General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Anyone want to try and defend the President on the TPP? [View all]The Traveler
(5,632 posts)What we know about the TPP, as some of the "defenders" have pointed out, is based on leaked material that is quite potentially out of date.
But that does not constitute an effective defense of this "trade agreement" or the manner in which the Administration has conducted the negotiations. Rather, that observation illustrates the very core of the problem.
What we do know (due to those aforementioned leaks) is that negotiations have included proposals which have a direct impact on the internal law of the signatory nations. More significantly, these proposals include enforcement requirements and procedures which have the potential to significantly redefine "due process" in those signatory nations, including ours. "Investor rights" are elevated in legal priority over local environmental regulation, for example, and that in itself is a stunning shift in law.
At this point, some of those proposals may (or may not) be included in the most recent drafts of the agreement. We really don't know. And that takes us back to the very core of the problem.
An agreement of this scope affects over 300,000,000 stake holders in this country. But at most a thousand or so understand the current state of the negotiations and access to information about it is as tightly controlled as the most dear of military secrets. "Fast track" adoption insures that 300,000,000 stake holders will be signed up to this new arrangement without even having a chance to understand their new obligations.
In what sense can we call that kind of process "democratic"? The President's motivations may well be as pure as freshly falling snow but the manner in which this is being done is entirely inappropriate. Those 300,000,000 stake holders have, at least in theory, a right to see this proposal, and their reactions to be heard. We have an election coming up ... this should be a well discussed issue. Instead, we are dependent on scraps of information intermittently leaked to us.
That the people's considerations are being so forcibly excluded from these deliberations IS the problem.
Trav