Did you watch President Obama’s State of the union address last week? While he talked about a lot of good things most of us can agree with, asking for “fast track” (or “trade promotion”) authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a gargantuan secretive trade deal that’s been called "NAFTA on steroids”—isn’t one of them.
The TPP is a trade deal currently under negotiation among 12 nations—Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam. If ratified by these governments, TPP would be the largest trade deal in history -- representing 792 million people and accounting for 40 percent of the world economy -- yet it's being written and negotiated in secret.
That’s right—none of the details of this sweeping trade agreement are available to the public.
What's been leaked about it so far reveals that the TPP would offshore millions of American jobs, expose the U.S. to imports of unsafe food, threaten food sovereignty, and empower corporations to attack hard-fought U.S. environmental and health safeguards. Instead of using trade agreements to elevate economic, health, and environmental standards across borders, the TPP creates a race to the bottom.
A trade deal this sweeping must be debated and negotiated in the light of day—not behind closed doors. But fast track authority would allow the President to sign the TPP before Congress has voted to approve it, and then railroad the deal through Congress in only 90 days with limited debate and no amendments allowed --essentially allowing trade representatives and corporations to subvert the democratic process by finalizing this disastrous deal without the benefit of Congressional oversight or public scrutiny.
Thanks for everything you do,
Center for Food Safety
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