> They allow investors to sue nations over legislative and administrative rules alleging that they harm their profits.
This is much bigger than copyright. This is removing substantive power from existing governments and transferring it to a new structure. The fast-tracking should be seen, not just as evading scrutiny by the public, but also as evading scrutiny by Congress and by other legislatures whose power is being stolen from them. When you write your representative, you might warn them that this puts them on track to end up like the Queen of England: powerless figureheads.
You imagine those writing this deal are giving away their power. I rebut with, if the government wasn't already a mouthpiece for mega corps, the deal would never be written to begin with.
Now that business owns government, it makes sense for them to start transforming it to a more directly profitable model.
The goal of those sections of the agreement are to force governments to treat foreign investment the same as if it had arrived from a resident.
The intent is to stop things like what happens in South America, where they look around, see an oil company sitting there that is majority foreign owned and nationalise it to fix a balance of payments issue[2]. Some organisations (like Philip Morris) will try to use it as a hammer, but that's because anyone can sue.
The US is already party to similar agreements - NAFTA being one. They've even got a standard set of terms for them [1].
First world countries with strong court systems already have these protections in place. This is aimed at other countries who don't have quite as strong a rule of law.
As for secrecy... Just because congress gives the President fast-track negotiation rights doesn't mean that the deal has to pass. It just means that congress has to have a straight up or down vote on it, without amendments. There will still be time to review and debate it.
Agreements are negotiated in secret. Can you imagine a trade agreement negotiated in the current US Congress?
Sorry, but I still prefer the current state of affairs than having secret pacts that diminish the sovereignty of my country in favor of big transnationals, that only look for themselves, justify everything with a "we only look after our investors interest" and don't know the meaning of morality. The Philip Morris - a company that sells products that kill people - case against Australia is a clear example on how bad things end up with this kind of pacts.
Most international agreements are negotiated in secret. When it's time for Congress to vote on it, you'll be able to chew over the terms. I have to say I'm really tired of the willfully ignorant memes around this trade deal, as if it were some unprecedented thing in history.
>The intent is to stop things like what happens in South America, where they look around, see an oil company sitting there that is majority foreign owned and nationalise it to fix a balance of payments issue[2]
This was normally done to channel the vast oil wealth into the country where it could help people rather than into the pockets of wealthy foreigners.
Call it 'fixing a balance of payments issue if you will'. Or, call it "helping the poor". It's both.
>First world countries with strong court systems already have these protections in place. This is aimed at other countries who don't have quite as strong a rule of law.
Foreign corporations will be able to sue the American government for lost profits under the TPP. This will undoubtedly be used to try and stifle new labor & environmental protection laws.
>Agreements are negotiated in secret.
Sure. When you've got something you desperately want to hide from the public.
"The intent is to stop things like what happens in South America"
... so the intent is to stop the people of economically poor but resource rich countries from having a say in whether or not they continue to have their natural resources exploited by wealthy foreigners?
Yep. The risk of doing business in a foreign country is that your firm--at least for now--has no direct political recourse (excluding stuff like bribes) if that foreign country does something you don't like.
That should be built into the business model, that risk.
Oh please, Find me someone in the US that doesn't like the part of the US constitution that says if the government takes something from you, it has to be paid for. While I'm not particularly a fan of oil companies, they didn't just turn up in a country and start drilling wells without permission. Generally they were invited in by governments that lacked the technology or capital ot build a domestic oil industry. Countries frequently publish invitations to tender and it's reasonable for both parties to such contracts to expect the other side to deal in good faith. Oil companies do pay royalties on the resources they extract to the governments of those countries.
Now, I'm a lot more worried about the environmental record of those oil companies, but let's not fool ourselves that they snuck in and set up drilling rigs and refineries without permission.
I'm well aware of the history of the US meddling in Latin America. On the other hand, many governments in Latin America have been over-eager to just blame external forces for their economic problems and attempt to solve them via expropriation. I still hear this argument from supporters of the Venezuelan government; you don't have to be a raging capitalist to think that the government of that country is catastrophically incompetent. Last time I looked they were nationalizing supermarkets.
>While I'm not particularly a fan of oil companies, they didn't just turn up in a country and start drilling wells without permission. Generally they were invited in by governments that lacked the technology or capital ot build a domestic oil industry.
Or, in South America, invited by the previous government, which was often an America-installed despot.
Really. So someone went in and started drilling wells without asking anyone? Go on, tell me who.
I was heartily against the invasion of Iraq, but trying to equate the two is just bullshit. This is a great example of why our politics are so dysfunctional - people just trading zingers instead of making the slightest attempt to be factual.
No, someone went in, paid off some local politicians and military leaders, who then went in and forcibly (read: murdered a few of them) locals and any opposition. Then underpaid some contractors so that there would be none of the pesky expensive safe disposal of waste. Oh, not to mention also had some militias shakedown workers when they protest a lack of pay, late pay or basic rights.
This is a video about the South African mining strike (which I agree was a clusterfuck). The conversation was about oil exploitation in Iraq. How can I take your position seriously when you just move the goalposts around like that?
My basic point is not that corporate investments are necessarily fairly run or favorable to poor people in a developing country. They're not, and if you read my posts here regularly you'll see I'm actually quite skeptical of corporate governance and market idealism.
On the other hand, one has to recognize that it takes two to tango; corporations buy things like mineral exploitation rights from governments, and ultimately the government of a nation has to be responsive to its population, notwithstanding the fact that many governments are despotic. This being the case, it behooves new governments reviewing unfavorable deals to renegotiate terms like royalty rates or lease terms (both of which happen all the time), whereas unilateral expropriation should be a last resort because it signals to any and all investors that the country in question is an unreliable place to invest, so you scare away ethical investors as well as greedy ones.
Well, the historical precedent here is actually Iran. And look how well things went when foreign business interests were given that kind of standing there.
As someone who has benefitted a whole lot from nationalized industries, I feel it would be immoral for me to deny other countries the same opportunity.
For me, the shareholders in an oil company are less important than the inhabitants of the oil rich countries.
One of the things I most like about the EFF is that they increase the transparency of back room deals that help special interests to the detriment of the general public.
"[TPP] .. stands to have intensely damaging effects on nearly every front, from internet freedom to copyright law. But if you raise these concerns with negotiators, who have privileged access to the text of the agreement, they’ll just tell you that they have access to the latest draft, and you don’t ... Every TPP chapter leaked reveals some new policy horrorshow. But in this game of cat and mouse between governments, corporations, and citizens, those who are in the know always have the upper hand."
The TPP makes me crazy, as I'm a big fan of trade for basically the same reason I'm a big fan of transparency: I think things generally go better when we have a lot of well-informed individuals thinking and making choices.
I've been strongly in favor of pretty much every trade deal to come along. But here my feeling is more "fuck that" as I have zero faith that the secretive TPP process would produce anything I can trust.
The TPP is an anti-free trade deal. It's mostly about strengthening intellectual property and giving multinationals their own special courts so that they can sue governments for lost profits if they implement environment/labor legislation.
How do you know this? I follow economics blogs and the general reaction concerning TPP is that the secrecy hype is overblown and that it's largely just a mundane trade agreement with a few nasty provisions like the copyright stuff, but the good parts outweigh the bad.
I'd be hard-pressed to argue with their opinion without actually reading the agreement, not to mention the years of education and exposure to global geopolitics I'd need to actually understand what the provisions being argued over mean and why they exist.
Geopolitics is nuclear science that everyone seems to think is a bikeshed.
Mostly Marginal Revolution and whatever he links to. He's got a way of making economics accessible that I've yet to really see elsewhere.
I wasn't being literal. It's not very complicated, and you can understand it, but there's a lot of hidden context involved and the consequences of ignorance in that space are immense.
And that's the rub, right? You agree with most prior free trade deals because you're privy to the information needed to form an opinion about them. You and I may disagree, but we have access to the facts in order to have informed debate.
Keeping things secret can only be done because access to those facts would be almost universally distasteful to everyone - so let's not tell anyone.
(It's easy to then make a jump to human rights, as violations of those are almost always secret.)
Those other trade deals were negotiated in secret before being presented to Congress for a vote, or to the public if it was a simple bilateral agreement without treaty powers.
Do we negotiate nuclear policy iwth Iran on live TV with a big audience in the room? Of course not. Do we negotiate clogal warming agreements in public? No. The whole point of international negotiation is to sit down and be able to work out your differences in a de-politicized manner and then submit an agreement to legislatures for approval.
I swear, I've never seen so much paranoid bullshit as I have about his TPP thing. This is diplomacy, not fucking reality TV.
Nuclear agreements that deal with nations' rights to defend themselves on a level that could wipe out all life on Earth is so far and away different from trying to secretly enshrine universally disliked copyright laws for monetary protectionism, that it's mind-numbing that you would leave a comment with such snark while lacking any ability to differentiate between the topic we're dealing with and nuclear proliferation.
The TPP is aggressively trying to enshrine SOPA-esque laws on the international level - laws that have repeatedly been defeated by almost universal public outcry. The fact that they're reintroduced in secrecy, as a method to circumvent the will of nations of people is where the hate for the TPP comes from.
Then if such provisions make it through to the final version, encourage your representative to vote against it. I refuse to get caught up in this fake issue of diplomats negotiating things in secret - as far as I'm concerned that's a distinct positive, as i minimizes the opportunity for politicians to engage in unproductive grandstanding.
Do you have any evidence that, say, NAFTA was secret before the vote? I don't recall any of that from the time. I also don't recall this level of secrecy around climate negotiations.
It's the same idea (companies can sue governments for making laws that impact potential future earnings' amongst other things), and is being negotiated in the same secretive way, with even MEPs having to sign NDAs before being allowed to see a draft.
How can a trade deal be negotiated transparently when our media circus will be out in force muddying the waters? If he (Obama) keeps the terms of the deal secret until its brought up for a vote, he's not being transparent. If he makes the current terms of negotiation transparent, how is any president supposed to negotiate terms with multiple foreign governments when the noise generated by the media circus, members of the house and senate, and various other talking-heads would constantly muddy the waters? Until the terms of the deal are known, I prefer to withhold judgement because even ordering from a drive-thru with a half-dozen children in the back of your car is difficult. I can't imagine the impossibility of negotiating a trade deal with Republicans and Rupert Murdock giving their play-by-play analysis every step of the way.
The terms of the TTP are so bad that they had to discuss it in secret, because otherwise people would be able to see all of the utter bullshit that it contains.
There is a chapter in The Two Towers called "The Voice of Saruman". Saruman is defeated, but is still powerfully persuasive. At one point he calls to Gandalf and invites him into Orthanc. Those who hear the invitation believe that Gandalf will go into the tower to confer with Saruman, and will then emerge again to tell everyone their fate.
Instead of doing that, Gandalf laughs, insults Saruman, and breaks his fucking staff.
It's incredulous that Obama is pushing this deal so hard after backing net neutrality so early on when this deal is universally frowned upon. Not able to wrap around my head around this.
Obama appears to have abandoned any pretense that he supports good, long-term political goals: drone wars, enabling Iran's nuclear ambitions, abandoning Ukraine, mass surveillance of the American and other people, letting ISIS take over much of Irak, secret anti-freedom trade agreements, pouring oil on local riots or crimes, avoiding "Je suis Charlie" demo, etc. The infamous words of a French king come to mind.
People are incredulous when they themselves are skeptical. But it can still be incredible "that Obama...". The thing that is incredible is the occurrence or the circumstance. 'Incredible' is actually the correct word in the top-level comment. The author is incredulous because they find it incredible.
And he complains that critics have a “lack of knowledge of what is going on in the negotiations”
How rich. Of course they have a lack of knowledge since he has kept everything secret. The only thing we know about what is actually being negotiated is because of some leaks.
He's absolutely involved. He's the President. If he opposed this, he could fire anyone he wanted. Also, several aspects of thes negotiations are classified which would make it unlikely that any of this originated at a 'lower level.' The U.S. Trade represenative is an ambassador level appointment which means he was hand-picked by Obama. If this lack of transparency bothers you then you should be voting for Rand Paul or Ted Cruz and against Hilary Clinton. Remember Clinton has been the queen of opacity in terms of releasing information to the public. With Clinton, government will run like this as a default. She stonewalls at Congressional investigations, destroys email servers that could be evidence in criminal investigations.. And on and on. Almost anyone is better in terms of secrecy and disclosure than a Clinton. Obama is a close second: the closed door everything about this administration is disgusting; additionally his appointment of Loretta Lynch as AG is especially horrible considering her views on civil asset forfeiture. I think the Chinese Central Committee has more transparency than the Obama administration.
Obama has just been at Nike HQ arguing for the deal and fast track. Check out the video... he's criticizing legislators for being ignorant of a deal _that is kept secret from them_. All I hear is "just trust me," from a politician.
In 30 years, with the benefit of hindsight, this could turn out to be one of the defining issues of our era (along with surveillance and the growth of state and corporate cyber warfare). Glad the UN and EFF are doing something to shine a light on it.
- America already has low tariffs (hence our lust for imported goods). The rest of the world has higher tariffs. US goods producers stand more to gain from TPP than foreign goods producers.
- Average wages for traded/export industries, such as Kentucky bourbon, are higher than for local industries, like hospitals. The more the US can focus on traded industries, the more wages rise in America. Germany does a great job of this. We don't but TPP would help.
- TPP still has to get approved by Congress. Fast track just strips Congress' ability to amend or filibuster the deal - two tactics that favor special interests over majority interests.
- Special interests are always powerful in trade negotiations. Limiting their power is crucial to passing equitable, long-term focused deals.
The TPP isn't about tarriffs. They're the smallest and least important part of the deal.
>- Average wages for traded/export industries, such as Kentucky bourbon, are higher than for local industries, like hospitals.
Survivorship bias.
>- TPP still has to get approved by Congress. Fast track just strips Congress' ability to amend or filibuster the deal
Fast track also legislates away Congress's own constitutional trade authority over future deals. Basically (Hillary) or whomever will be able to dictate what goes in future deals.
>- Special interests are always powerful in trade negotiations. Limiting their power is crucial to passing equitable, long-term focused deals.
It was drafted in complete secrecy by corporate lobbyists. It's their bill. It's their dream. Limiting the power of special interests like them means striking the bill down.
We can't engage in any nuanced conversation of the TPP because we don't know what's in it. Given that, I find no reason to be anything but completely against it.
How can you be completely against something that, by your own admission, you are unfamiliar with? Would you have been "completely against" North Korea and the U.N. signing an armistice in 1953 while it was still being negotiated?
That's just absurd. The rational thing is to be neutral about it until it comes in front of Congress for a vote. At that point you can read it and decide whether you want your representative to support or oppose it.
I'd like to note that amendments are important, and taking away the ability to amend a bill is not a good thing. Take for example the 1st amendment to the constitution: Freedom of Speech.
for agriculture product US has high tariff and/or agricultural subsidies (to compensate some low tariff) and even quotas for selected products (mostly not manufactured).
Who could be for protectionism? Well for starters, the United States for most of its history. Protectionism is a big part of what put the US in a position to become the global superpower.
Tariffs on superior, imported textiles from the British Empire allowed the US textile industry to become dominant. Many years later the US gov did the same thing at the behest of the American steel magnates, allowing the US steel industry to become dominant. In fact, the GWB administration added tariffs to protect the US steel industry against Chinese steel about 10 years ago. Furthermore, just this week, US steel companies are asking to have them put back into place http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-steel-ceo-says-tariffs-could... .
This is a case of the US advocating do as we say, not as we do. The US obviously doesn't want Vietnam, Mexico, or any other country to develop their own industries -- they want to flood their markets with American made products so that American corporations can see nice profits. Unfortunately, thats usually at odds with whats in the best interest of the foreign nations population.
No arguments here. Lots of countries, the US included, have historically utilized protectionist polices that benefit local industries at the expense of higher prices for local citizens and undeserved profits for local industry. My point, besides the fact that I'm personally in favor of free trade, is that the TPP in reality has little to do with free trade. From an analysis by Dean Baker:
"The actual trade barriers between the United States and the countries in these deals, with few exceptions, are already quite low. This means that there is little to be gained by lowering them still further."
How can I come to these comments and not see a single thing written about China?
Secretary of Defense Carter stated that he would rather have the TPP succeed than have another aircraft carrier.
The TPP, from a national defense perspective, is one of the aces in the US sleeve. It is a way to isolate China, who would like to be a superpower, who has overtaken the US in terms of economic might, and who is challenging the US for geopolitical power, from the rest of the Asia-Pacific economy - unless it plays by a specific set of rules.
Extremely strong exportation of US intellectual property law into the Asia-Pacific? Yeah, that has nothing to do with the battle for the new world and the past 16 years of US foreign policy to 'Pivot to Asia'.
I'm not saying the TPP will be good for US citizens. I am saying that it will be one piece in something 'good' for the United States as a world power. It's true and unfortunate that what can be bad for one can be good for another. But let's call a spade a spade.
First, China is not the boogeyman. I've lived there for ages, the modern state is very decent by a lot of measures and you really do feel safer on the streets than in much of the western world. Yes, it has its problems, but at least it doesn't run around randomly invading countries, dreaming out loud about "instant global strike capability".
China doesn't and will never play by US rules. For example, they joined the WTO and just ignored a lot of the provisions. This is a good thing for the world, because it keeps things multi-polar. The last thing we need is one world government with a corporate-dominated aggressor-state flush with dynastic influence determining world political and economic fate in an era where we are facing survival-level serious global issues.
Einstein rightly said Nationalism is an infantile disease: the measles of mankind ... however, I'm sure he wouldn't have lobbied for the alternative of a shady back-channel network of non-transparent private supra-national political/economic paralegal rent-seeking and enforcement. That's essentially what we're heading toward, as Assange echoes: The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia.http://cryptome.org/2012/12/assange-crypto-arms.htm
You should consider broadening your conception of international happenings from American politics. US 'pivoted' as far as Taiwan, Korea and Japan with a fat military 60 years ago, now the dominant thinking in the region (with early indications led by New Zealand and elements of Australian politics) is that they can go and pivot back on home.
First, thank you for taking the time to write a thoughtful reply.
China is definitely not a boogeyman. I hope my comment did not imply it is/was. :)
It's better to understand the comment by the idea that the US does not want a multi-polar world and will act in accordance. The Wolfowitz Doctrine (and friends) quite clearly state that the US Grand Defense Strategy is to prevent other superpowers from forming. The US will be chasing its interests rather than its ideals in this case.
If you look through my other comments you will see that my conception of international happenings is broader than American politics.
But here, for the discussion of American politics and legislation - whether Fast Track will be passed etc - it is enough to understand why the US, rightly or wrongly, wants the TPP.
While many, including myself, are likely to agree that a US hegemony is a questionable way to run the world, this doesn't allow us insight into what the TPP is about for the United States. The TPP is about preventing the 'second pole'.
The US and Japan just formed a collective defense pact which required them to reinterpret their Constitution. The number of military vessels, wargaming, intelligence, etc being pointed at China has nothing to do with it's being a boogeyman. As Einstein right said Nationalism is an infantile disease: the meales of mankind.... this measels shows itself again with another fight for power and influence.
The first interesting comment in "favor" (as in, a possible defense, not necessarily parent's opinions) of the TPP that make me step back and consider another angle.
Of course, I still land in favor of a quick death to the TPP... China's global economic dominance is likely a foregone conclusion. More a question of "when" than "if..." I wouldn't mind getting on with the business of how the U.S. operates in an admirable 2nd place rather than living through even more international meddling that seems to universally bite us in the ass, eventually.
This is what Washington Thinktanks and Defense Officials are saying about the TPP. I'm not really advocating the TPP as much as I am trying to bring awareness about what the TPP is for.
I can see how TPP (when we find out what precise it is) could be claimed to affect human rights. But "fast track" is a parliamentary technique used for other types of bills, such as the BRAC bills that are used to close U.S. military bases (domestically and overseas).
Ostensibly it puts the head of state in a power to negotiate with a guarantee that the legislative body won't modify the terms and conditions after the international negotiation is done. This offers a leveraging ability because the other negotiators know that the document won't be modified afterward.
There's nothing wrong intellectually with the problem/solution scenario presented and solved by such a mechanism - so long as you entrust the people negotiating to be representing your interests.
And therein lies the problem. Many American's haven't stated the words "This is not a representative government and has lost its authority" because that is directly seditious, but in practice their contextualized actions support this postulation.
The reason that the mechanism of fast track is not ok because people strongly distrust the government - in fact, that's a redeeming feature of some open democracies - it's why we have an election determined by a calendar, and not the whim of the ruling party.
The underpinnings of trust in what makes such a solution work is fundamentally incompatible with our structure and experience of government. We have strong evidence and are fully aware of what that will lead to.
And as more of the TPP is leaked, we see we are 100% right. That's why fast track is patently offensive - we know it's the 1% trying to be a stealthy ninja to screw over the 99% even more. Well, most of us do --- some of us are Lenin's useful idiots (usually about 28% believe in supply side neoliberalism in polls. Lucky for us, about 90% of those hate Obama)
This is why commercial news outlets report so little about it. A strategy of silence is the only chance they have.
They could try to stall two years and hope a republican or at least a white male is in the white house but I think there is cognizance that the timeline of net neutrality which led to an activist victory can't be repeated.
If you give the internet 2 more years to mobilize on this, TPP iz getting defeated. Chelsea Manning changed the rules of the game. People could relate to the wussy kid who shook the global military complex. Everything took off after that. Corporate power needs to be faster and quieter, the lion has awoken.
To force Congress into an up-or-down vote on the merits of the whole package instead of pointless thread-pulling that will cause an agreement to founder. There are 12 countries that are a party to the TPP. If we are to wait for 12 legislatures to debate and amend and re-amend then nothing will ever get done; there are times when a simple yes or no vote is more appropriate.
It's like people don't seem to understand the point of having an executive branch in the first place. This sort of thing is precisely why we have one, and why the Constitution specifically empowers the President to negotiate treaties 'with the advice and consent of the senate' - not with the endless amendments and horse-trading of Congress as a whole that bedevils a great deal of domestic legislation.
Same reason you'd use the similar rules for BRAC: By forcing politicians to take an up-or-down vote on measures of national importance you get the best chance at a vote on the merits of the bill in question, without parochial concerns creeping in.
You'd never expect members of Congress from Florida to vote in favor of a bill that takes away a military base at Jacksonville, for instance, no matter how much excess capacity is resident at the base. For instance Naval Station Mayport has not had a carrier homeported there for years ever since the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) was decommissioned. So all of the infrastructure at the base dedicated to carrier-centric concerns could be shuttered and possibly save the taxpayers some money, but doing so would forestall the option of adding a carrier later, and would probably reduce the number of personnel assigned to the base.
Alternately you could assign a nuclear carrier to the base to make use of the infrastructure present, but you'd need to make further upgrades to handle nuclear carriers, and assigning a carrier to Mayport would necessarily mean removing it from Norfolk.
Guess which state's delegation has successfully prevented the use of funds to expand Mayport's carrier capabilities? Hint: They are north of North Carolina and south of Maryland.
Now a bill like a free trade bill is practically the definition of a bill easily tainted with parochial concerns. That's the reason there was a similar outcry over NAFTA while it was being drafted, when "experts" at the time were stridently predicting the impending implosion of the American economy, with wording that would have made Steinbeck sound like a happy-go-lucky author.
It's telling when the zeal over free trade turns even progressive icons like Bernie Sanders into racists that resort to turning Vietnamese (as one example) into a sub-class of humanity compared to Americans. It's also telling when the worst accusation that can be laid against the proposal to date is that "it's still being negotiated in secret!!!1", as if that wasn't also the method used to negotiate most major international agreements.
The final proposal may turn out to be bad, and in that case I'll be the first to recommend vetoing the proposal as a whole. But simplified trade authority approval procedures are precisely the right thing to do, as otherwise you end up with "ratification" bills that ratify something completely different than what had been agreed, usually with a Ted Stevens-style "Bridge to Nowhere" attached right on top.
This is the real problem that TPTB dont seem to grasp. If you make the rampant lawlessness visible to the people, the people will stop respecting the law. That is how societies fall apart, when the rule of law is a farce, you can expect nothing but strife.
TPA has been around for 30 years. It's always worked well.
The idea is that congress sets a standard and set of parameters for negotiation that the US Trade Authority then goes out to negotiate and structure trade deals. They must stay within the boundaries set by congress. Then they can go out and negotiate in good faith, knowing that if they stay in those boundaries, congress has agreed to debate and then approve or reject a deal within 90 congressional days (about a year). The bar for rejection is high, because the deal in front of them has to already fit within the parameters congress themselves set out.
The term "Fast Track" has to be one of the most misleading terms used in political lingo. Fast Track in this sense basically means almost a year for congress to approve a trade deal.
Moreover, very little about TPP or Fast Track is "secret" or "backroom" and is how trade deals have been done for the longest time. It's unclear why the EFF is taking up this cause.
The amount of propaganda being spun up over TPA is surprising, considering we've had it for 30 years and it's been an economic boon for the US economy.
Edit: I have no idea why I'm being downvoted for this.
The fast track, that is taking congress a year to sign, is the process of not then needing congress to sign anything after. If it passes, the whitehouse will be able to then sign details of new trade agreements without congress. It is not not the initial process of getting congress to agree to fast track.
What people don't get is that we've had TPA since the 70s:
"""""
For more than 30 years, Congress has granted the President TPA/fast track authority, agreeing to
consider trade agreement implementing legislation expeditiously and to vote on it without
amendment, provided the President meets certain statutory negotiating objectives and
consultation requirements, and the implementing bill contains the necessary and limited
qualifying provisions. TPA strikes a delicate balance by clarifying how Congress chooses to
exercise its constitutional authority over a particular aspect of trade policy, while presumably
giving the President additional negotiating leverage by effectively assuring U.S. trade partners
that a final agreement will be given timely and unamended consideration by Congress.
""""
This is much bigger than copyright. This is removing substantive power from existing governments and transferring it to a new structure. The fast-tracking should be seen, not just as evading scrutiny by the public, but also as evading scrutiny by Congress and by other legislatures whose power is being stolen from them. When you write your representative, you might warn them that this puts them on track to end up like the Queen of England: powerless figureheads.