~transparency~
Op-Ed Contributors
Obama’s Covert Trade Deal
By LORI WALLACH and BEN BEACHY
Published: June 2, 2013
WASHINGTON — THE Obama administration has often stated its commitment to
open government. So why is it keeping such tight wraps on the contents
of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most significant international
commercial agreement since the creation of the World Trade Organization
in 1995?
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The agreement, under negotiation since 2008, would set new rules for
everything from food safety and financial markets to medicine prices and
Internet freedom. It would include at least 12 of the countries
bordering the Pacific and be open for more to join. President Obama has
said he wants to sign it by October.
Although Congress has exclusive constitutional authority to set the
terms of trade, so far the executive branch has managed to resist
repeated requests by members of Congress to see the text of the draft
agreement and has denied requests from members to attend negotiations as
observers — reversing past practice.
While the agreement could rewrite broad sections of nontrade policies
affecting Americans’ daily lives, the administration also has rejected
demands by outside groups that the nearly complete text be publicly
released. Even the George W. Bush administration, hardly a paragon of
transparency, published online the draft text of the last similarly
sweeping agreement, called the Free Trade Area of the Americas, in 2001.
There is one exception to this wall of secrecy: a group of some 600
trade “advisers,” dominated by representatives of big businesses, who
enjoy privileged access to draft texts and negotiators.
This covert approach is a major problem because the agreement is more
than just a trade deal. Only 5 of its 29 chapters cover traditional
trade matters, like tariffs or quotas. The others impose parameters on
nontrade policies. Existing and future American laws must be altered to
conform with these terms, or trade sanctions can be imposed against
American exports.
Remember the debate in January 2012 over the Stop Online Piracy Act,
which would have imposed harsh penalties for even the most minor and
inadvertent infraction of a company’s copyright? The ensuing uproar
derailed the proposal. But now, the very corporations behind SOPA are at
it again, hoping to reincarnate its terms within the Trans-Pacific
Partnership’s sweeping proposed copyright provisions.
From another leak, we know the pact would also take aim at policies to
control the cost of medicine. Pharmaceutical companies, which are among
those enjoying access to negotiators as “advisers,” have long lobbied
against government efforts to keep the cost of medicines down. Under the
agreement, these companies could challenge such measures by claiming
that they undermined their new rights granted by the deal.
And yet another leak revealed that the deal would include even more
expansive incentives to relocate domestic manufacturing offshore than
were included in Nafta — a deal that drained millions of manufacturing
jobs from the American economy.
The agreement would also be a boon for Wall Street and its campaign to
water down regulations put in place after the 2008 financial crisis.
Among other things, it would practically forbid bans on risky financial
products, including the toxic derivatives that helped cause the crisis
in the first place.
Of course, the agreement must eventually face a Congressional vote, which means that one day it will become public.
So why keep it a secret? Because Mr. Obama wants the agreement to be
given fast-track treatment on Capitol Hill. Under this extraordinary and
rarely used procedure, he could sign the agreement before Congress
voted on it. And Congress’s post-facto vote would be under rules
limiting debate, banning all amendments and forcing a quick vote.
Ron Kirk, until recently Mr. Obama’s top trade official, was remarkably
candid about why he opposed making the text public: doing so, he
suggested to Reuters, would raise such opposition that it could make the
deal impossible to sign.
Michael Froman, nominated to be Mr. Kirk’s replacement, will most likely
become the public face of the administration’s very private
negotiations and the apparent calculation that underlies them. As
someone whose professional experience has been during the Internet era,
he must know that such extreme secrecy is bound to backfire.
Whatever one thinks about “free trade,” the secrecy of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership process represents a huge assault on the principles and
practice of democratic governance. That is untenable in the age of
transparency, especially coming from an administration that is otherwise
so quick to trumpet its commitment to open government.
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