Job Losses and Obama’s TPP: The Deadly Impacts of Trade Agreements on Employment
By Stephen Lendman
Global Research
July 02, 2015
On Monday, Obama signed regressive Fast Track legislation into law – giving himself diktat power to ram through Congress anti-populist trade bills like TPP with minimal debate and no amendments.
Besides other provisions benefitting investors at the expense of public welfare, it’s a jobs killer/environment destroyer.
Nothing Obama says is credible. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes strong protections for workers and the environment,” he blustered in remarks before signing what demands rejection.
“This agreement will help us level the playing field,” he added – like NAFTA and the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement among others.
On January 1, 1994, NAFTA’s destructive life began. Like ALL US trade bills, it’s anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-consumer, and and anti-government serving everyone fairly and equitably.
Its one-size-fits-all rules benefit corporate interests exclusively. They override domestic laws. NAFTA proponents promised tens of thousands of newly created US jobs in its early years.
Ordinary farmers would export their way to wealth. Mexican living standards would rise. Economic opportunities would reduce regional immigration to America.
NAFTA’s promises never materialized. Reality exposed hype. A decade later, about a million US jobs were lost – many more annually, part of the process of shifting America’s manufacturing base and numerous other jobs to low-wage countries.
TPP is NAFTA on steroids. Its destructive provisions are paradise for predatory investors but nightmarish for American consumers. It’s modeled after the US-Korea FTA.
June 30 was the 8th anniversary of its signing – implemented by Obama in March 2012. Government data show double the rate of US jobs lost to Korea in the measure’s first three years.
The Rest…HERE
