NATO on trade, in Europe and Asia, is doomed
By Pepe Escobar
The President of the
United States (POTUS) is desperate. Exhibit A: His Op-Ed defending the Asian
face – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – of a wide-ranging, twin-headed
NATO-on-trade “pivoting”.
The European face is of course
the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
POTUS frames TPP – as well as
TTIP – in terms of a benign expansion of US exports, and private (US) firms
having “a fair shot at competing against state-owned enterprises.” “Fair”? Not
really. Let’s see how the mechanism works, focusing on TPP’s European twin.
With impeccable timing, almost
simultaneously to Obama’s Op-Ed, Greenpeace Netherlands leaked 248 pages of
classified TTIP documents that were to be re-discussed last week by negotiators
in New York. There have been no less than 13 rounds of TTIP negotiations so
far, over nearly three years.
The documents – negotiated in
total secrecy since 2013 – represent roughly two-thirds of the latest
negotiating text. An array of detailed studies, like this one, had been warning
about the state of play. The veil of secrecy ended up being the ultimate
giveaway to TTIP’s toxicity. Before the Greenpeace Netherlands leak, EU elected
representatives could only examine these documents under a police watch, in a
secure room, without access to experts, and on top of it they could not discuss
the content with anyone else.
I will crush you with my GMOs
Everything civil society
across Europe – for at least three years – has been debating, and fearing, is
confirmed; this is a sophisticated, toxic US-led corporate racket, a concerted
assault across the spectrum, from the environment and animal welfare to labor
rights and internet privacy. In a nutshell; it’s all about the US corporate
galaxy pushing the EU to lower – or abase – a range of consumer protections.
Hardball, predictably, is the
name of the game. Washington no less than threatened to block EU car exports to
force the EU to buy genetically engineered fruits and vegetables. In my travels
in France, Italy and Spain over the past two years, I confirmed this to be the
ultimate nightmare expressed by practitioners of top-end artisanal agriculture.
Predictably, the
lobbyist-infested European Commission (EC) fiercely defends TTIP, stressing it
could benefit the EU’s economy by $150 billion a year, and raise car exports by
149 percent. Obviously don’t expect the EC to connect these “car exports” to a
US-led GMO invasion of Europe.
At least some nations have
finally woken up from their (corporate lobbyist-induced) slumber. The French
Minister for Foreign Trade, Matthias Fekl, said negotiations over a “bad deal”
should stop. He went straight to the point, blaming Washington’s intransigence;
“There cannot be an agreement without France and much less against France.”
Perennially ineffectual
President Francois Hollande, for his part, has threatened to block the deal
altogether. Three years ago Paris had already secured an exemption for the
French film industry not to be gobbled up by Hollywood. Now it’s also about the
crucial agriculture front. Hollande said he would never accept “the undermining
of the essential principles of our agriculture, our culture, of mutual access
to public markets.”
And what is the EC – leading
the negotiations on behalf of the EU – doing? Pulling its predictable Trojan
horse act; these are all “alarmist headlines” and “a storm in a teacup”.
Puzzled EU citizens, en masse, may question if this is really the way for the
EC – a bureaucratic Brussels behemoth – to supposedly defend the rights of EU
consumers. Yet, infiltrated as it is by corporate lobbyism, the EC simply can’t
protect the EU’s environmental and health standards, much more sophisticated
than the US’s, from a corporate America bent on meddling with the content of EU
laws all along the regulatory line.
I got an offer you can’t
refuse
POTUS was heavily campaigning
for TTIP last month in Germany. POTUS still hopes he may have a deal in the bag
before he leaves office in January 2017. White House spokesman Josh Earnest has
tried to put on a brave face, saying the leaks will not have a “material
impact” on the negotiations. Wrong; they will – as they are mobilizing public
opinion all across the EU.
David Cameron, in the UK, is
also in a bind. He’s fiercely pro-TTIP. But Obama has already warned; this
means Brexit is a no-no. Club Med nations, for their part, are leaning against.
All 28 EU member nations – plus the European Parliament – would have to ratify
TTIP if a deal is eventually reached.
TPP, for its part, has been
negotiated. But it has not been approved by the US Congress (nor by Pacific
nations). The approval process has gone nowhere. In fact it will be up to
either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Trump arguably is oblivious to TPP’s
details; but considering the deal is being heavily championed by Obama, Trump
may go against it.
A case can be made that both
TPP and TTIP vow to distort markets, in Europe and Asia; prop up (US)
monopolies; transfer jobs to slave labor markets (in the case of parts of
Asia); trample on intellectual property rights (in the case of the EU);
facilitate tax evasion; and ultimately transfer more wealth from the many to
the 0.00001 percent.
And this leads us to how
Hillary Clinton – the Wall Street/US establishment candidate – views both TPP
and TTIP. Well, she supported both NAFTA and CAFTA, approved under Bill Clinton
in the 1990s. As Secretary of State, she lobbied for the Panama trade deal.
And, crucially, she has always treated the TPP as the “gold standard”. No
wonder; this is the trade arm of the “pivoting to Asia” she’s been so fond of –
a Pacific trade deal that excludes China, which happens to be the top trade
partner of most Asian nations.
Moreover, those by now famous
Goldman Sachs speeches are increasingly being seen as payments for services
rendered (and promised) by Hillary Clinton to the 0,0001 percent, who are, of
course, in favor of global corporate America expansion.
Yet it ain’t over till the
November ballot sings. Hillary now faces serious scrutiny by working class
voters in the US. So no wonder, in another flip-flopping masterpiece, she’s now
leaning towards describing herself as opposing both TPP and TTIP.
Still, TPP at least may be
approved during the post-election ‘lame-duck’ session of the US Congress. As
for TTIP, it’s now mired in Walking Dead zone. Talk about what it takes for the
Obama administration to imprint its trade “legacy” in the history books; to
keep blackmailing Europeans and Asians alike as if it was just a lowly Mob
extortion racket.
