detail: ROBERT REICH: The TPP is NAFTA on steroids. Make a ruckus.

Robert Reich

STOP THE TPP. Congress is poised to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (that is, move it through both houses without opportunity for amendment). This massive trade pact with 11 Asian and Latin American nations, whose total population is almost 800 million and comprise 40 percent of the world’s GDP, is a high priority for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its corporate patrons because it would strengthen patent and copyright protections abroad, and encourage American corporations to make even more stuff overseas and ship it here. Americans benefit from cheaper goods from abroad only if Americans have the money to buy them. But this massive deal would further erode the jobs and wages of working and middle-class Americans while delivering its biggest gains to corporate executives and shareholders. Moreover, the deal’s environmental and labor safeguards are woefully inadequate, and it would give global corporations further rights to challenge American health and safety laws. I still regret not doing more to strengthen the North American Free Trade Act's labor and environmental side-agreements when I was labor secretary under Bill Clinton. The TPP is NAFTA on steroids. Make a ruckus.