Secret TPP Text Released: GOP to Push Obama’s Dangerous Trade Deal

 

The New American

Thursday, 05 November 2015 

Written by  William F. Jasper

 

 

Photo of Secretary of State John Kerry with President: AP Images


Following years of secret negotiating, the Obama administration released the text of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at 3:30 a.m. today (Thursday, November 5). Although billed as a “trade agreement,” the treaty calls for economic and political “integration” among the TPP members. Adopting the model that transformed the European Common Market into the European Union, the TPP creates regional governing structures and processes aimed at eventual convergence into a similar EU-style super-state.

Currently, the TPP's negotiating member states include the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. However, as we have been reporting here for years (see here and here ), the TPP architects have long stated their plans to use the TPP as a “stepping stone” to a much larger Free Trade Area of the Asian Pacific (FTAAP) that includes China and Russia.
The newly released text confirms this goal officially. The TPP Preamble states:
The Parties to this Agreement, resolving to:

ESTABLISH a comprehensive regional agreement that promotes economic integration....
EXPAND their partnership by encouraging the accession of other States or separate customs territories in order to further enhance regional economic integration and create the foundation of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.

As Christian Gomez reported for The New American on November 4, Secretary of State John Kerry (shown above with Obama) recently invited both Communist China and Russia to join the TPP. "We invite people to come join other initiatives, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP. We welcome China, we welcome Russia, we welcome other countries who would like to join, as long as they want to raise the standards and live up to the highest standards of protecting people and doing business openly and transparently and accountably," Kerry said in an interview with Russian interstate channel Mir TV.

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The New American

Friday, 06 November 2015

Senator Blasts TPP as “Global Governance,” Says Stop Fast-Track

Written by  William F. Jasper

`

 

 

 Photo of Sen. Jeff Sessions: AP Images

 

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has wasted no time in sounding the alarm over the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the Obama administration unveiled to the public and Congress on Thursday.

The enormous agreement (over 5,500 pages), which had been negotiated over the past several years in strictest secrecy and kept tightly under wraps until now (see here  and here), “confirms our fears,” said Sessions, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.

“The text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership runs 5,554 pages,” declared Sessions, in a statement issued Thursday, soon after the release of the text. “This is, by definition, anti-democratic,” he charged. “No individual American has the resources to ensure his or her economic and political interests are safeguarded within this vast global regulatory structure.”

 

According to Sessions: “The predictable and surely desired result of the TPP is to put greater distance between the governed and those who govern. It puts those who make the rules out of reach of those who live under them, empowering unelected regulators who cannot be recalled or voted out of office.  In turn, it diminishes the power of the people’s bulwark: their constitutionally-formed Congress.”
Sessions, who has been one of the most trenchant critics of the TPP among Republicans in Congress, has repeatedly pointed out that hidden under the verbiage about trade and jobs, the TPP amounts to the instigation of an entirely new governance system, one that would gradually supplant our own. “Among the TPP’s endless pages are rules for labor, environment, immigration and every aspect of global commerce — and a new international regulatory structure to promulgate, implement, and enforce these rules,” he warns. “This new structure is known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission — a Pacific Union — which meets, appoints unelected bureaucrats, adopts rules, and changes the agreement after adoption.”


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Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership completed: Corporatocracy wins as US Citizens are sold out yet again. It is up to Congress now.

End Of The American Dream

The American Dream Is Becoming A Nightmare And Life As We Know It Is About To Change

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Permanently Locking In The Obama Agenda For 40 Percent Of The Global Economy

By Michael Snyder, on October 5th, 2015

We have just witnessed one of the most significant steps toward a one world economic system that we have ever seen.  Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership have been completed, and if approved it will create the largest trading bloc on the planet.  But this is not just a trade agreement.  In this treaty, Barack Obama has thrown in all sorts of things that he never would have been able to get through Congress otherwise.  And once this treaty is approved, it will be exceedingly difficult to ever make changes to it.  So essentially what is happening is that the Obama agenda is being permanently locked in for 40 percent of the global economy.

The United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam all intend to sign on to this insidious plan.  Collectively, these nations have a total population of about 800 million people and a combined GDP of approximately 28 trillion dollars.

Of course Barack Obama is assuring all of us that this treaty is going to be wonderful for everyone…

In hailing the agreement, Obama said, “Congress and the American people will have months to read every word” before he signs the deal that he described as a win for all sides.

“If we can get this agreement to my desk, then we can help our businesses sell more Made in America goods and services around the world, and we can help more American workers compete and win,” Obama said.

Sadly, just like with every other “free trade” agreement that the U.S. has entered into since World War II, the exact opposite is what will actually happen.  Our trade deficit will get even larger, and we will see even more jobs and even more businesses go overseas.

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Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal Struck As "Corporate Secrecy" Wins Again

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/05/2015 17:46 -0400

Once again the corporatocracy wins as the so-called "Trojan horse" Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has been finalized. As WSJ reports, the U.S., Japan and 10 countries around the Pacific reached a historic accord Monday to lower trade barriers to goods and services and set commercial rules of the road for two-fifths of the global economy, officials said.
For the U.S., the TPP (reportedly) opens agricultural markets in Japan and Canada, tightens intellectual property rules to benefit drug and technology companies, and establishes a tightknit economic bloc to challenge China’s influence in the region (likely forcing their hand into separate trade agreements).

However, Obama is likely to face a tough fight to get the deal through Congress(especially in light of presidential candidates' opposition).


The US, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim economies have reached agreement to strike the largest trade pact seen anywhere in two decades, in what is a huge strategic and political win for US President Barack Obama and Japan’s Shinzo Abe.

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FAIR

‘Massive’ Media Hype for TPP

By Dean Baker

 

 

It is amazing how the elite media can be dragged along by their noses into accepting that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) can have a big impact on trade and growth. If I had a dollar for every time the deal was described as “massive,” or that we were told what share of world trade will be covered by the TPP, I would be richer than Bill Gates. The reality is that the vast majority of the trade between the countries in the TPP is already covered by trade agreements, as can be seen:

TPP countries with and without current trade agreements with the US. Source: International Monetary Fund

 

We continue to hear superlatives even as the evidence suggests the trade impact will be trivial. For example, the New York Times reported that US tariffs on Japanese cars will be phased out over 30 years. Wow! The most optimistic growth estimates show a cumulative gain by 2027 of less than 0.4 percent, roughly two months of normal GDP growth.

This doesn’t mean that the TPP can’t have an impact. It will lock in a regulatory structure, the exact parameters of which are yet to be seen. We do know that the folks at the table came from places like General Electric and Monsanto, not the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club. We also know that it will mean paying more for drugs and other patent and copyright-protected material (forms of protection, whose negative impact is never included in growth projections), but we don’t yet know how much.

We also know that the Obama administration gave up an opportunity to include currency rules. This means that trade deficit is likely to persist long into the future. This deficit has been a persistent source of gap in demand, leading to millions of lost jobs. We filled this demand in the 1990s with the stock bubble and in the last decade in the housing bubble. It seems the latest plan from the Fed is that we simply won’t fill the gap in this decade.

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Economist Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. A version of this post originally appeared on CEPR’s blog Beat the Press (10/6/15).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

French economy contracts while rest of eurozone keeps expanding

Bloomberg

French Recovery Fades as Manufacturing, Services Contract

By Mark Deen May 22, 2014 2:20 AM CT

Photographer: Balint Porneczi/Bloomberg

An employee removes excess felt from berets inside the factory of 174-year-old... Read More

French manufacturing and services unexpectedly shrank this month, highlighting President Francois Hollande’s struggle to revive the euro area’s second-largest economy.

A Purchasing Managers Index of factory activity dropped to 49.3 from 51.2 in April, while a services gauge fell to 49.2 from 50.4, Markit Economics said today in London. Economists had forecast readings above 50, the level that divides expansion from contraction.
Hollande is grappling with an economy that stagnated in the first quarter as both investment and consumer spending fell. After two years in office, his government has yet to achieve two consecutive quarters of expansion, a performance that has driven jobless claims to an all-time high of 3.3 million and his own popularity to a record low.


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French economy contracts while rest of eurozone keeps expanding

 

The headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Germany.

Colm Kelpie – Published 23 May 2014 02:30 AM

The strong pace of growth in the eurozone's private sector eased very slightly this month, with drastic price cuts preventing any further slowdown, surveys showed yesterday.

Slower growth in activity at factories took the shine off an unexpected pickup in the service industry, although the bloc's recovery appears to be gaining traction.
"This doesn't change the picture of the eurozone having one of its best growth spells in the past three years. It's broad-based – with the one exception being France," said Rob Dobson, senior economist at survey compiler Markit.
Markit's Composite Purchasing Managers' Index, based on surveys of thousands of companies across the region and seen as a good indicator of growth, edged down to 53.9 from April's near three-year high of 54.0, matching the forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts.


Read More Here

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Eurozone's 18-month-long recession may be over, economic surveys suggest

Economists say rise in manufacturing output PMI points to flat GDP and 'light at the end of the tunnel'

• Phillip Inman and Graeme Wearden
• 
  
• The Guardian, Wednesday 24 July 2013 14.16 EDT

The Osram factory in Molsheim. French factories returned to growth with their strongest performance in 17 months. Photograph: AFP/Getty

Hopes of a recovery in the eurozone were lifted after private sector firms across the region reported a rise in output for the first time in 18 months, leading to predictions that the single currency bloc is on the cusp of exiting recession.
A strong performance by German manufacturers and a halt to the headlong decline in French business activity gave the eurozone a much needed boost after the area slipped into reverse last year.
With the US manufacturing sector expanding at a faster pace in July, the main blot on the global economic recovery was a decline in manufacturing output in China that some economists have warned could force Beijing to renew its stimulus spending or risk a hard landing.
China's manufacturing sector tempered the eurozone data, slowing to an 11-month low as new orders faltered and the job market darkened.
The flash HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 47.7 this month from June's final reading of 48.2, marking a third straight month below the 50 threshold between expansion and contraction for China.
As if to highlight concerns that global growth is slowing, Caterpillar, the US construction and mining business that is considered a bellwether of global business activity, downgraded its forecast for the pace of the global recovery this year and next.
Alexandra Knight, an economist at National Australia Bank, said the weak Chinese PMI posed a problem for countries that relied on exports to China.
"It adds to the concern about the outlook for demand, and brings into question just how strong Chinese commodities demand will be," she said.

Read More Here
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• French Economy Shrinks as Businesses Hold Off on Investment - Bloomberg
• French business activity shrinks underlining risk to euro zone
• Hollande Jobs Pledge Undermined by Weak French Recovery
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• French Industrial Output Tumbles as Recession Looms - Bloomberg
• French Joblessness Climbs to Record, Adding Pressure on Hollande - Bloomberg
• French economy contracts while rest of eurozone keeps expanding
• Euro-Area January Factory Output Expands More Than Forecast
• Eurozone's 18-month-long recession may be over, economic surveys suggest

Ankara says Russia's South Stream Pipeline Could Run to Turkey

Employees stand near pipes made for the South Stream pipeline at the OMK metal works in Vyksa in the Nizhny Novgorod region, April 15, 2014.

Reuters

April 16, 2014

ISTANBUL — Russia's controversial South Stream pipeline, which would transport gas via the Black Sea into Europe towards the end of the decade, received support from Turkey on Wednesday when Ankara said it may let the conduit pass through its territory.
Turkey would consider granting access for the line if Moscow made such a request, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said.
The subject is one of a series of issues including increased gas supply, gas price revisions and nuclear power that Turkey and Russia are set to discuss during talks in Ankara next week, according to Turkish officials.
The future of the 2,400-km (1,490-mile) line from Russia via the Black Sea to Bulgaria and from there further into the European Union, avoiding Ukraine, has been cast into doubt because of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The Ukraine crisis has intensified EU efforts to reduce energy dependence on Russia, while Moscow has long sought to curb its reliance on Ukraine as the main pipeline route for sending Russian gas to Europe, its biggest market.
The European commissioner for energy, Guenther Oettinger, said in March that discussions with Russia over South Stream's regulatory approval in the European Union were on hold.
The EU delay could offer an opportunity to Turkey, where gas demand is rising fast.
“We are open to assessing any request for the line to pass through Turkey's territory,” Yildiz told reporters when asked about South Stream.
“It is said that there could be such a demand. If there is a request, we will consider it,” said Yildiz, due to hold talks with Alexander Medvedev, deputy head of Russian state-controlled Gazprom, in Ankara on Monday.
South Stream would carry around 60 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year to Europe towards the end of the decade, enough to meet more than 10 percent of its annual demand.
Officials said Russia's annexation of Crimea created a risk for Turkey, noting 12.5 percent of its gas supplies passed through Ukraine, and that steps to prevent a supply problem could be on the agenda next week.
In a letter to European leaders last week, President Vladimir Putin warned Russia would cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine if it did not pay its bills and said this could lead to a reduction of onward deliveries to Europe.
To eliminate such transit risk for Turkey, Ankara proposes to have South Stream enter land in the Thrace region of northwest Turkey rather than Bulgaria, to avoid routing it directly from Russia into an EU country.
“That way Russia will be able to feed directly with the line the Marmara region of Turkey, which has the highest level of consumption,” said an analyst, who declined to be identified.
The construction of a second Blue Stream pipeline, complementing an existing one that runs under the Black Sea from Russia to central Turkey, could also come onto the agenda soon, sources close to the matter said.

Read More Here

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China warns of dangerous Russia sanctions 'spiral'

Bank of China Centre
Wikimedia.org
Author Baycrest
Attribution Share Alike 2.5 Generic
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By Noah Barkin and Andreas Rinke

BERLIN Thu Mar 13, 2014 6:35am EDT

(Reuters) - China's top envoy to Germany has warned the West against punishing Russia with sanctions for its intervention in Ukraine, saying such measures could lead to a dangerous chain reaction that would be difficult to control.
In an interview with Reuters days before the European Union is threatening to impose its first sanctions on Russia since the Cold War, ambassador Shi Mingde issued the strongest warning against such measures by any top Chinese official to date.
"We don't see any point in sanctions," Shi said. "Sanctions could lead to retaliatory action, and that would trigger a spiral with unforeseeable consequences. We don't want this."
The interview was conducted on Wednesday, the same day that the EU agreed a framework for sanctions that would slap travel bans and asset freezes on people and companies accused by Brussels of violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has taken the lead in trying to mediate in the crisis, has said the measures, which mirror steps announced by the United States, will be imposed on Monday unless Russia accepts the idea of a "contact group" to resolve the crisis diplomatically.
Using her toughest rhetoric since the crisis began, she warned in a speech in parliament on Thursday that Russia risked "massive" political and economic damage if it did not change course in the coming days.
Russia's Deputy Economy Minister Alexei Likhachev responded by promising "symmetrical" sanctions by Moscow.


Read More Here

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G-20 Vows to Boost World Economy by Unprecedented $2 Trillion

Epoch Times

By Associated Press | February 23, 2014

Last Updated: February 23, 2014 7:27 am

Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde gestures as she delivers a closing statement to the media during a press conference at the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Sydney, Australia, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014.(AP Photo/Rob Griffith)

SYDNEY — Finance chiefs from the 20 largest economies agreed Sunday to implement policies that will boost world GDP by more than $2 trillion over the coming five years.
Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey, who hosted the Group of 20 meeting in Sydney, said the commitment from the G-20 finance ministers and central bankers was “unprecedented.”
The world economy has sputtered since the 2008 financial crisis and global recession that followed. Progress in returning economic growth to pre-crisis levels has been hampered by austerity policies in Europe, high unemployment in the U.S. and a cooling of China’s torrid expansion.
The centerpiece of the $2 trillion commitment made at the Sydney meeting is to boost the combined gross domestic product of G-20 countries by 2 percent above the levels expected for the next five years, possibly creating tens of millions of new jobs. World GDP was about $72 trillion in 2012.
The G-20 combines the world’s major industrialized and developing countries from the United States to Saudi Arabia and China, representing about 85 percent of the global economy.
The communique from the meeting said signs of improvement in the global economy are welcome but growth remains below the rates needed to get people back into work and to meet their aspirations.

Read More Here

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Karen Hudes: Either We Take Back Our Gold, Our Legality, or We'll Have WWIII

Greg Hunter

Published on Feb 11, 2014

http://usawatchdog.com/united-states-... - Can we pull the world out of this economic calamity? Former World Bank Attorney Karen Hudes says, "It may be that we don't, in which case, we end up in what happened just before we went into the dark ages, when gold went into hiding . . . . We can bring this gold that belongs to humanity out of its cloak of secrecy and out of hiding or we can go back into the dark ages. And we can have pestilence and starvation. . . . Civilization breaks down. We cannot pay for our international trade. Either we take back our gold, our legality, and we tell this group that thinks it's above the law that it is not above the law, or we can kiss ourselves goodbye. Humanity will not continue, we will have World War III. Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former World Bank Attorney Karen Hudes.

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YOU MUST SEE THIS!: Karen Hudes World Bank Whistleblower

firstflyover

Published on Aug 29, 2013

"Mr. Chambers! Don't get on that ship! The rest of the book, "To Serve Man", it's - it's a cookbook!" The Twilight Zone.

This is Greg Hunter's interview with Karen Hudes. She is a World Bank whistleblower.
If you like Mr. Hunter's work please sub to his channel. Link below. Peace!
http://www.youtube.com/user/usawatchd...
Karen Hudes: We're Running Out of Time! We're Dealing with Whether We Can Continue as Humanity

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'Dollar valueless, about to crash' - World Bank whistleblower

Published on Oct 8, 2013

The US government shutdown - a temporary ailment or a symptom of a grave disease? Are the Republicans right in their move to block Obamacare spending? Who gains from the shutdown turmoil? Do the politicians care about their citizens? Our guest comes from the very heart of the banking system: Karen Hudes was World Bank lawyer when she blew the whistle on major corruption cases in the system and was fired as a result.

For FULL TRANSCRIPT of the interview click here: http://on.rt.com/ue0xat

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air
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Allegation that Central Banks Have Rehypothecated, Leased or Outright Sold the Gold They Claim to Have Is Gaining Momentum

Is a Major Gold Scandal Going Mainstream?

Posted on January 27, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog

We noted in 2012 that there are serious questions as to whether the Fed and other central banks really have the gold holdings which they claim.
This story is starting to go mainstream.
The Financial Times writes today (h/t Zero Hedge):
A year ago the Bundesbank announced that it intended to repatriate 700 tons of Germany’s gold from Paris and New York. Although a couple of jumbo jets could have managed the transatlantic removal, it made security sense to ship the load in smaller consignments. Just how small, and over how long, has only just become apparent.
Last month Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank president, admitted that just 37 tons had arrived in Frankfurt. The original timescale, to complete the transfer by 2020, was leisurely enough, but at this rate it would take 20 years for a simple operation. Well, perhaps not so simple. While he awaits delivery, Herr Weidmann is welcome to come and look through the bars in the Federal Reserve’s vaults, but the question is: whose bars are they?
In the “armchair farmer” fraud you are told: “Look, this is your pig, in the sty.” It works until everyone wants physical delivery of their pig, which is why Buba’s move last year caused such a stir. After all nobody knows whether there are really 260m ounces of gold in Fort Knox, because the US government won’t let auditors inside.

Read More Here

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The FT Goes There: "Demand Physical Gold" As One Day Paper Price Manipulation Will End "Catastrophically"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/25/2014 19:32 -0500

• Bank of England

What have we done: after a series of reports in late 2012 in which we showed, with no ambiguity, that not only might the Bundesbank's offshore held gold be severely "diluted" (follow our 2012 exposes on German gold here, here, here, and here), but that on at least one occassion, the Fed and the Bank of England conspired against the Buba in returning subpar quality gold, the Bundesbank shocked everyone in early January 2013 when it announced it would repatriate 300 tons of gold helt in New York and all of its 374 tons of gold held in Paris. But convincing the Bundebsbank to demand delivery was peanuts compared to changing the tune of the Financial Times - that bastion of fiat "money", and where the word gold is mocked and ridiculed, and those who see the daily improprieties in the gold market as nothing but "conspiracy theorists" - to say the magic words: "Learn from Buba and demand delivery for true price of gold", adding that "one day the ties that bind this pixelated gold may break, with potentially catastrophic results."
In other words, precisely what we have been saying since the beginning.
Welcome to the 'conspiracy theorist' club, boys.
From the FT's Neil Collins: "Learn from Buba and demand delivery for true price of gold: One day the ties that bind the actual and the traded commodity will snap:
A year ago the Bundesbank announced that it intended to repatriate 700 tons of Germany’s gold from Paris and New York. Although a couple of jumbo jets could have managed the transatlantic removal, it made security sense to ship the load in smaller consignments. Just how small, and over how long, has only just become apparent.

Read More Here

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Related articles

• Is a Major Gold Scandal Going Mainstream?
• FT: Learn from Buba
• Germany Has Recovered A Paltry 5 Tons Of Gold From The NY Fed After One Year
• The FT Goes There: "Demand Physical Gold" As One Day Paper Price Manipulation Will End "Catastrophically"