Update: TPP Delayed!
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- Published on Monday, 10 August 2015 17:45
- Written by editor
Another round of negotiations are done, and there's still no TPP deal. But the end is in sight, and if we can line up our elected leaders to oppose the TPP then we can help seal its fate.
Can you start a petition to your elected official asking them to oppose the TPP?
A,
Another round of secret TPP negotiations has fallen apart.
Trade negotiators gathered in swanky resorts in Hawaii, and were wined and dined by corporate lobbyists trying to push their agendas. At the end of the summit, negotiators could not agree on how much to limit access to life-saving generic medicines, amongst other issues.
There’s no question: The reason negotiators are having such a hard time reaching agreement is absolutely because of all of our work for the past two years.
Trade ministers know that they’re going to have to sell a skeptical public back home on whatever deals they strike. They know that every time they give something away to corporations, it makes it all the more likely the public will withdraw its already tepid support for the deal. And if we can get elected officials to line up in opposition to the deal, then we’ll be sealing the TPP’s fate for good.
As a global organization, we don’t have the capacity to run a specific campaign targeting every individual elected official, but we have a platform that makes it easy for you to start a petition to your elected leader.
Start a petition to your elected official asking them to oppose the TPP.
The frustrating truth is that it’s almost certainly only a matter of time before TPP negotiators finalize a deal (although of course we’re doing everything we can to prevent that from happening). Once they do, it’ll be on each country to stop the deal. And the more elected officials we can line up in opposition to the deal, the harder time world leaders will have winning support for this corporate power grab.
Your elected leader may not have even heard of the TPP. Certainly he or she hasn’t read it, as it’s been negotiated entirely in secret. By ramping up constituent pressure on our elected officials, we’ll make this an issue they have to pay attention to -- and make sure they know the only option is to reject the TPP corporate power grab entirely.
Because the TPP has been negotiated almost entirely in secret, we’ve had to rely on leaks to get a glimpse into the deal. Here are some of the things we know the TPP would do:
- Let fossil fuel companies sue governments who pass laws that infringe on their profits;
- Delay access to low-cost generic medicines by lengthening patent terms;
- Make it nearly impossible to ban risky financial schemes like those that crashed the global economy;
- Incentivize a race to the bottom for workers in every TPP country;
- Include countries like Malaysia and Brunei, which are notorious human rights abusers;
- Punish Internet users who link to copyrighted content;
- and so much more we don’t know yet!
Want to stop this deal? Start a petition now to your elected leader, asking them to oppose the TPP.
Starting a petition on our Community platform is really easy. It just takes a few minutes to set it up and share it with your friends -- and we may even end up sending out your petition to people in your community. And if enough of us do it, we can increase the drumbeat against the TPP, and stop this deal once and for all.
Thanks for all you do,
Kaytee, Hannah and the rest of us
P.S. To make sure negotiators in Hawaii heard us loud and clear, over 4,000 SumOfUs members chipped in to power our actions on the island. We placed a full page color ad in the paper every day of the negotiations, and we supported a massive demonstration on the beach outside the hotel where negotiators were meeting with their corporate lobbyist friends.
Hundreds of people -- maybe enough to break the world record! -- gathered together to blow conch shells, a Hawaiian tradition whose purpose is to draw attention to something that’s about to occur. Here’s one of our favorite images from that protest:
We showed up big time at the TPP negotiations in Maui one week ago. But now is not the time to sit back and wait. Negotiators may gather again in just a few weeks, and we’d need to be there in force. If you feel moved, can you donate CA$60 or whatever you can afford to keep up the opposition to the TPP that we’ve done so far?
More information:
Negotiators hope to wrap up Trans-Pacific Partnership talks this month, Los Angeles Times, 6 August 2015
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