You don’t know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership—or as it has been referred to, “NAFTA on steroids”— because corporate America doesn’t want you to.
But you better bone up on it real fast because if think NAFTA was a bad deal, wait until you get a hold of this one: the TPP will essentially expand NAFTA to 11 more countries.
It’s alarming that something described as the largest proposed trade deal in history—due to the number of issues it addresses and the number of countries involved—remains an enigma to most.
The deal’s text has been kept under wraps and only roughly 600 “trade advisors”—individuals representing multinational corporations and industry groups—have been allowed to see its content. Not the general public, not even our representatives in Congress.
And the motive for this unprecedented secrecy is clear: U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk explained it to Reuters in an interview, saying that secrecy is necessary because the last time negotiators released text of a trade deal—the Free Trade Deal of the Americas—back in 2003, the deal fell apart due to public outrage and protest.
Here’s what we do know about the TPP: only a few chapters have been leaked via Wikileaks, enough to reveal that the TPP includes even more incentives for domestic manufacturers to offshore jobs than NAFTA offered.
And right now is when people need to be most aware: Congress is currently debating whether to give President Obama fast-track authority that would enable his administration to wrap up this deal quickly with no scrutiny from Congress. This is the same kind of authority that allowed Bill Clinton to squeak NAFTA through Congress in 1994.
We cannot let Obama have it.
After all the glowing promises of NAFTA, the result has been that net imports from Canada and Mexico actually expanded, contributing to the 450% increase in our trade deficit over the last two decades and the net loss of about one million American jobs.
What’s so disappointing is that President Obama had the nerve to tout the big ‘opening-other-markets-for-our-goods’ myth in his State of the Union speech in January, despite the last two decades of evidence to the contrary.
You don’t even need an Econ 101 course to understand what is so wrong about these trade deals and their supposed widespread benefits—one of which is that they would open up markets to American goods.
Not true.
If a given country doesn’t have a strong middle-class with disposable income, they’re going to buy very few American goods. And of course countries like Mexico and China—as well as most of the countries that are part of TPP, such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore—do not have a strong middle-class. The average monthly wage in Vietnam was US$185.00 in 2011. And according to The World Bank, minimum wage in Malaysia was US$199/month in 2013.
In addition to competing with underpaid workers in Mexico and China, American workers, if the TPP becomes a reality, will need to brace themselves for an even bigger race to the bottom.
Despite all the rubbish about the “inevitability” of globalization and the need for American workers to simply adapt to a changing world, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about it. The outsourcing of good manufacturing jobs is a function of very deliberately crafted trade policy intended to weaken labors markets here.
Several members of congress have drafted an open letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, the DeLauro-Miller Fast Track Letter, seeking more transparency in the negotiations and more congressional oversight. With some transparency, the TPP will no doubt fall apart as the Free Trade Deal did in 2003.
One hundred and fifty-one democrats, as well as some Republicans, have signed this letter. Call your local congressman and tell him or her to do the same.
Alison Gallant is a writer and community activist in Southern California.
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