers at APEC in Honolulu...

[msongs]

while the media is foaming over at cute PR stunts involving Obama's return to his home state, the reality is the details are much more sinister: we are losing ever more local control over our own sovereignty, social and business lives in the name of corporate domination

____________________________
The following press release is printed by permission of the authors for wider dissemination -


"Today's trade pacts not so much about tariffs as about empowering corporations
By Lori Wallach, Global Trade Watch

APEC poses greater threats than traffic nightmares for Hawaii's people.

Behind closed doors a policy is being devised that could raise medicine prices, drive down our wages, ban job-creating "Buy America" policies, undermine financial regulations aimed at controlling the banks that wrecked our economy while exposing Hawaiian ceded lands and environmental policies to challenge.

It is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Negotiations include the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore. But the deal is intended to be open for others to join, including Japan, Indonesia, Russia and more.

A dirty secret of today's trade pacts is that they are not mainly about traditional trade matters like tariffs. Rather, they require countries to conform domestic policies to hundreds of pages of one-size-fits-all international non-trade rules written in closed-door processes involving hundreds of corporations, with the rest of us locked out. Those on the inside include 600-plus official U.S. corporate trade advisers. Congress people, Hawaii's governor and state legislators, journalists and we people whose lives will be most affected cannot see what our negotiators are bargaining for -- and bargaining away -- until a deal is done and it is too late for changes.

Countries that fail to change their laws to meet these trade pact requirements are slammed with indefinite trade sanctions or cash damages.

Just in recent months, the U.S. was ordered to eliminate the dolphin-safe label on tuna cans and our anti-teenage smoking ban on flavored cigarettes. We also just allowed entry for trucks from Mexico that don't meet U.S. safety or environmental standards -- after having been subjected to trade sanctions on $2.3 billion of U.S. trade.

We will hear from the usual corporate sources that another trade agreement could expand exports. But the data is clear: Our export growth rate to the countries we have these deals with is half of that to those we do not. And we have lost lots of jobs, thanks to the major trade deficit we suffer with the bloc of 14 previous Free Trade Agreement countries.

Thus, whether and under what terms a Trans-Pacific trade deal is done will affect the types of jobs available in our communities; whether the rapacious global banks that have seized control of Hawaii's hotels can be made to pay their workers well; and whether Hawaii will be able to diversify its economy to provide jobs for more people. That's because the proposed agreement would impose constraints on national and Hawaii service sector, investment and financial policy.

Also at stake is whether Hawaii will be able to free itself from dependence on imported oil and instead develop its potential for solar, wind and other renewables, as well as strong consumer and food safety protections. The agreement will impose limits on energy policy and safety and inspection standards for fish, fruits, meat and more.

American's worst job-offshoring corporations, major global banks, agribusiness and pharmaceutical giants want this Trans-Pacific deal to be like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the first pact focused on undoing our basic public interest protections under the false brand of trade agreements. Labor, environmental, anti-poverty, family farm and other advocates have demanded a "Fair Deal or No Deal."

It is not looking good. U.S. negotiators are pushing the corporate line, insisting that the notorious NAFTA "investor-state" enforcement system be included. This empowers corporations to skirt our courts and go to World Bank and U.N. foreign tribunals to challenge our domestic policies and demand taxpayer compensation if they think our laws undermine their "expected future profits."

Hawaii's land-use policies would be at special risk. Under NAFTA, more than $350 million has been paid out to corporations over attacks on zoning, toxics bans and more.

U.S. negotiators are also pushing new privileges for pharmaceutical industry giants that would jack up medicine prices. This includes new rights for them to attack "drug formularies," the cost-saving programs used by the U.S. Medicaid, Medicare and Veterans Administration -- and Australia, New Zealand and other nations. If the U.S. proposal is adopted, Hawaii and other states would have to pay for expensive new drugs that Big Pharma develops, even if they provide no new benefits to patients.

And, that is what we know. Trans-Pacific talks have taken place behind closed doors, and no draft texts have been formally released. A recent text leak revealed that U.S. officials signed a special deal not only to keep all documents secret, but to do so for four years after talks end. Civil society groups in the involved countries have launched an international "release the text" campaign to extract the draft texts. Those requests have not been met.

This extreme secrecy only makes us all wonder: Just what is being agreed to behind closed doors at APEC that cannot withstand public scrutiny?"

__________________

[Enrique]

1. i wish youd focus on the important issues

his jokes about his clothes, and his jabs at the birthers.

Kidding, of course. Thanks for this post, I didnt even know why the President was in Hawaii.

[Angry Dragon]

2. I have never been to a banana republic and soon I will be able to live in one

[sad sally]

14. You can bet this "enhancement of worker's employability and...high performance"

means American workers better get ready to take lower pay and more work.
#####

Labor.
TPP countries are discussing elements for a labor chapter that include commitments on labor rights protection and mechanisms to ensure cooperation, coordination, and dialogue on labor issues of mutual concern. They agree on the importance of coordination to address the challenges of the 21st-century workforce through bilateral and regional cooperation on workplace practices to enhance workers’ well-being and employability, and to promote human capital development and high-performance workplaces.

http://usliberals.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=usliberals&cdn=newsissues&tm=72&f=00&tt=15&bt=1&bts=1&st=11&zu=http%3A//www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements?du

[xchrom]

3. recommend

[JDPriestly]

4. Our government is riddled with secret committees and secret documents and secret policies

and secret codes and secret communications and secret wiretaps and secret GPS and secret cameras and secret warrants and secret surveillance and top secret weapons and Secret Service and secret microphones and secret plans and secret phone calls and secret discussions and secret meetings and secret buildings and secret locations and secret reports and secret zones and secret prisons and secret planes and secret attacks and secret SEALS and secret missions and secret Patriot Act Provisions and secret rulings and secret memos and secret partners and secret negotiations and secret trade secrets and military secrets and foreign intelligence secrets and police secrets and national secrets and defense secrets.

We don't have a democratic government. We don't have a representative government.

We have a secret government.

We need to Occupy our own government and empty its pockets. Let's find out what's in all the secrets we've got hidden away.

Our houses, our streets, our parks, our schools, our police, our courts, our military, our government.

End secrecy in government.

[Octafish]

7. Bookmarked.

We the People should be on it, like parents going through the pockets of a teenager's bluejeans.

[dkf]

5. Asia is the future. That is where the up and coming middle class is growing.

We need to be able to sell our higher end products to them, and ironically as their own situation improves their wages will increase and we will be become more competitive.

As the age of plentiful oil ends, the cheap stuff won't make as much sense to ship anyway. Then more production will move back here as is already happening.

And tell me what in your life wasn't made by a corporation. You were taken over by your own purchasing decisions ages ago. You can boycott them if you wish. Take control of your life and be minimalist.

But just the fact that you are on the Internet shows you are as susceptible to corporate goodies as anyone.

[PETRUS]

6. The question isn't whether or not we should make stuff and trade.

The question is what the framework those activities operate within should look like. US trade agreements protect some industries while opening others to competition and favor the interests of capital over labor.

[dkf]

8. Productivity, automation, and unemployment give capital the upper hand.

There is only value in what makes us unique.

And ironically the more backbreaking the labor, the less it is worth. It's the brain that creates the extra value.

[PETRUS]

9. Grains of truth in your statements.

Which is why equality of opportunity matters. Currently there is much untapped human potential.

However, legal structures have significant influence on financial value. There are a number of laws and government policies that play favorites. Business leaders and the financial industry promote these distortions. To put it another way, it's capital's influence on policy that gives capital the upper hand.

That said, I was writing specifically about trade. There are protections written into trade agreements for capital, specific industries, and the professional classes. Actual "free" trade would level the playing field a bit.

[dkf]

12. So if APEC can level that playing field then better for us right?

The barriers to US goods are unfair. We really need to work on them.

[PETRUS]

13. "If" is exactly right.

Interestingly, the biggest barrier to US exports being competitive is the "strong dollar" policy pursued by the US Treasury and the Fed. It's a conscious decision, and a trade-off that sacrifices (domestic) manufacturing in favor of finance.

In recent years the priorities of the financial sector and the pharmaceuticals and medical equipment manufacturers have weighed heavily in our trade agreements. We make sacrifices on other things so those industries can get what they want. And of course we protect our professional classes from serious competition. The trade agreement with South Korea is a good example of opening competition for some industries while increasing protectionism for others. One could have predicted the outcome just from looking at roster of co-chairs on the steering committee:

Ted Austell, Vice President, Trade Policy, The Boeing Company
Lisa Barry, Vice President and General Manager, Chevron
Joseph Damond, Vice President, International Trade Policy, Pfizer, Inc.
Matt Niemeyer, Vice President, Office of Government Affairs, Goldman Sachs
Laura Lane, Managing Director and Head of International Government Affairs, Citigroup, Inc


I personally am not in favor of unregulated business and trade. But I have a problem with dishonesty, and it's wrong to label these agreements "free trade" when they have contain so many protectionist measures. Likewise, I have a problem with big business and finance complaining about government interfering in the market when in fact they push for it, depend and thrive on it. If one is for a free market, fine - I'm not, but I don't mind differences of opinion. The problem is that the economic elites in this country are intellectually inconsistent and employ misleading arguments. The last thing they want is a free market and a level playing field, but to come clean about that would not go over well with the public.

[pampango]

15. That would be consistent with the fact that our trade is almost balanced with "free trade"

countries while we have a major trade deficit with the rest of the world.

When the playing field is more level we compete very well.

[DCBob]

10. Increased trade with Asia and other nations around the world is a necessity for economic growth..

The problem with that is that many of these trade agreements contain compromises to our regulations... and the much bigger problem is that in the long term it is totally unsustainable. But few are thinking long term at the momnet.. they are only focusing on the crisis at hand.

[SidDithers]

11. unrec...nt

Sid