The deadline for public comments on the employment impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ended Jan. 13, and more than 8,400 working people spoke out against it. Here are some highlights from the comments submitted to the U.S. Trade Representative:
1. Dennis: “I urge you to evaluate the TPP fairly and honestly, including a full analysis of the worst-case scenario investment and currency impacts. Simply repeating the models that wrongly predicted job booms from the North American Free Trade Agreement and permanent normal trade relations with China won’t work. I am counting on you to protect jobs and wages, not simply profits.”
2. Jennifer: “This treaty is so contemptuous of democratic principles in its provisions and its secrecy that I am encouraging my elected officials to make sure it never becomes reality. The TPP amounts to nothing less than a corporate coup. That’s strong language, but I mean every word of it. That this ‘treaty’ supposedly cannot be modified or canceled shows that my characterizations are apt. It is a device to move even more money to 1% of the population because corporations do not want to pay a living wage.”
3. Analise: “Protect jobs and wages, not just corporate profits. Do not trade democracy for special-interest giveaways to global corporations.”
4. Paul: “The TPP will destroy American jobs, roll back environmental protections, and raise prices on foods and drugs while simultaneously weakening safety standards on these commodities. In addition, because the TPP arbitrates disputes between national governments and corporations by forcing adjudication of such disputes in extralegal ‘tribunals’ under the ISDS provision, it constitutes a direct assault on government itself.”
5. Eloise: “The TPP is a scary, corporate-engendered trade monstrosity designed to give corporations great power at the expense of workers, national laws and democracy. The TPP must be stopped. It’s evil.”
To get involved, text TPP to 235246.