TPP branded as trade agreement, but what's really at stake. From Public Citizen.

[JDPriestly]

67. It's a matter of time.

And, whether we have or not, we have a devastatingly huge trade deficit. That is not good for the American economy.

Every dollar of the trade deficit is a dollar that was earned by someone in a foreign country and not by an American worker.

Every dollar of that trade deficit is a dollar on which the US government earned too little or maybe no tax revenue.

These trade agreements are impoverishing Americans. We have lost 675,000 jobs or more. And our trade deficit with Mexico, since we signed NAFTA (just as an example), has increased at a frightening rate.

We are losing, losing, losing from these trade agreements.

And, the TPP is supposed to have better labor provisions, but what, who is going to enforce those provisions? The corporations that can afford to go to court and hire expensive attorneys?

Dream on.

As for the idea that the US has not lost cases in the trade courts. I'm sure the TPP will fix that. Besides, the fact is, if you read the information on Public Citizen about the cases, the list on Public Citizen on the cases and outcomes, many, perhaps most of the lost cases, are denied a hearing based on procedural grounds. That will change.

In fact, there is a good chance that the TPP will contain provisions that make it easier for the court to hear cases. Obama's assurance that the TPP will be enforceable is for me in that respect frightening.

It sounds to me like the TPP court is to have more authority to hear and decide cases easily. It sounds to me like the procedural requirements are being "fixed" to allow corporations more success in suing wealthy countries like the US.

I am guessing, and what I am guessing is that it is because the agreement is horrible in a number of respects including reducing the procedural barriers to corporations' access to the international courts that the agreement has not been released. There are probably other reasons, but that is probably a big one.

I am very skeptical and pessimistic about the TPP. And so are the progressive members of Congress who have had the opportunity to see it. No to the TPP.

Let's invest in America and bring our infrastructure up to the standard of, say, Japan's (with its 400 plus a mile train, etc.) before we get into more trade agreements.