Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
https://wikileaks.org/tpp/pressrelease.html
https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/tpp/tpp/the-dirtiest-deal-youve-never-heard-of
http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/04/01/new-tpp-leak-reveals-how-were-trading-our-sovereignty-for-cheap-tariffs/

For years, there's been talk of creating a new free trade deal that would span countries bordering the Asia-Pacific, including countries below. The deal is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement – or "TPP" for short. 

Country/Region	Status	Date
Brunei	Original Signatory	2005 June
Chile	Original Signatory	2005 June
New Zealand	Original Signatory	2005 June
Singapore	Original Signatory	2005 June
United States	Negotiating	2008 February
Australia	Negotiating	2008 November
Peru	Negotiating	2008 November
Vietnam	Negotiating	2008 November
Malaysia	Negotiating	2010 October
Mexico	Negotiating	2012 October
Canada[15]	Negotiating	2012 October
Japan	Negotiating	2013 March
Taiwan	Announced Interest	2013 September
Republic of Korea	Announced Interest	2013 November

Wikileaks has released another bombshell - this time publishing a portion of text from the secretly negotiated Trans Pacific Partnership. Now that the text is out in the open - will lawmakers in Washington finally realize how devastating the TPP is to the American economy?

In the words of WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, “If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

Prominent Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/03/15/on-the-wrong-side-of-globalization/

"Based on the leaks — and the history of arrangements in past trade pacts — it is easy to infer the shape of the whole TPP, and it doesn’t look good. There is a real risk that it will benefit the wealthiest sliver of the American and global elite at the expense of everyone else. The fact that such a plan is under consideration at all is testament to how deeply inequality reverberates through our economic policies.

Worse, agreements like the TPP are only one aspect of a larger problem: our gross mismanagement of globalization.

Let’s tackle the history first. In general, trade deals today are markedly different from those made in the decades following World War II, when negotiations focused on lowering tariffs. As tariffs came down on all sides, trade expanded, and each country could develop the sectors in which it had strengths and as a result, standards of living would rise. Some jobs would be lost, but new jobs would be created.

Today, the purpose of trade agreements is different. Tariffs around the world are already low. The focus has shifted to “nontariff barriers,” and the most important of these — for the corporate interests pushing agreements — are regulations. Huge multinational corporations complain that inconsistent regulations make business costly. But most of the regulations, even if they are imperfect, are there for a reason: to protect workers, consumers, the economy and the environment."