[x-pubpol] Fwd: [IP] More Obama Administration Secrecy: Rep. Grayson Can't Discuss Classified Trans-Pacific Partnership Draft

[Joly MacFie]

(via Dave Farber)

More Obama Administration Secrecy: Rep. Grayson Can’t Discuss Classified
Trans-Pacific Partnership Draft
By Yves Smith
June 21 2013
<
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/06/more-obama-administration-secrecy-rep-grayson-sees-and-cant-discuss-classified-trans-pacific-trade-agreement-draft.html
>

OK, you remaining Obama fans: tell me why we should trust the biggest
baiter and switcher in the history of the Presidency, particularly when he
insists on unprecedented levels of secrecy? Because he has nice teeth and
cute kids?

We mention in another post tonight how the Administration is being
remarkably tight-lipped about the progress-towards-completion of the health
care exchanges that will be fully or jointly run by the Federal government
(34 in total). But the mere failure to make normal disclosures pales next
to the “all secrecy all the time” that appears to be the Administration’s
default.

We’ve mentioned before the unheard-of steps the Administration is taking to
keep a large, and potentially important trade deal, the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, under wraps. We say “trade deal” but that is already a
misnomer. International trade is already substantially liberalized. Based
on what little information has been wrestled from the Administration, the
TPP is most important a means for financial firms and multinationals to
undermine nation-based regulations.

An overview from an earlier post:

Apparently Obama wants to make sure his corporate masters get as many
goodies as possible before he leaves office. The Trans-Pacific Partnership
and the US-European Union “Free Trade” Agreement are both inaccurately
depicted as being helpful to ordinary Americans by virtue of liberalizing
trade. Instead, the have perilous little to do with trade. They are both
intended to make the world more lucrative for major corporations by
weakening regulations and by strengthening intellectual property laws…

One of the most disturbing aspects of both negotiations is that they are
being held in secret….secret, that is, if you are anybody other that a big
US multinational who has a stake in the outcome.

[Dean] Baker describes in scathing terms why these types of deals are bad
policy:

…these deals are about securing regulatory gains for major corporate
interests. In some cases, such as increased patent and copyright
protection, these deals are 180 degrees at odds with free trade. They are
about increasing protectionist barriers…

And this sort of erosion of the right to regulate will most assuredly
extend to financial services. Dodd Frank? The Brown-Vitter bill that some
see as a great new hope for tougher financial regulation? They are already
unworkable under existing trade agreements. As Public Citizen noted:

[snip]
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