The TPP is on its last legs!
The TPP is on its last legs – an amazing achievement of innumerable organizations and activists here and in the other TPP countries and an amazingly dedicated, relentless team of congressional allies led by the indefatigable Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
Six years of relentless, strategic campaigning = international people power united beating overwhelming multinational corporate power.
Hard to be too celebratory about anything right now, but WOOHOO! Especially because the demise of the TPP does more than save us from its direct damage: it signals that “trade” agreements that are drafted by and for corporate interests and give working people and the environment the short, sharp end of the stick are simply no longer viable.
Especially right now, let us recognize that people power can beat the united forces of a U.S. president, congressional leaders and the entire corporate lobby.
To bury the TPP in a thunderous roar of people power, please join next week’s national call-in days https://www.thunderclap.it/en/projects/48562-stoptpp-nov-call-in-action This will help make sure Congress gets the message: no resurrecting a zombie TPP. And it’s also important for the fights that lie ahead if we are to end the era of Trojan-horse "trade" agreements that expand corporate power over our lives and government.
Also, may I ask you to please share widely and post on social media the Medium piece below by the wonderful director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, Arthur Stamoulis, that tells the story of how years of relentless, strategic, committed activism did in the TPP. The unremitting push by the Obama administration for the TPP right through this election helped to elect Trump, but Trump did not kill the TPP – people power united across borders did that. It’s up to us to make sure the real story is THE story people understand – this is very important. Please read Arthur’s beautiful piece https://medium.com/@citizenstrade/no-trump-didnt-kill-the-tpp-progressives-did-884b534542d#.175otqc1j
Since the TPP’s February 2016 signing, there has NEVER been a majority to pass it in the House thanks to years of campaigning by the people united – working people and unions, enviro and consumer advocates, et al and their champions in Congress. And the TPP’s signing was delayed four years by a kick-ass international coalition of our counterparts in other TPP countries pushing their governments to reject retrograde TPP terms on investor rights, expanded monopolies for Big PhRMA, financial dereg etc. That gave us all here in the United States the time to organize, organize, organize.
Friday evening, the administration began to signal that it recognizes the TPP cannot be passed in the lame duck session of Congress that starts this week. Since then, we have all been waiting for some definitive signal – a formal White House statement it would not even send the TPP to Congress or Speaker Ryan definitively saying he would not schedule a vote. Apparently the pro-TPP forces are not planning on such formal admissions… But the writing in on the wall.
Now our work turns to ensuring that the real story of how and why the TPP was stopped is recognized – making the call-in days a noisy reinforcement of the broad public opposition to TPP is key in this. And we must gear up to roll back the existing “trade” deals and extreme investor-state regime causing people and the planet so much damage – NAFTA et al. And we must push for our alternatives that put people and the planet first – please take a look at this piece I wrote with Vice President Biden’s former chief economist Jared Bernstein. And also stay on our toes as the pro-TPP corporate troops now occupying many corners of the Trump transition operation undoubtedly try to figure out ways to revive it and/or push the same agenda other ways. (Trump will have Fast Track authority for the next four years…)
BUT, today, it’s worth recognizing what an accomplishment derailing the TPP is…
Yours, Lori
Lori Wallach
Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
215 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003 USA
(1) 202-454-5107 fax (1)202-547-7392
Skype lori_wallach
++ Check out our blog: www.EyesOnTrade.org ++
Global Trade Watch’s website is: www.tradewatch.org
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