Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The Trans-Pacific Partnership

An anonymous reader writes: This Techdirt story shows how industry lobbyists influenced the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, to the point that one even openly celebrates that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) version copied his own text word for word. The email exchange between Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official reads: "Hi Barbara – John sent through a link to the P4 agreement. I have taken a quick look at the rules of origin. Someone owes USTR a royalty payment – these are our rules. They will need some tweaking but will likely not need major surgery. This is a very pleasant surprise. I will study more closely over the weekend."

Comments

Of course they did.

[Anonymous Coward]

This has become standard practice for the US.

The industry groups write the treaty, and then tell the government what they want.

Then the US government dutifully becomes lackeys to industry, and advances a position which gives industry ridiculous things which could never be negotiated in public.

During this, they insist on secrecy so that the citizens of none of the countries can know that they're being heavily undermined to advance the interests of US businesses.

Lather, rise, repeat.

The US government isn't just advancing the interests of multinational corporations, they're advancing them to the detriment of the citizens -- which means nobody benefits from these fucking things other than corporations.

Welcome to the global fucking oligarchy. Make no mistake about it, the US government are nothing more than industry shills.

Fuck you, America.

At the cost of the tax payer

[Roodvlees]

This is mainly a way for tax money to flow into the pockets of people who are already very rich.
Foreign companies are treated very well, governments want the extra jobs.
Why do foreign companies need more/better rights than nationals?

Defenders will say this is false, but it's what TTIP will lead to, like what other similar trade agreements have lead to.

Re:At the cost of the tax payer

[Rob Riggs]

No. This is crony capitalism. Free trade is great for everyone, with government's role being to make sure it stays "free". Nobody outside of the two major political parties will tell you that crony capitalism is good for anybody except the cronies.

This is capitalism in practice. Show me an example of capitalism that exists without cronyism in the real world -- outside of the economists' idealized computer models. "Pure capitalism" is the economists' version of the "perfectly spherical cow".

Who is surprised by this?

[gstoddart]

This has been SOP for years.

The US government is now acting as a foreign policy arm for multinational corporations, and doing secret negotiations so nobody knows just how badly we're being fucked over for our corporate overlords.

This is the worst form of capitalism, one in which all consideration is for corporations who have the government on the payroll, and in which the citizens of the countries get fucked over.

America has been allowing corporations to write the trade treaties for a long time. Because America is essentially a corrupt shell beholden to corporations.

Not all of it is new. But something IS new.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

US Government acting as the strong arm enforcer for the US Business interests has a long history. But usually it undermined the rights of the citizens of foreign countries more than it undermined US citizens' rights. And the businesses were US businesses, which ultimately made them have lots of common interest with USA. What is new is, these businesses are no longer US businesses, they are trans national corporations, they don't feel any allegiance to the USA. They treat USA just as they have treated all the third world countries all these years, using corrupt puppet governments to sign treaties that gave away all the wealth of the nation...

One small consolation is now some in the USA feel what it was like to be a poor South American or South Asian or African whose government was totally controlled by foreign companies.