Last week, the president, who claims he’s running the most transparent administration in history, went on the record saying there’s nothing secret in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as he asked Congress for special authority to “fast track” the agreement.

Today, President Obama will give another speech defending the TPP from critics who say the deal is a corporate power grab.

The TPP is a massive, legally binding, agreement involving 12 countries that has been negotiated entirely behind closed doors by government officials and industry lobbyists. The text of the TPP agreement is classified. The public can’t see it. Even members of Congress’ access to the text is severely restricted, and they face criminal prosecution if they tell their constituents what they’ve read.

In fact, the only portions of the TPP text the public is able to see are those released by Wikileaks, an organisation President Obama has all but personally chased to the ends of the earth. Thanks to the leaked draft texts, we know the TPP could impact everything from internet freedom, to jobs, to national sovereignty, and even how much we pay for the medicines we need.

Even those who favour opening up markets and liberalising trade oppose the TPP, since its backroom process inherently privileges incumbent industries, giving the largest companies even more market share and more power to set policies that stifle competition and innovation.

International agreements like the TPP, and the non-transparent Fast Track/Trade Promotion Authority process, provide the perfect venue for industry lobbyists to push for policies the general public would never accept if they were done in the open or attempted as legislation in Congress. Special interest groups like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) who helped write the resoundingly rejected Sopa and Pipa internet censorship bill are literally paying for a seat at the table, shaping the TPP to make sure it prioritises the profits and power of multinational corporations over people’s basic online rights to communicate and express themselves.

The latest draft of the TPP’s intellectual property chapter (which again, we only have access to thanks to Wikileaks) shows the Obama administration’s United States Trade Representative (USTR) is pushing for extremist copyright and internet policy provisions that would incentivize internet service providers to monitor more of their users’ activities, threatening online privacy. The TPP would also undermine “fair use” limitations intended to protect freedom of speech from overzealous copyright enforcement, harshen criminal prosecution for whistleblowers and journalists, and open the door for global internet censorship by setting up a system to remove allegedly “infringing” content from the web without a court order.

Not surprisingly, the public is less than thrilled to learn the government has been secretly negotiating a shadowy agreement in their name. The Obama administration has been taking heat from both the left and right. Hundreds of advocacy groups working on everything from digital rights to environmental issues to access to HIV medication have loudly condemned the TPP and the Fast Track bills that Congress is currently considering to speed it into law. Thousands of websites and tech companies have joined an online “internet vote” protest opposing the bill, and millions of internet users have spoken out, made phone calls, or attended protests demanding transparency and accountability in trade negotiations.

The Obama administration has been taking the heat, but it’s okay, because they have a plan. In order to convince a sceptical public that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is not a secret corporate power grab that will send US jobs overseas and lead to internet censorship, President Obama will be giving a speech today at the headquarters of Nike, a company associated with offshoring American jobs.

Nike’s CEO, Mark Parker, says his company has been “working closely with the US government” to get the TPP deal passed.



Today, when President Obama speaks at Nike HQ, there will be a protest outside. The protesters on the security perimeter won’t have access to the TPP text, or to the millions of dollars that companies are spending to lobby for Fast Tracking the global deal, but at least they’ll have an intact sense of irony, which is more than I can say for our nation’s president.

Evan Greer is campaign director at Fight for the Future. You can follow her on Twitter @evan_greer

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• This article was amended on 11 May 2015. An earlier version attributed a remark about the TPP deal to “Nike’s CEO, Phil Knight”. The remark was made by Nike’s current CEO, Mark Parker.

