This Is How Much Big Business Paid US Senators To Fast-Track The TPP Deal

Saturday, December 5, 2015
By Paul Martin

By Alex Pietrowski
ActivistPost.com
DECEMBER 5, 2015

Debate around the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continues to mount. The recently-released 6,000 page agreement, encompassing 18,000 categories of goods and services and a region that accounts for 40 percent of the global economy, hasn’t been ratified by the U.S. Congress or Senate. Yet, the U.S. President has made his support clear with statements such as, “We are both soon to be signatories to the TPP agreement,” a comment Obama made on Nov. 19, 2015, after his bilateral meeting with new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Barack Obama’s confidence stems partially from the Trade Promotion Authority fast-tracking bill, which passed the U.S. Senate in May 2015, with a vote of 65-33. What has led to such strong support of the agreement?

Part is the work of U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who is one of the biggest supporters of the TPP on Capitol Hill. He’s been very effective in selling U.S. Senators on the pretense that the TPP will economically benefit the U.S., although many believe that the benefits really fall to U.S. corporations and not the country’s citizens.

Just to make sure corporations extract every pound of flesh, any public law interpreted by corporations as impeding projected profit, even a law designed to protect the environment or consumers, will be subject to challenge in an entity called the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) section. The ISDS, bolstered and expanded under the TPP, will see corporations paid massive sums in compensation from offending governments for impeding their “right” to further swell their bank accounts. Corporate profit effectively will replace the common good. ~ Chris Hedges, Truthdig (source)

The Rest…HERE

Leave a Reply

Join the revolution in 2018. Revolution Radio is 100% volunteer ran. Any contributions are greatly appreciated. God bless!

Follow us on Twitter