TPP - People's struggle holds back the hand of US imperialism

Vanguard November 2013 p. 9
Alice M.

(Above: Japanese farmers protest the TPP)

It is now widely accepted that Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is all about giving more power to US multinational corporations and finance capital to intensify and widen the exploitation and plunder of people and the environment in the Pacific region.

US imperialism demands the removal of the few remaining restrictions on the movement of monopoly capital (investments) to reap bigger corporate profits and tighten its control and dominance over the Pacific region.

The TPP is designed to force down the cost of labour (wages and conditions) across all the 12 Pacific countries in the TPP and restructure their economies, and to prop up the declining rate of profit for finance capital and multinational corporations based in the US.

(Above: New Zealanders are rejecting the TPP)

The only thing the TPP will offer 800 million people (including the working people of the US), is a sky rocketing cost of living; inferior and fewer health, education and public services; ravaging degradation of the natural environment; lower wages and conditions, fewer decent jobs, more unemployment; destruction of unions, workers’ and people’s democratic rights and loss of sovereignty. The TPP has nothing to do with the fair and equal trade in goods and services between countries.

US-Australia Free Trade Agreement

Since the 2008 capitalist economic crisis, US monopoly capital has been desperately scouring the world for more markets and resources at home and abroad.

The US hopes to get through the TPP what it couldn’t in the earlier Free Trade Agreements, including the 2004 US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

The strong public campaign to the 2004 US-Australia Free Trade Agreement threw out the rights of big multinational corporations and banks to sue governments of countries whose local laws interfered with their profit making, and the drug monopolies’ demands to abolish Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that ensures cheap medicines for the people.

US timetable for TPP

The US government, on behalf of its multinational corporations, initiated the TPP in March 2010 and planned to have it finalised and signed off 18 months later in November 2011. The plan was to sneak through the TPP quickly, hidden from the public and shrouded in secrecy. Strong pressure on national governments would ensure everything in the agreement would obey US demands and they would agree to everything.

But the US imperialist plans to sneak in the TPP agreement quickly and quietly have not quite worked out so far, and have been scuttled by peoples’ opposition and protests in many countries.

More than two years past the original sign off date, the agreement is still not signed and the public opposition to the TPP is growing, with alliances forming and spreading across many of the participatory countries.

US imperialism is more exposed and isolated. Broad alliances of workers, unions, farmers, health workers and professionals, academics, medical scientists, journalists, cultural workers and lawyers have mobilised a powerful campaign across the Pacific countries demanding their governments not sign away national sovereignty, local jobs and conditions, health and safety at work, manufacturing industries, destruction of the environment and access to cheap medicines and health services.

These public campaigns have delayed the signing off of the TPP. And the longer the people’s campaigns continue to delay it, the stronger, wider and more united the movement.

Malaysia jacks up

 

Under immense public pressure from a broad coalition of more than 60 non-government organisations representing different backgrounds, sectors and interests, and united in their opposition to any one aspect of the TPP, the Malaysian government has declared it would not be pressured and dictated to by the US to comply with its deadline for signing off by the end of the year.

The Malaysian coalition of community groups and organisations campaigning against the TPP declared that the TPP, “Promotes primarily US economic, business and geopolitical interests.”

Former Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, is also strongly campaigning against Malaysia signing the TPP. He told a large public meeting opposed to Malaysia’s participation in the TPP, held in Kuala Lumpur in August, “If Malaysia signs up for the TPPA, it will be akin to colonising the country again as we will not be able to decide our own affairs without interference.”

Abbott government about to cave in

In contrast, the previous Australian Labor Government and the current Liberal government have both been vigorously promoting the TPP, doing the bidding for US imperialism.

Some credit is due to the previous Labor government in resisting immense pressures from the US government and its corporations, in agreeing to include the rights of multinational investors and corporations to sue sovereign countries, and to destroy the PBS. However, in spite of their public pronouncements there were always concerns that the Labor government, which had embraced the US imperialist neo-liberal policies of trade liberalisation and globalisation, would in the end cave in to the dictates of US imperialism.

The present Liberal government has gone one step further and, under firm instructions from US imperialism and the Business Council of Australia, has pledged to help the US to have the TPP signed off by the end of the year. Abbott vowed Australia would not oppose the Investor Rights provisions in the TPP, in spite of strong public opposition.

Gresser or greaser?

Not long after the elections and to hasten the finalisation of the TPP, the US government dispatched its trouble-shooters to Pacific countries to sell the TPP snake oil to the rebellious natives (and put the boot in).

The US TPP special envoy, Ed Gresser, arrived in Australia spruiking the wonders of the TPP, sizing up and taking stock of the local opposition to the TPP. He sought meetings with politicians and union representatives. However, in spite of his shiny, slimy smile he was shown the middle finger by the few unionists who bothered to grace him with their presence.

Major problems with TPP

Public opposition to giving investors (multinational corporations) rights to sue national governments (ISDS), and abolition of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that provides cheaper medicines to the public, are still a major obstacles to signing off the TPP.

Privatisation, protection of local industries and requirements for local procurement that protect local jobs, are concerns for the people. There are deep concerns by workers and unions that the TPP will do away with present restrictions on importing temporary low wage labour, like the 457 overseas visa workers.

Australia taken over

However, when the Hawke-Keating Labor government, following the IMF imperialist instructions, started deregulating and restructuring Australia’s economy and the financial sector in the middle of 1980s, they set the stage 30 years ago for wider takeover of Australia by multinationals and finance capital.

This laid the ground for wide sweeping privatisations of Australia’s public assets by foreign corporations in the power industries, water, freight and public transport. Foreign capital poured in, and the Australian economy became even more a hostage to imperialist domination and control by overseas capital. It resulted in much of Australia’s manufacturing and value added industries and jobs going overseas to countries with cheaper labour.

Around the world US imperialism is increasingly isolated and exposed. Everyday it’s finding it harder to impose its imperialist agenda on the rest of the world, meeting growing resistance from people and smaller countries. Its capitalist economy rots internally, and resistance to its schemes to control the world is growing. It is doomed to failure.

Don’t Sign the TPP!

Fight for Australia’s Independence!
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Further Reading:  http://www.globalresearch.ca/protest-against-the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-secret-negotiations-behind-closed-doors/5352012 

https://philebersole.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/anti-tpp-movement-growing-in-japan/

 http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2013/03/16/report-from-shady-global-trade-talks-in-singapore/

http://www.aftinet.org.au/cms/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement

http://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/abbott-set-to-sign-highly-secretive-tpp-agreement-this-month,5787