Hawaii protests TPP Summit

SUBHEAD: Congress refused to pass Fast Track legislation that would allow the TPP to be rushed through.

By Staff on 15 March 2015 for Citizen's Trade -
(http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/blog/2015/03/15/hawaii-islanders-protest-outside-secretive-tpp-trade-summit/)


Image above: Protesters at site of TPP Summit on Big Island reveal location of secret dealings. From original article.

As trade negotiators from throughout the Pacific Rim met at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa in March 2015 with a goal of pushing the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to completion, residents from across the Big Island and beyond gathered outside for a protest deriding the proposed pact as a “back-room deal for the one percent.”

“The last thing we need is another race-to-the-bottom trade agreement that hurts the economy, the environment and public health in our state and beyond,” said Koohan Paik of Honokaa. “There is a reason that the TPP is being negotiated in the shadows, and that’s because when people find out about it, they’re horrified.”

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Many in Hawai`i were awakened to the types of dangers TPP could bring after the world’s largest chemical corporations pushed preemption bills in the Hawaii state legislature, taking away Hawai`i County’s right to “home rule” in regulating genetically modified crops and associated experimental pesticide use.

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Jim Albertini, long-time peace activist and farmer from Kurtistown said, “This is the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) of the Pacific. It grants corporate domination over county, state, and national sovereignty. It threatens jobs, the environment, sacred sites, labor rights and will increase the gap between rich and poor. It will increase militarization in the Asia-Pacific.”

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The TPP is a 12-nation trade and investment agreement that would set rules governing approximately 40% of the global economy.  It’s 29 separate chapters cover not only traditional trade matters such as tariffs and quotas, but also medicine patents, environmental protections, food safety standards, financial regulations, Internet protocols, energy policy, public procurement and more.

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Despite being under negotiation for five years now, U.S. negotiators still refuse to let the public see their TPP proposals, while simultaneously granting hundreds of corporate lobbyists special “cleared advisor” status that provides them access to negotiating texts.  What’s known about the TPP comes largely from leaked documents first published by groups such as Citizens Trade Campaign and WikiLeaks.

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Albertini added, “When negotiators refuse to tell the public what they’re proposing in our names, it begs the question, ‘What are they trying to hide?’  Leaked documents suggest they’re hiding another back-room deal for the one percent that enriches big corporations at the expense of almost everybody else.”

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The U.S. Congress has refused to pass Fast Track “trade promotion authority” legislation that would allow the TPP to be rushed through the approval process, circumventing ordinary congressional review, amendment and debate procedures.  Fast Track legislation failed last year after nearly all House Democrats and a sizable bloc of House Republicans announced their opposition, and many freshman in the current Congress have also announced their opposition to Fast Track in recent weeks.

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“Fast Track for the TPP is dead,” said Paik.  “Why foreign negotiators would accept some of the draconian things that U.S. negotiators are demanding is baffling, given that Congress is either going to amend any deal it receives or quash it altogether. You’d think they’d want assurances that the TPP could move forward unimpeded before selling out their nations’ sovereign ability to protect things like access to medicine, family farms and financial safeguards.”

[IB Publisher's note: Koohan Paik sent these links of photos of demonstrations against TPP during meetings on Hawaii last week.  See photos here (http://malu-aina.org/?p=3039) and here (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.718488031603148.1073741830.710570195728265&type=1)] 

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