In 1994, President Bill Clinton pushed through Congress a trade deal, NAFTA, that promised “more jobs and a rising living standard for the American people.” Twenty years later, its main effect has been to erode workers’ rights, driving industry out of the U.S. to Mexico and increasing corporate profit for the wealthy, while the middle class shrinks and poverty spreads.
Now, in 2014, President Barack Obama has been quietly nurturing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade deal supported by corporate interests that Noam Chomsky states would “further erode the security of workers and the middle class, irrevocably harm the environment and undercut important financial, medical and food safety regulations.”
There is a growing problem of income inequality in the U.S., striking a blow to the functioning of a healthy democracy. With TPP, the richest 5 to 10 per cent of American households would get richer, while the bottom 90 per cent of Americans suffer a loss of income.
President Obama has tried to keep TPP secret.Thanks to WikiLeaks parts of the text were made public. A public outcry against TPP was expressed to Congress. Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader, refused to fast-track TPP legislation, which has temporarily blocked approval from Congress.
FlushtheTPP.Org sums it up very well. “The TPP is about much more than trade. It is a global corporate coup.” We must stay vigilant.
References
“NAFTA, Twenty Years After: A Disaster” (Economic Policy Institute)
Effect of TPP on richest 5 to 10 percent and poorest 90 percent is by Ruth Conniff in The Progressive, March, 2014, page 6.
Chomsky is quoted in The Nation, March 10, 2014, page 11.
