The One You Haven't Heard About: The Trade In Services Agreement

[stromboli]

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121967/whats-really-going-trade-services-agreement

The Obama administration’s desire for “fast track” trade authority is not limited to passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In fact, that may be the least important of three deals currently under negotiation by the U.S. Trade Representative. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would bind the two biggest economies in the world, the United States and the European Union. And the largest agreement is also the least heralded: the 51-nation Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).

On Wednesday, WikiLeaks brought this agreement into the spotlight by releasing 17 key TiSA-related documents, including 11 full chapters under negotiation. Though the outline for this agreement has been in place for nearly a year, these documents were supposed to remain classified for five years after being signed, an example of the secrecy surrounding the agreement, which outstrips even the TPP.

TiSA has been negotiated since 2013, between the United States, the European Union, and 22 other nations, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and others scattered across South America and Asia. Overall, 12 of the G20 nations are represented, and negotiations have carefully incorporated practically every advanced economy except for the “BRICS” coalition of emerging markets (which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

The deal would liberalize global trade of services, an expansive definition that encompasses air and maritime transport, package delivery, e-commerce, telecommunications, accountancy, engineering, consulting, health care, private education, financial services and more, covering close to 80 percent of the U.S. economy. Though member parties insist that the agreement would simply stop discrimination against foreign service providers, the text shows that TiSA would restrict how governments can manage their public laws through an effective regulatory cap. It could also dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, and turn those services over to the private sector. You begin to sound like the guy hanging out in front of the local food co-op passing around leaflets about One World Government when you talk about TiSA, but it really would clear the way for further corporate domination over sovereign countries and their citizens.

Reading the texts (here’s an example, the annex on air transport services) makes you realize the challenge for members of Congress or interested parties to comprehend a trade agreement while in negotiation. The “bracketed” text includes each country’s offer, merged into one document, with notations on whether the country proposed, is considering, or opposes each specific provision. You need to either be a trade lawyer or a very alert reader to know what’s going on. But between the text and a series of analyses released by WikiLeaks, you get a sense for what the countries negotiating TiSA want.

First, they want to limit regulation on service sectors, whether at the national, provincial or local level. The agreement has “standstill” clauses to freeze regulations in place and prevent future rulemaking for professional licensing and qualifications or technical standards. And a companion “ratchet” clause would make any broken trade barrier irreversible.

It may make sense to some to open service sectors up to competition. But under the agreement, governments may not be able to regulate staff to patient ratios in hospitals, or ban fracking, or tighten safety controls on airlines, or refuse accreditation to schools and universities. Foreign corporations must receive the same "national treatment" as domestic ones, and could argue that such regulations violate their ability to provide the service. Allowable regulations could not be “more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service,” according to TiSA’s domestic regulation annex. No restrictions could be placed on foreign investmentâ€"corporations could control entire sectors.

This would force open dozens of services, including ones where state-owned enterprises, like the national telephone company in Uruguay or the national postal service of Italy, now operate. Previously, public services would be either broken up or forced into competition with foreign service providers. While the United States and European Union assured in a joint statement that such privatization need not be permanent, they also “noted the important complementary role of the private sector in these areas” to “improve the availability and diversity of services,” which doesn’t exactly connote a hands-off policy on the public commons.

Corporations would get to comment on any new regulatory attempts, and enforce this regulatory straitjacket through a dispute mechanism similar to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process in other trade agreements, where they could win money equal to “expected future profits” lost through violations of the regulatory cap.

For an example of how this would work, let’s look at financial services. It too has a “standstill” clause, which given the unpredictability of future crises could leave governments helpless to stop a new and dangerous financial innovation. In fact, Switzerland has proposed that all TiSA countries must allow “any new financial service” to enter their market. So-called “prudential regulations” to protect investors or depositors are theoretically allowed, but they must not act contrary to TiSA rules, rendering them somewhat irrelevant.

Most controversially, all financial services suppliers could transfer individual client data out of a TiSA country for processing, regardless of national privacy laws. This free flow of data across borders is true for the e-commerce annex as well; it breaks with thousands of years of precedent on locally kept business records, and has privacy advocates alarmed.

There’s no question that these provisions reinforce Senator Elizabeth Warren’s contention that a trade deal could undermine financial regulations like the Dodd-Frank Act. The Swiss proposal on allowances for financial services could invalidate derivatives rules, for example. And harmonizing regulations between the U.S. and EU would involve some alteration, as the EU rules are less stringent.

Member countries claim they want to simply open up trade in services between the 51 nations in the agreement. But there’s already an international deal governing these sectors through the World Trade Organization (WTO), called the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The only reason to re-write the rules is to replace GATS, which the European Union readily admits (“if enough WTO members join in, TiSA could be turned into a broader WTO agreement”).

That’s perhaps TiSA’s real goalâ€"to pry open markets, deregulate and privatize services worldwide, even among emerging nations with no input into the agreement. U.S. corporations may benefit from such a structure, as the Chamber of Commerce suggests, but the impact on workers and citizens in America and across the globe is far less clear. Social, cultural, and even public health goals would be sidelined in favor of a regime that puts corporate profits first. It effectively nullifies the role of democratic governments to operate in the best interest of their constituents.

Unsurprisingly, this has raised far more concern globally than in the United States. But a completed TiSA would go through the same fast-track process as TPP, getting a guaranteed up-or-down vote in Congress without the possibility of amendment. Fast-track lasts six years, and negotiators for the next president may be even more willing to make the world safe for corporate hegemony. “This is as big a blow to our rights and freedom as the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America in a statement, “and in both cases our government’s secrecy is the key enabler.”

This is scary shit. When we talk about global conspiracies in vague terms, what is not mentioned is the part played by the global reach of corporations like Monsanto and several oil companies. With TISA they are given the ability to sidestep national regulatory policies and safety regulations based on TISA. Uruguay, to their credit, has already opted out

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/09/22/uruguay-does-unthinkable-rejects-global-corporatocracy-tisa/

But if you want to talk global conspiracy, here you go. TPP and TISA and similar trade agreements, made to sound beneficial on the surface, would hand power to a global conglomerate of corporate entities; in effect, giving a few dozens of individuals the ability to operate outside the control of government regulation by elected officials.

[josephpalazzo]

The Europeans are a lot more scared than the average Americans. They have much stronger laws on environmental control, working safety conditions, and labor rights. Under that agreement, they would have to lower them to American sub-standard. So there. OTOH, this agreement is to undermine BRICS, particularly China, as it will eventually surpass the US as the biggest economy in the world. Now how can you let the US drop to number 2... Tst,tst...

[Baruch]

TPP (Trans Pacific), the European version of TPP and TISA are an unholy trinity of RICO.  But then the IMF and BIS are both beyond all laws of all nations, and have been for over 50 years.  BIS is pre-WWII and was initially run by Nazis.  The IMF has been the primary hit-man against Latin America ... and now S Europe ... Latin Europeans that is.  This is really an extension of BIS/IMF to beyond inter-State banking, to inter-State commerce.

One of the many reasons I can never forgive Obama (or the Clintons for their crime spree dating back to the 70s).  I expect this kind of thing from DINOs and RINOs ... hence I can only support Sanders and Trump or Third Party.  Basically for the Bushes ... it helps them turn the whole world into a neo-Nazi bunker like their ranch in Paraguay.  Henry Ford tried to build a kingdom in the Amazon in the early 20th century, called Fordlandia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordlândia

All subsequent wet-dreams by the tycoons and petty bureaucrat tools ... is a reworking of what Nazi Ford was trying to do.

[josephpalazzo]

 The agreement has been reached on the TPP. It remains that it has to be ratified by the government of each country involved. What will the US congress do? Trump has already made his intentions known that he is  against it, even though he hasn't seen the deal. As they say, the devil is in the details...

The US, Japan and 10 other Pacific rim countries have signed a controversial and sweeping trade agreement that covers about 40% of the world economy.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will create a new economic bloc with reduced trade barriers between the 12 nations involved.

The deal was signed after five days of talks in Atlanta in the US but has been under negotiation for five years.

It was delayed repeatedly by negotiations over drug patents.

The other countries included in the TPP are Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

'We should write the rules'

US president Barack Obama said in a statement that the deal "reflects America's values and gives our workers the fair shot at success they deserve".

"When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can't let countries like China write the rules of the global economy," he said.

"We should write those rules, opening new markets to American products while setting high standards for protecting workers and preserving our environment."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters the deal was a "major outcome not just for Japan but also for the future of the Asia-Pacific".

If ratified by the individual countries involved, the agreement has the potential to influence trade in everything from dairy produce to cancer treatments.

Supporters say it could be worth billions of dollars to the countries involved but critics say it was negotiated in secret and is biased towards corporations.

Biotech dispute

The final round of talks were delayed by negotiations over how long pharmaceutical corporations should be allowed to have a monopoly period on next-generation drugs.

The US had sought 12 years of protection to encourage pharmaceutical companies to invest in expensive biological treatments.

Australia, New Zealand and public health groups had sought a period of five years to bring down drug costs and the burden on state-subsidized medical programs.

A compromise was reached but the agreed protection period has not been confirmed.

Speaking at a press conference following the deal, US Trade Representative Michael Froman hailed the deal as the first to set a period of protection for patents on new drugs, which he said would "incentivise" drug producers.

The Washington-based Biotechnology Industry Association said it was "very disappointed" by the reports that the agreement fell short of the 12-year protections sought by the US.

Job losses

Asked about potential job losses - a criticism of the deal - Canada's trade minister Ed Fast said: "We don't anticipate that there will be job losses. Obviously there will be industries that have to adapt."

The agreement was a "once in a lifetime to shape rules in the Asia Pacific region", Mr Fast added.

The TPP has been championed by Barack Obama, who said previously he hoped it would address "21st century trade issues" such as intellectual property protections, digital trade rights and protections for investors.

The Obama administration also hopes that China, the world's second-largest economy, will eventually be forced to accept the standards locked into place by the TPP.

Trans-Pacific free trade deal agreed creating vast partnership

[Baruch]

This is mostly about US pharmaceutical companies being able to gouge in other countries.  Y'all know that in the US we pay more for drugs than you do in other countries ... this is about equalizing, in Big Pharma's favor.  In the case of the European version, American drug companies could sue the NHS for restraint of trade.

[jonb]

The effects will be far bigger it means any DEMOCRATICALLY elected government which may want to carry out or make a law which is wanted by it's people can be sued and have to pay monies to a foreign firm which did not like that law.
It means that corporations will have monetary control over democratic governments.

Question is this why the American embargoes on Cuba are being broken up, because European companies could sue the American government if these rules were in place?

Its just Capital winning over the mob again. 

[Baruch]

1. Further power for an international elite that goes back over 100 years

2. Further insulation against accountability of those elites (IMF is like a god legally)

3. This could be just the usual personal aggrandizement, or bureaucratic extension ... or something really evil

[josephpalazzo]

Why is everyone so anti-globalization? Over the last 30 years, billions of people escaped poverty due largely to globalization. The record shows that countries that trade substantially are unlikely to go to war against each other. It also forces countries to have equivalent standards in regard to labor laws, quality of products and services. It also entices all countries to innovate in order to better compete and be more efficient.

Oh wait, this is a knee-jerk reaction to One World, One Government...

[jonb]

Why is everyone so anti-globalization? Over the last 30 years, billions of people escaped poverty due largely to globalization. The record shows that countries that trade substantially are unlikely to go to war against each other. It also forces countries to have equivalent standards in regard to labor laws, quality of products and services. It also entices all countries to innovate in order to better compete and be more efficient.

Oh wait, this is a knee-jerk reaction to One World, One Government...

When china became a unified state it was the most advanced society on earth, once it had a single government a state education system and a civil service  it hardly invented another thing. You might say gun powder, but the elixir that killed the first emperor was more or less gun powder but it took more or less a tousand years to realise how that elixir could be used. Or you might mention ceramics but then you would have to see how much China owes to the Islamic potters contributed to that work.

On the other hand could one of the reasons why Europe became so powerful was that it was not centrally controlled so if you upset a king you only had to move a relatively short distance. Do I have to mention all the artists musicians, thinkers and scientists that did just that?
No I don't want a world government there would be no place to hide from it. It could only ever be a tyranny.

[Baruch]

Why is everyone so anti-globalization? Over the last 30 years, billions of people escaped poverty due largely to globalization. The record shows that countries that trade substantially are unlikely to go to war against each other. It also forces countries to have equivalent standards in regard to labor laws, quality of products and services. It also entices all countries to innovate in order to better compete and be more efficient.

Oh wait, this is a knee-jerk reaction to One World, One Government...

The best way to solve the world's problems, is to get behind the reestablishment of the British Empire, conquer all the Gunga Dins ... force them to eat shepherd's pies and stout ... and learn the Queen's English ;-)  Oh ... the US Empire is British Empire ... stealth mode ;-(  Remember, conquest, expropriation and enslavement are for your own good ... particularly if the Chinese do it.

[josephpalazzo]

The best way to solve the world's problems, is to get behind the reestablishment of the British Empire, conquer all the Gunga Dins ... force them to eat shepherd's pies and stout ... and learn the Queen's English ;-)  Oh ... the US Empire is British Empire ... stealth mode ;-(  Remember, conquest, expropriation and enslavement are for your own good ... particularly if the Chinese do it.

In case some of you haven't figured that one: globalization ≠ one government.

Abolishing tariff, abolishing artificial quotas, opening to new markets to facilitate exports, all in all that  brings lower prices, which benefits the poor and low-wage earners, greater variety of products, and better cooperation between countries instead of conflicts and wars.

So to the anti-global people: get a life.

[jonb]

In case some of you haven't figured that one: globalization ≠ one government.

Abolishing tariff, abolishing artificial quotas, opening to new markets to facilitate exports, all in all that  brings lower prices, which benefits the poor and low-wage earners, greater variety of products, and better cooperation between countries instead of conflicts and wars.

So to the anti-global people: get a life.

Yes that is precisely what ISIS is setting out to achieve.

[SGOS]

This is pretty much just more of the same.  It's just more naked about letting corporate interests fleece consumers.

[Baruch]

In case some of you haven't figured that one: globalization ≠ one government.

Abolishing tariff, abolishing artificial quotas, opening to new markets to facilitate exports, all in all that  brings lower prices, which benefits the poor and low-wage earners, greater variety of products, and better cooperation between countries instead of conflicts and wars.

So to the anti-global people: get a life.

I will bring you lower prices ... slave labor in S Thailand will bring it ... but not without a price ... there are no free whippings!

[Baruch]

Yes that is precisely what ISIS is setting out to achieve.

But ISIS works for the NWO ... they are the bad-cop ... and now Russia is the good-cop.  Putin has to please the gnomes of Zurich, same as every other kleptomaniac.