Alice M.
As more
information on the highly secretive TPP leaks out, there’s wider understanding
that it is simply a tool of global monopoly corporations and banks to remove
all restrictions and obstacles that stand in their way of intensifying the
exploitation of people and the environment.
In
Australia, the many standards and
achievements the people have won in our health, education, health and safety, wages
and working conditions, clean agriculture and safe food production, jobs in
manufacturing and services industries, environment, democracy and sovereignty
will be watered down or swept away altogether.
It is
now more widely recognised that the US government and its multinational
corporations are the architects and the driving force behind the TPP.
No
wonder the draft agreement and negotiations are kept secret from the people,
whilst a handful of biggest US based multinational corporations and government negotiators
are dictating the full text. Countries
that sign up to the TPP will be required to abide by it for at least 20 years,
irrespective of the wishes of the people and future governments that would want
to pull the plug on it.
Foreign
investments
The
most determined and aggressive push for abolition of all regulations and
restrictions on foreign investments is from the financial sector. International monopoly banks and financial
institutions demand removal of all restrictions on capital investments inside
and across all signatory countries. They
want to invest capital in areas of maximum profitability for themselves, not
into the needs of people and the environment.
ISDS
One of
the most outrageous elements of the TPP is the Investor State Dispute
Settlement (ISDS) which gives power to foreign multinational corporations to
sue sovereign governments (in Australia federal, state and local) where
domestic laws, regulations and actions restrict or “harm” present or future
profits of corporations. The judges
sitting on the international tribunals are also often same lawyers acting for
the multinational corporations suing sovereign governments. It costs sovereign governments tens of
millions in legal fees irrespective of the outcomes.
US
Congress dictates laws of other countries
The
latest exposures in the secretive agreement include a so-called “Certification”
requirement. This openly imperialist act
empowers the US Congress to directly approve, amend and draft new domestic laws
and regulations for other countries in the TPP.
The US has the power to exert immense pressure (blackmail, threats and
intimidation) on other countries until it is satisfied that their domestic laws
and regulations comply with its own demands and interests. These US imposed laws
ensure that the interests of US and its corporations and banks override the
interests of local working people, communities and the environment.
The TPP
is part of a global push by the biggest US and other monopoly corporations,
banks and financial institutions to seize control of world‘s resources, markets
and labour for its profit making.
Monopoly
corporations and finance capital collude in grabbing the spoils of the world,
but more often than not they fiercely compete with each other. They create and inflict ruthless wars,
suffering and hardship on millions of people from around the world.
The
reality is that monopoly capitalism is reaching its use by date. Its own economic laws ensure that it cannot
escape the scourge of surplus accumulation (overproduction), major economic
crises, declining rate of profit, greater monopolisation and more savage
competition spilling into brutal imperialist wars.
Monopoly
capitalism cannot be reformed, softened or reinvented within the intensifying
antagonism of capitalist class relations. It has little room to manoeuvre except
to inflict more austerity, suffering, hardship and wars on the people of the
world. To pretend otherwise is to
mislead the people.
The TPPA, NAFTA and all other so-called “free trade agreements” are nothing more than imperialist globalisation with the US presently leading the charge. The people in all corners of the world are building resistance to this imperialist onslaught. People’s demands for sovereignty, taking their country’s wealth for the people, genuine people’s democracy and taking control of their countries, are pushing their way to the forefront of many struggles. From the heart of the US imperialist beast, in Europe, Asia, Middle East and Latin America ordinary people are organising and demanding a new society free of corporate exploitation. Australian working people are a part of this world wide movement.
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