Pending Free Trade Agreements Raise Concerns Protesting the pending Transpacific Partnership (TPP) outside the Augusta Civic Center in December



Only through a series of leaks has there been any information available concerning ongoing talks regarding the Trans Pacific



Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement between the US and 11 other Asia-Pacific nations. And while the Obama administration is pressuring Congress to expedite passage of the pact through its "fast track" authority, even our elected representatives have not been fully briefed on what's actually in it. However, the TPP talks have not been kept secret from 600 corporate lawyers and lobbyists representing some of the largest multinational firms in the world in the negotiations. (See Free Press 1/9/2014: "Looming Trade Deal Raises Concerns About Impacts on Jobs and Farms in Maine".)



"Governments around the globe are currently engaged in the biggest flurry of trade and investment treaty negotiations since the 'roaring nineties,' when the belief in the virtues of liberalized market forces was at its peak. The shock of the 2008 global financial crisis appears to have been forgotten," begins a very critical report by Public Services International, a union representing 20 million public-sector workers in 154 countries. "Official enthusiasm for more intrusive, '21st century' treaties is at a level not seen since the creation of the World Trade Or-ganization (WTO) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the mid-1990s."



Although trade tariffs are at historical lows, business organizations like the Business Roundtable assert that these new investment pacts are not just about lowering taxes on imports and exports. Their goal is to also "harmonize barriers to investment." Critics say "harmonize" is just a code word for driving environmental, labor and consumer protections down to the lowest common denominator.



Trade agreement provisions known as "investor-state dispute settlements" allow companies to sue governments in private international tribunals over rules and regulations that threaten to limit investor profits. For example, in 2012 the Swedish power company Vattenfall used the mechanism to sue Germany for $3.7 billion when the country decided to phase out nuclear power. Last year, the energy company Lone Pine used the investor-state settlement provision in NAFTA to bring a $250 million lawsuit against Quebec for imposing a moratorium on controversial shale gas extraction techniques known as "fracking."



These provisions have the potential to tie the hands of local governments and threaten state sovereignty, says Rep. Sharon Treat (D-Hallowell), chair of the Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission and a trade advisor to the Obama administration.



"Tobacco regulations, environmental laws, public health regulations, whatever. They get to sue and bring it to a three-person arbitration panel and essentially go around the court system," said Treat.



According to Treat, because of the strict secrecy policies, she is prohibited from talking with or seeking advice from outside experts about what little she is able to glean from the negotiations. On the other side, Treat notes that the 600 industry advisors involved in the talks are able to devote their full-time attention and expertise to the negotiations, giving them a much bigger advantage over public advocacy groups. After strong opposition to the TPP from activists, it's unlikely the measure will be fast-tracked by Congress before November. However, Treat noted that the TPP could be taken up in a lame-duck session of Congress following the November election.



TTIP & Farming, GMO Labeling and Toxic Chemicals



Meanwhile, a new pending free trade agreement with the European Union called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is raising questions about its potential impact on Maine's local-food purchasing policies as well as toxic chemical regulation and GMO labeling. At a meeting of the Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission on June 26, Karen Hansen-Kuhn, the director of International Strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, expressed concerns that Maine's policies requiring public institutions to purchase a certain amount of locally produced food, such as farm-to-school programs, could be threatened by the TTIP as the laws could present a "barrier to international investment."



Hansen-Kuhn also noted that the EU has a policy of using the "pre-cautionary principle," which puts the burden of proof on companies to prove something is not harmful before it is allowed to be sold for consumption. With the exception of medicine, the US has the opposite policy. Some US fruit producers have argued that an EU ban on diphenylamine (DPA), a pesticide used on apples and pears, also presents a barrier to investment. EU officials are concerned that DPA can combine with nitrogen while the fruit is in storage to produce toxic nitrosamines, a chemical shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. International "free trade" agreements don't often make it onto the evening news, despite their potentially far-reaching impacts on jobs, local farms, environmental protection, food safety, labor standards, financial regulation and practically every other area of state and federal governance. Currently, a whole "alphabet soup" of new international trade and investment agreements, including the TPP, TTIP and TISA, are being negotiated in secret, with little or no input from the public.Only through a series of leaks has there been any information available concerning ongoing talks regarding the Trans PacificPartnership (TPP), a trade agreement between the US and 11 other Asia-Pacific nations. And while the Obama administration is pressuring Congress to expedite passage of the pact through its "fast track" authority, even our elected representatives have not been fully briefed on what's actually in it. However, the TPP talks have not been kept secret from 600 corporate lawyers and lobbyists representing some of the largest multinational firms in the world in the negotiations. (See Free Press 1/9/2014: "Looming Trade Deal Raises Concerns About Impacts on Jobs and Farms in Maine".)"Governments around the globe are currently engaged in the biggest flurry of trade and investment treaty negotiations since the 'roaring nineties,' when the belief in the virtues of liberalized market forces was at its peak. The shock of the 2008 global financial crisis appears to have been forgotten," begins a very critical report by Public Services International, a union representing 20 million public-sector workers in 154 countries. "Official enthusiasm for more intrusive, '21st century' treaties is at a level not seen since the creation of the World Trade Or-ganization (WTO) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the mid-1990s."Although trade tariffs are at historical lows, business organizations like the Business Roundtable assert that these new investment pacts are not just about lowering taxes on imports and exports. Their goal is to also "harmonize barriers to investment." Critics say "harmonize" is just a code word for driving environmental, labor and consumer protections down to the lowest common denominator.Trade agreement provisions known as "investor-state dispute settlements" allow companies to sue governments in private international tribunals over rules and regulations that threaten to limit investor profits. For example, in 2012 the Swedish power company Vattenfall used the mechanism to sue Germany for $3.7 billion when the country decided to phase out nuclear power. Last year, the energy company Lone Pine used the investor-state settlement provision in NAFTA to bring a $250 million lawsuit against Quebec for imposing a moratorium on controversial shale gas extraction techniques known as "fracking."These provisions have the potential to tie the hands of local governments and threaten state sovereignty, says Rep. Sharon Treat (D-Hallowell), chair of the Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission and a trade advisor to the Obama administration."Tobacco regulations, environmental laws, public health regulations, whatever. They get to sue and bring it to a three-person arbitration panel and essentially go around the court system," said Treat.According to Treat, because of the strict secrecy policies, she is prohibited from talking with or seeking advice from outside experts about what little she is able to glean from the negotiations. On the other side, Treat notes that the 600 industry advisors involved in the talks are able to devote their full-time attention and expertise to the negotiations, giving them a much bigger advantage over public advocacy groups. After strong opposition to the TPP from activists, it's unlikely the measure will be fast-tracked by Congress before November. However, Treat noted that the TPP could be taken up in a lame-duck session of Congress following the November election.Meanwhile, a new pending free trade agreement with the European Union called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is raising questions about its potential impact on Maine's local-food purchasing policies as well as toxic chemical regulation and GMO labeling. At a meeting of the Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission on June 26, Karen Hansen-Kuhn, the director of International Strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, expressed concerns that Maine's policies requiring public institutions to purchase a certain amount of locally produced food, such as farm-to-school programs, could be threatened by the TTIP as the laws could present a "barrier to international investment."Hansen-Kuhn also noted that the EU has a policy of using the "pre-cautionary principle," which puts the burden of proof on companies to prove something is not harmful before it is allowed to be sold for consumption. With the exception of medicine, the US has the opposite policy. Some US fruit producers have argued that an EU ban on diphenylamine (DPA), a pesticide used on apples and pears, also presents a barrier to investment. EU officials are concerned that DPA can combine with nitrogen while the fruit is in storage to produce toxic nitrosamines, a chemical shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. According to a report co-authored by Hansen-Kuhn and John Piotti of Maine Farmland Trust, several organizations have raised concerns that a provision in the TTIP could hamper Maine's ability to pass consumer protections by subjecting newly proposed food regulations to cost-benefit assessments and comment periods with trade-partner countries.



"This could potentially affect specific legislation enacted in Maine, such as stricter regulations on pesticides," the report stated.



Currently, Maine has a number of laws that are stricter than federal laws, such as the Kids Safe Products Act, which bans certain toxic chemicals. Treat and Hansen-Kuhn said that the TTIP could also affect the state's GMO labeling law, which would take effect if all other New England states passed a similar law. Treat noted that while the EU has a GMO labeling law, US corporations would like to repeal it and prevent US states from passing regulations stricter than federal laws. She pointed out that while the federal government has been mired in gridlock, states like Maine have been leaders in passing toxic chemical protections.



"They're looking at using this agreement to dumb down the European regulations and essentially lock in place the regulations the US has so that we can't move forward," said Treat. "[GMO labeling and the Kids Safe Products Act] are things that these companies are seeking to have preempted by federal provisions by means of this treaty, which is something they could not achieve if they had gone to Congress to preempt our state regulations. But in a closed-door forum, such as the trade negotiations, this is the kind of thing that businesses are trying to get."



Piotti also expressed concerns that the TTIP could have a catastrophic impact on Maine's dairy industry. The price that dairy farmers receive for their product is currently set by a mind-numbingly complicated federal pricing system. Although the pricing system has put many local farmers out of business, since it sets prices below the cost of production, it has also cushioned farmers from the harmful effects of international market competition. As Piotti noted, the price of milk is currently being driven by the price of non-fat dry milk powder (NDM), which could leave Maine dairy farmers vulnerable to price fluctuations caused by international trade agreements.



"The good news for farmers is that the price is higher than butter and that means that the farmers are being paid more," said Piotti. "The bad news is that if that increase in price for NDM went away, the price that the farmers would receive would be reduced significantly. There is a chance that the bottom could fall out of that price if the price of NDM changes."



The TTIP is expected to be finalized sometime in 2015.



NAFTA for Lawyers, Doctors and Financial Services?



On June 19, the website WikiLeaks released secret draft texts from the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), another pending international investment pact initiated by the US and Australia with 50 countries, representing 70 percent of the world's trade in services. According to the Coalition of Services Industries - which represents large corporate clients in the finance, entertainment, retail and tech sector - TISA will address "limited movement of data across borders, unfair competition from state-owned enterprises, lack of transparency and need for due process of law, and forced local ownership and discrimination in obtaining business licenses and permits."



According to critics, the leaked documents show an attempt to roll back financial regulations and consumer finance protections enacted following the 2008 global financial crisis.



"This is a text that big banks and financial speculators may love but that could do real damage to the rest of us," wrote Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a statement. "It includes a provision that is literally called 'standstill' that would forbid countries from improving financial regulation and would lock them into whatever policies they had on the books in the past."



Treat says the Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission plans to take up TISA at their next meeting in August.



"It's all about applying the same kind of standards that were applied to manufacturing companies in NAFTA to services, which is where the jobs have all fled to," said Treat. "You're talking about financial services, banking, mortgages, regulation of professions such as doctors and lawyers and essentially opening up everything to foreign competition and potentially privatization of public services. That's really scary and nobody really knows anything about it." According to a report co-authored by Hansen-Kuhn and John Piotti of Maine Farmland Trust, several organizations have raised concerns that a provision in the TTIP could hamper Maine's ability to pass consumer protections by subjecting newly proposed food regulations to cost-benefit assessments and comment periods with trade-partner countries."This could potentially affect specific legislation enacted in Maine, such as stricter regulations on pesticides," the report stated.Currently, Maine has a number of laws that are stricter than federal laws, such as the Kids Safe Products Act, which bans certain toxic chemicals. Treat and Hansen-Kuhn said that the TTIP could also affect the state's GMO labeling law, which would take effect if all other New England states passed a similar law. Treat noted that while the EU has a GMO labeling law, US corporations would like to repeal it and prevent US states from passing regulations stricter than federal laws. She pointed out that while the federal government has been mired in gridlock, states like Maine have been leaders in passing toxic chemical protections."They're looking at using this agreement to dumb down the European regulations and essentially lock in place the regulations the US has so that we can't move forward," said Treat. "[GMO labeling and the Kids Safe Products Act] are things that these companies are seeking to have preempted by federal provisions by means of this treaty, which is something they could not achieve if they had gone to Congress to preempt our state regulations. But in a closed-door forum, such as the trade negotiations, this is the kind of thing that businesses are trying to get."Piotti also expressed concerns that the TTIP could have a catastrophic impact on Maine's dairy industry. The price that dairy farmers receive for their product is currently set by a mind-numbingly complicated federal pricing system. Although the pricing system has put many local farmers out of business, since it sets prices below the cost of production, it has also cushioned farmers from the harmful effects of international market competition. As Piotti noted, the price of milk is currently being driven by the price of non-fat dry milk powder (NDM), which could leave Maine dairy farmers vulnerable to price fluctuations caused by international trade agreements."The good news for farmers is that the price is higher than butter and that means that the farmers are being paid more," said Piotti. "The bad news is that if that increase in price for NDM went away, the price that the farmers would receive would be reduced significantly. There is a chance that the bottom could fall out of that price if the price of NDM changes."The TTIP is expected to be finalized sometime in 2015.On June 19, the website WikiLeaks released secret draft texts from the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), another pending international investment pact initiated by the US and Australia with 50 countries, representing 70 percent of the world's trade in services. According to the Coalition of Services Industries - which represents large corporate clients in the finance, entertainment, retail and tech sector - TISA will address "limited movement of data across borders, unfair competition from state-owned enterprises, lack of transparency and need for due process of law, and forced local ownership and discrimination in obtaining business licenses and permits."According to critics, the leaked documents show an attempt to roll back financial regulations and consumer finance protections enacted following the 2008 global financial crisis."This is a text that big banks and financial speculators may love but that could do real damage to the rest of us," wrote Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a statement. "It includes a provision that is literally called 'standstill' that would forbid countries from improving financial regulation and would lock them into whatever policies they had on the books in the past."Treat says the Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission plans to take up TISA at their next meeting in August."It's all about applying the same kind of standards that were applied to manufacturing companies in NAFTA to services, which is where the jobs have all fled to," said Treat. "You're talking about financial services, banking, mortgages, regulation of professions such as doctors and lawyers and essentially opening up everything to foreign competition and potentially privatization of public services. That's really scary and nobody really knows anything about it." Related Sites "Looming Trade Deal Raises Concerns About Impacts on Jobs and Farms in Maine" by Andy O'Brien

"Looming Trade Deal Raises Concerns About Impacts on Jobs and Farms in Maine" by Andy O'Brien

"Looming Trade Deal Raises Concerns About Impacts on Jobs and Farms in Maine" by Andy O'Brien

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