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China link

Stronger TPP leadership locks out Chinese influenceSabatani 13 - senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas (AS/COA) and

founder and editor-in-chief of the hemispheric policy magazine Americas Quarterly (Christopher, “InLatin America, Creative Focus Could Pay Off,” World Politics Review, January 8, 2013,

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12609/in-latin-america-creative-focus-could-pay-off)//AC

Double Down on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Though little-known, the negotiations to create the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could be one of the

most important institution-building initiatives since the Cold War.

Economically, it is the first effort to weave together cross-hemispheric bilateral and multilateral free

trade agreements into a broad market. When completed, the TPP will include Australia, Brunei, Canada,

Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam -- with Japan and

South Korea also expressing interest in joining. Combined, the current 11 countries constitute $21

trillion in GDP, with $4.4 trillion in trade in goods and services (.pdf). With South Korea and Japan, this

new trade zone would total 40 percent of world GDP.With 29 sectors under discussion for the lowering of trade barriers and the updating of trade rules among the diverse nations, the TPP

would create the potential for a powerful, modern free trade zone. Such a broad, diverse modern

market would create tremendous opportunities for productivity and competitiveness among all member

countries and in their economic relations outside the bloc.

Diplomatically, the TPP is the economic, soft-power adjunct to Washington’s Asia pivot to check

potential Chinese ambitions in its neighborhood. In the Western Hemisphere, the TPP will provide an

attractive alternative to the sort of distorted, dependency-oriented bilateral trade that Beijing is

currently offering the region, by which China buys primary products and sells back value-added goods

made with the same materials.

Moreover, the U.S. and its economic allies in the region will create a powerful, progressive point of

attraction for other willing and economically serious countries in the hemisphere. Previous efforts to build a free

trade area of the Americas (FTAA) after 1993 ran aground on pre-existing trade agreements, such as Mercosur, and friction between the U.S.

and Brazil’s trade agendas and domestic policies.

As Mercosur and other regional trade arrangements continue to flounder, the attraction of the TPP will only rise. Already, Colombia has

expressed interest in joining.

Economic integration of Latin America is inevitable but the US will be locked out

without an effective TPP conclusion

Valencia 13 - political analyst and is a contributing writer for Global Voices Online (Robert, “U.S. and

Latin America: Economic Cooperation without Militarization?,” World Policy Blog, 5/20/13,

http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2013/05/20/us-and-latin-america-economic-cooperation-without-

militarization ) //JG

The new emphasis on economic initiatives between the United States and Latin American countries

represents a welcome break in stale policies. As President Obama pointed out, “the stronger the

economies and the institutions for individuals seeking legitimate careers, the less powerful those narco-

trafficking organizations are going to be.” Furthermore, economic initiatives need not eclipse security

strategies, but rather work in tandem. The White House must take steps to implement economic

cooperation as swiftly as possible, including the addition of including additional Latin American

countries into the Trans-Pacific Partnership --a 2005 free trade agreement that includes more Asian



countries--and encouraging more student exchange programs between the U.S. and Latin America. At

present, only 40,000 Latin Americans are studying in the U.S., a far cry from the 100,000 slots Obama

promised to open this year. Since the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. has seen its clout wane

on the realms of diplomacy and Latin America’s decision-making as the leftist wave rose among several

Latin American countries, while the region sought to integrate more and more by way of economic and

diplomatic blocs like UNASUR and CELAC. If Obama’s words are not consequen t with immediate actions

in the next couple of months or years and does not take Latin America as a serious trade partner (which

hasn’t been the case in previous administrations due to the Latin America -is-our-backyard mentality),

the U.S. will continue to lose leverage on important issues that concern Latin America, and in turn Latin

American countries will forge ahead with economic and security integration amongst themselves.

The current US negotiating stance in the TPP will cede Latin America to China – if the

plan makes the TPP more credible, they’ll regrow US influence

Ray Mallén 6/28 – covers Latin America for the International Business Times (Patricia, “Latin America

Increases Relations With China: What Does That Mean For The US?” 6/28/13,

http://www.ibtimes.com/latin-america-increases-relations-china-what-does-mean-us-1317981)//SJF

As if to confirm the declining hegemony of the United States as the ruling global superpower, China is

gaining influence in its hemispheric "backyard," Secretary of State John Kerry's unintentionally insulting

designation for Latin America.

China has had its sights on Latin America for the past decade and is now positioning itself as a

competitive trade partner in the region. The populous, rapidly developing Asian nation covets oil,

soybeans and gold, of which Latin America has plenty, and has been slowly but steadily increasing its

presence and its trade with several countries there.

The U.S., whose history of blocking outside political influence in Latin America going back to the Monroe

Doctrine, has been directing its attention elsewhere, as Michael Cerna of the China Research Center

observed. “*The U.S.'+ attention of late has been focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, and Latin America fell

lower and lower on America’s list of priorities. China has been all too willing to fill any void,” Cerna said. A Tale Of Two Trips: Latin America Reacts To Xi and Biden's Visits

Between 2000 and 2009, China increased its two-way trade with Latin America by 660 percent, from $13

billion at the beginning of the 21st century to more than $120 billion nine years later. Latin American

exports to China reached $41.3 billion, almost 7 percent of the region's total exports. China’s share of

the region’s trade was less than 10 percent in 2000; by 2009, the number had jumped to 12 percent.

As impressive as that growth is, the numbers still pale in comparison to the U.S.' stats in its commercial

relationship with Latin America. The U.S. still holds more than half of the total trade, adding up to $560

billion in 2008. Notably, though, America’s trade participation in Latin America has remained static,

while China is closing the gap more and more each year -- having already surpassed the U.S. in some

countries, including powerhouse Brazil.

Concomitant with this burgeoning interest from the Far East, Latin America is undergoing an economicrebirth. After decades of devastating economic crises, the region is experiencing unprecedented growth:

On average, annual GDP growth for Latin American countries will be 3.7 percent this year, according to

United Nations estimates, almost double the average for the rest of the world. That has prompted

several countries to form quasi-governmental entities to further promote the progress of the region.

One such entity is the recently formed Pacific Alliance. Born with the specific goal of increasing relations

with Asia, its members include Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru, which together represent half of the

region’s total exports and 35 percent of its GDP. In a meeting in Colombian capital Bogotá last month,



the Pacific Alliance signed an agreement to open its member countries' economies to Asian markets; the

U.S., despite an invitation, did not attend.

Though a recent trip to the region by Vice President Joe Biden seems to run counter to the Pacific

Alliance snub, China’s President Xi Jinping has also visited recently, and likewise met with Latin American

leaders, illustrating how the two global powers are going after the same prize.

Biden traveled to Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil in May, with the last leg of his trip coinciding

with the beginning of Xi’s in Trinidad, before jumping to Costa Rica and Mexico. Both leaders met with

several Latin American presidents and discussed trade and cooperation. The outcomes of their trips

were very different, however.

Xi’s trip was the first visit from a Chinese official to the region in almost a decade. Trinidad and Tobago’s

main newspaper, Newsday, called the visit a “historic occasion” and a “visit from China to a good

friend.” Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said she was committed to boosting relations with China

and accepted an invitation to Beijing for November of this year. In Costa Rica, Xi signed a $400 million

loan to build a cross-country road and reaffirmed relations with its main ally in the region. Costa Rica is

the only country in Latin America that sides with China in the mainland-Taiwanese dispute and does not

recognize the island as a nation.

Even more significant was Xi’s visit to Mexico. President Enrique Peña Nieto welcomed his Chinese

counterpart, whom he had visited in Beijing in April, and made his intentions clear: Mexico wants closertrade relations with China, with whom it has a gap of $45 billion in export and import -- an important

development considering that Mexico is, for now, America's biggest trade partner in the world.

Biden’s visit was not as successful. His meeting in Trinidad and Tobago was called “brutal and tense” by

Persad-Bissessar, and Colombian journalist Andrés Oppenheimer deemed the trip a sympathy visit after

Secretary John Kerry called Latin America “Washington’s backyard” in a much-berated slip last April.

While Biden had pleasant meetings in Rio and Bogotá, no agreements were signed during his trip.

Perhaps the biggest development in China’s investment in the area is the recent decision by the

Nicaraguan congress to allow a Chinese company to build a canal through the country. Although still in

the proposal stages, the project would bring profound change to the geopolitics of the region -- and

even the world. If built, the canal could significantly affect commerce through the Panama Canal, which,

though it is now part of Panama's domain, was built by the U.S. and remains a symbol of the nation'shistorical dominance in the region.

That dominance is in decline. After decades of uncontested U.S. influence in the region, some Latin

American leaders have started making decidedly anti-American policies. The most notable was the late

Venezuelan Comandante Hugo Chávez, who was very vocal about his disdain for the U.S., but he is far

from the only one. Bolivia's President Evo Morales, for instance, kicked out USAID after Kerry's verbal

slip, and has gone so far as to ban Coca-Cola from the country.

But now it's Ecuador bumping heads with its northern neighbor, mostly in regard to Ecuador granting

entry to NSA-secrets leaker Edward Snowden. President Rafael Correa openly said that they would

welcome the whistle-blower because he was a "free man," no matter what the U.S. said. Disagreements

between the governments have led to the cancellation of a special trade agreement, which Ecuador has

called "an instrument of blackmail."

Beyond the lack of understanding with its former main trade partner, why is Latin America so smitten

with China? Kevin Gallagher, a professor of international relations at Boston University, says China

speaks to the region’s newfound confidence. “China is offering attractive deals to Latin American

economies while the United States continues to lecture and dictate,” Gallagher wrote for The Globalist.

“For too long, the United States has relied on a rather imperial mechanism, just telling Latin America

what it needs,” he added. “Compare that to China’s approach: It offers Latin America what it wants.”

Gallagher argued that the U.S.’ biggest offer to Latin America is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which

offers access to the U.S. market on three conditions: deregulate financial markets, adopt intellectual



property provisions that give preferences to U.S. firms, and allow U.S. firms to sue governments for

violating any of its conditions.

China, on the other hand, has been providing more financing to Latin America than the World Bank, the

Inter-American Development Bank and the U.S. Export-Import Bank combined since 2003, with no

previous conditions and very few strings attached.

“Latin America is very sensitive to any notions of conditionality due to painful past experiences with the

IMF and the World Bank,” Gallagher said. “China makes sure that its policy is not based on

conditionalities.”

Gallagher said the U.S. should awake from its past slumber and stop taking Latin America for granted.

Shlomo Ben-Ami, vice president of the Toledo International Center for Peace and former Israeli foreign

minister, takes a different stance. He argues that China's advancement in the region does not

automatically equate with American loss of preeminence. U.S. exports to Latin America continue to rise

(by 94 percent over the past six years), as do imports (87 percent in the same period), and America

continues to be the biggest foreign investor in the area.

Perhaps even more crucial are America's cultural and historical ties to the region, Ben-Ami said. “Given

the extraordinary growth of Latinos’ influence in the U.S., it is almost inconceivable that America could

lose its unique status in the region to China,” he said.

Still, Gallagher and Ben-Ami agree that the U.S. needs to step up, both economically and diplomatically,to compete with new influences in a part of the world that was until recently widely considered

America’s domain.

“Gone are the days when military muscle and the politics of subversion could secure U.S. influence -- in

Latin America or anywhere else,” Ben-Ami said.

“It is high time for the U.S. government to undertake a true rethink of its economic policy toward Latin

America,” Gallagher observed. “Very soon, it might be too late.”

Expanding US-Mexico TPP participation will be used to challenge Chinese influence

Peters et al 13 – Professor at the Graduate School of Economics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Enrique Dussel, Ariel C.

Armony: Director of the University of Miami’s Center for Latin American Studies, designated as a Title VI National Resource Center by the U.S.

Department of Education, is also the Weeks Professor in Latin American Studies and Professor of International Studies, Evan Ellis: associate

professor with the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies in Washington DC with a research focus on Latin America’s relationships with Chinaand other external actors, Kevin P. Gallagher: an associate professor of international relations at Boston University, where he directs the Global

Economic Governance Initiative and the Global Development Policy Master’s Program, Adrian H. Hearn: Australian Research Council (ARC)

Future Fellow at the University of Sydney and Chair of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Section for Asia and the Americas, Harley

Shaiken: a Class of 1930 Professor of Letters and Science, Graduate School of Education and the Department of Geography and Chair of the

Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley; Professor of Social and Cultural Studies at the Graduate School of Education, Hongbo Sun:

Associate Professor at the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Ping Wang: the Director of the Center

for Latin American Studies at Nankai University, Tianjin, China. She is also the vice president of the China Association of Latin American

Historical Studies, and senior research fellow of the Institute of Global Studies of Hong Kong and the Chinese Foreign Economic and Trade

University, Ralph Watkins: international trade analyst at the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) for 37 years, Chunsi Wu: executive

director of the Institute of International Strategy Studies and research fellow at the Center for American Studies, Shanghai Institutes for

International Studies, “China and the New Triangular Relationships in the Americas. China and the Future of US-Mexico Relations,” May 2013,

http://dusselpeters.com/62.pdf#page=95)//SJF//AC

If Mexico and China reorient their strategies, it is likely that there will be an adjustment in the triangle’s

dynamic, which may result in a closer relationship between these two countries. Transformations in theregional and global context and their impact on TR dynamics: probably the most significant factor is the

creation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which introduces geopolitical rivalries in the triangle. TPP does

not include China and it is likely to affect China’s interests in Latin America and its existing trade

relations with several countries in the region, including Mexico. If Beijing’s suspicion materializes that

TPP is a US-led strategy to resist China’s regional hegemony in the Asia-Pacific, then the question is whether

this major initiative may have an impact on China’s relationship with Mexico. Mutual perceptions: the potential

for tripartite cooperation resulting from choice is largely dependent on the US and Mexican perceptions





of China. For these two countries, China represents some type of threat , but the meaning of “threat” is very different

for each of them. For Mexico, China entails a threat as an economic power, primarily because it has emerged as a serious

challenger for Mexico in the US import market. For the United States, the threat posed by China in Latin America is more symbolic than

real. China behaves with great care in the region and has tried not to alienate the United States. However, China’s appeal has gained

ground in Latin America. For instance, a 2012 survey conducted in 26 Latin American and Caribbean countries shows that, in many of

these countries, the United States is barely ahead of China as a “development model” in the eyes of the average citizen (Zechmeister et al.

2013). This type of evidence suggests, at least in terms of perceptions, that China may be gaining a more solid foothold inLatin America in an environment of decreasing US influence and, possibly, increasing anti-Americanism

(Seligson and Zechmeister 2013).



Politics link

Strong political opposition to the plan

Wilson 13 - Associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

(Christopher, “A U.S.-Mexico Economic Alliance: Policy Options for a Competitive Region,” New Ideas fora New Era: Policy Options for the Next Stage in U.S.-Mexico Relations, May 2013

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/new_ideas_new_era.pdf )

Improving policy requires surmounting political opposition. Past advances in U.S.- Mexico economic

relations such as the passage of NAFTA were won not only by the political leadership in both countries,

but also by the coalition of business groups and other non-governmental actors. The business

communities of the United States and Mexico are natural allies for any effort to implement the type of

competitiveness enhancing policies described above, but the networks forged during the passage of

NAFTA virtually disappeared. Efforts should be made to strengthen the networks of U.S. and Mexican

businesses and civil society groups working to support a positive and productive U.S.- Mexico

partnership.looking forwArd

In the end it is about vision. Popular opinion on NAFTA and free trade is still mired in the same tired

debates of twenty years ago. Modern day refrains of Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” still echo.

Opponents of trade agreements still measure job loss by subtracting imports from exports, while free

traders still retort that a bigger trade pie means more to eat for everyone. The debates are the same,

but the world is not. Globalization has changed the very nature of trade, and if our perception does not

catch up with reality, there is little doubt that we will be left with a strategy from yesterday in the world

of tomorrow, and one of the best opportunities to reinvigorate the region may be squandered. If

instead, the United States, Mexico, and Canada see themselves as the partners that they are, and

capitalize on the major advances underway in manufacturing and energy by pursuing a robust agenda to

cooperatively strengthen the competiveness of the region, then the likelihood is strong that North

America will continue to be among the most dynamic and wealthy in the world.

Economic integration with Mexico triggers trade union oppositionGoforth 13 - teaches international political economy at Coastal Carolina University (Sean, “Mexico’s

Pena Nieto Faces Tough Choices on Trade,” World Politics Review, 2/27/13,

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12745/mexico-s-pena-nieto-faces-tough-choices-on-

trade)//AC

But Mexico’s attempts to pursue further integration with the U.S. have met lukewarm receptions north

of the border. And now the Obama administration is signaling that its trade priorities lie in negotiating a deal

with the European Union, which would neatly skirt the trade union opposition that has historically

sapped Washington’s enthusiasm for closer economic integration with Mexico.

Trade promotion authority links to politicsTandon 13 - Shaun Tandon has worked at Agence France-Presse, studied at GeorgetownUniversity for foreign policy, (Obama base voices concern on Pacific trade pact, June 11, 2013,http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gWDxKm5d-i-UWExTZXTwuBVHYBCA?docId=CNG.b972a6177ab8474e09319ee67e5fb6c0.111)//sawyer



The lawmakers vowed to resist efforts to give Obama "fast-track" trade promotionauthority -- which would let his team negotiate a deal, with Congress then voting up or down

without the opportunity to make changes. "Congress needs to work together to get Americantrade policy back on track -- not give away its authority to do so," said the letter spearheaded byRepresentative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin. "Reducing our authority to ensure our tradeagreements serve the public interest will undermine our efforts to create American jobs and to

reform a misguided trade policy that has devastated our manufacturing base through theoffshoring of American production and American jobs," the letter said.

The TPP is unpopularCapling and Ravenhill 11 - Ann Capling went to the University of Melbourne, JohnRavenhill went to the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University,(―Multilateralising regionalism: what role for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?,December 12, 2011http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09512748.2011.634078)//sawyerOf particular note here has been the capacity of protectionist forces in the US Congress to denythe President a renewal of trade promotion authority, and to signal that their opposition toagreements is so deep seated that the Administration refrains from placing them before the

Senate for ratification (seen with the Korean and Colombian agreements under both the Bushand Obama administrations). Substantial opposition to the TPP was expressed in theUS Congress even before the negotiations began. In particular, the US trade deficit withChina has increased domestic protectionist pressures and has led many to question the benefitof free trade with developing countries more generally (Aggarwal 2010). The TPP has becomecaught up in a more general tide of skepticism towards bilateral trade agreements, and in a push

by trade unionists and civil society groups, more generally, to see these agreements includeprovisions on labour rights and environmental protection. And it also attracted oppositionspecific to the proposed agreement itself, in particular from dairy interests concerned at thepotential competition from NZ‘s efficient exporters (Fergusson and Vaughn 2010). The NationalMilk Producer‘s Federation has sought to exclude the dairy industry in any trade agreement withNZ – in March 2010, 30 US Senators wrote to the US Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, warning

that opening the US market to NZ dairy products would pose a major threat to the US industry.But opposition to the proposed agreement was not confined to the dairy industry: in May 2010,20 groups representing agricultural producers wrote to the Obama administration requestingthat market access schedules and accompanying ROOs in existing US PTAs not be changed aspart of the TPP negotiations (TPP Digest 2010). Some sectors of US manufacturing have alsoopposed the TPP, most notably the National Council of Textile Organizations, which argues that

Vietnam should be excluded from the negotiations.



Brazil link

The TPP would challenge Brazilian leadership

Santos 13 – Tamara has earned a BA in International Relations from La Salle University, Riode Janeiro and a MA in Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies from King‘s College, London.She is an independent researcher, international relations enthusiast and interested in topicsrelated to politics, economics, sustainable development and diplomacy, (―Trans-PacificPartnership (TPP): Bad news for Brazil and China?‖, April 6, 2013,http://theworldoutline.com/2013/04/trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-bad-news-for-brazil-and-china/)//sawyer

On the Latin American side of the TPP, since the last decade, Brazil has been investing massivelytoward infrastructure programs designed to integrate the region and to facilitate the transport ofgoods and services among its neighbours. Regional integration is a priority in Brazilianforeign policy agenda. By providing promising trade alternatives in a wider Financial Trade

Agreement (FTA), the TPP could also represent a challenge for Brazil, as its

neighbours still receive a considerable portion of Brazilian exports, which represent animportant tool for economic growth. Furthermore, having other partners to assist in theregional development could also diminish Brazil‘s role as the regional paymaster.

http://theworldoutline.com/2013/04/trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-bad-news-for-brazil-and-china/)/sawyer






Neoliberalism links

The TPP is a neoliberal wish that empowers corporations

Bowie 13 - Nile Bowie is a political analyst and photographer currently residing inKuala Lumpur, Malaysia, (―Trans-Pacific partnership: Neoliberal arm of Obama‘s Asia-pivot‖, June 14, 2013, http://rt.com/op-edge/trans-pacific-partnership-obama-704/)//sawyer

Everything that the public knows about the TPP so far has come from various leaks, and if thefinal agreement looks anything like the negotiating text, the implications would be far reaching,affecting everything from the cost of medicines to internet freedoms by broadening internationalcopyright and intellectual property rights legislation in line with US law. Make no mistake –

the TPP is a neoliberal wish list that would empower corporations to skirt

national laws and courts, while directly challenging health, environmental and

other public interest policies. What makes the TPP so alarming is that it aims to create judicial authorities higher than national governments, in the form of extra-judicial tribunalsoverseen by the World Bank and UN. If multinationals feel that existing government policy hashindered their expected future profits, national governments would be obliged to dole out

compensation with taxpayer dollars. If the TPP were to be passed into law, it would:

create incentives for corporations to offshore millions of jobs & encourage

bottom-of-the-barrel low wage conditions in participating countries prohibit bans

on risky financial instruments, speculation, and derivatives; countries would be banned fromenacting capital controls and banks would enjoy significantly less regulatory oversight imposestrict intellectual property legislation that would undermine access to the internet and digitalfile-sharing, as well as stymie the product of generic medicines that may violate US patents

lower food safety regulations and flood markets with those products, empowering corporationsto decrease environmental and health safeguards make signatory countries accountable tointernational tribunals, giving corporations the ability to demand compensation for anyexpected future profits that are hindered by existing national laws. Like NAFTA, whichdismantled the US manufacturing base and led to thousands of job losses, the TPP promotesoffshoring through incentives for corporations, leading to wages being drivendown and heightened inequality . Pharmaceutical giants would be allowed to increase drugprices and limit consumers‘ access to cheaper generic drugs, which is bad news for many of thedeveloping countries taking part. On the digital front, ISPs could be required to scrutinize useractivity, while the creation and sharing of user-generated content would be stifled by drasticextensions of copyright protection. In the financial department, the TPP imposes extremederegulation policies that have contributed to the global economic crisis, whileprohibiting countries from enacting capital controls, an essential policy tool to counterdestabilizing speculative cash flows. While Chuck Hagel and the gang over at the Pentagon are

busy repositioning US military muscle to the Asia-Pacific, the Obama administration realizesthat it must offer Pacific nations – who would otherwise have greater incentives in deepeningeconomic ties with China – an attractive stake in the ailing US economy. The countries involvedin the negotiations – Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru,Singapore, Vietnam, and now Japan – include major economic players in Southeast Asia. TheTPP is clearly the economic arm of the ‗pivot to Asia‘ policy, roping strategiceconomies into a legally binding corporate-governance regime, lured in by the

http://rt.com/op-edge/trans-pacific-partnership-obama-704/)/sawyer







promise of unfettered access to US markets. Many believe that the underlying purpose of Washington‘s renewed interest in the Asia Pacific region is to counter the influence of China, which will soon overtake the US as the world‘s largest economy. Examining the Beijing-aphobiaconjecture of US foreign policy theoreticians like Robert Kagan can provide a clearerunderstanding of the TPP.

The TPP puts corporations on a pedestal giving them the ability to ignore key aspects

of societyStamoulis 13 - Arthur Stamoulis is executive director of Citizens Trade Campaigncitizenstrade.org and a contributor to the CIP Americas Program www.cipamericas.org, (―SevenReasons to Fight the TPP‖, 04/12/13, http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/9349)//sawyer

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a massive new trade and investment pact being pushed by the U.S. government at the behest of transnational corporations, threatening theeconomy, environment and public health both at home and abroad. The TPP iscurrently being negotiated behind closed doors by the United States, Australia, BruneiDarussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam —

but it is also specifically intended as a ―docking agreement‖ that other Pacific Rim countries will join over time, with Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea and others already expressingsome interest in doing so. Negotiations are scheduled to conclude in October 2013.International campaigners are fighting hard to prevent the deal from going through. The TPP issaid to contain 29 separate chapters, covering everything from food safety standards to bankingregulations. Here are some of the many reasons activists are fighting the current direction of theTPP: 1. To stop big rollbacks in wages and working conditions. Many corporationsare looking for ways to reduce labor costs and undercut worker power — not only inthe United States, but in countries like Mexico, China and beyond. The TPP would grantcorporations cheaper and more secure access to labor markets in countries such as Vietnam

where workers are paid just a fraction of what Chinese sweatshop workers are paid. Whether ornot corporations decide to move their production to these lower-paid countries, the threat of

moving there (or of being undercut by competitors who have already done so) can be used to suppress employee demands for compensation and other benefits virtuallyanywhere in the world. 2. To head off attacks on environmental protections. A wide rangeof transnational corporations, including those in extractive industries, have pushed forinvestment provisions in the TPP that would enable them to challenge virtually any new law,regulation or even court decision that adversely affects their expectation of profits as an―indirect expropriation‖ or ―regulatory taking‖ through international tribunals that circumventdomestic judicial systems. Similar provisions under past trade pacts have already been used to

weaken portions of the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act in the United States, as well as the environmental and consumer safety protections ofdeveloping countries throughout the world. The TPP would vastly expand what iseffectively an alternative court for the exclusive use of transnational corporations.

3. To maintain access to affordable medications. The leaked U.S. proposal for an intellectualproperty chapter within the TPP would have the effect of extending monopoly drug patents for big pharmaceutical companies, making it harder for countries to produce or procurelow-cost generic medications for people with HIV, tuberculosis, cancer and otherlife-threatening diseases. The TPP threatens to increase healthcare costs in developedcountries, effectively denying access to life-saving medicines for the poor. 4. To avoid furtherfinancial deregulation. Wall Street banks, insurance companies and hedge funds want thefinancial services provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to handcuff the steps governmentscan take to protect against ―too big to fail,‖ regulate trade in toxic assets, erect firewalls between

http://www.cipamericas.org/


http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/9349)/sawyer






different financial service firms and control the flow of short-term capital into and out ofnational economies. 5. To prevent new caps on food safety protections. The so-called ―lifesciences‖ corporations that produce pesticides, food additives and genetically-modifiedorganisms have a history of using trade pacts like the TPP to erect barriers making it harder forcountries to adopt and maintain strong food safety regulations based on the precautionaryprinciple. Even consumer right-to-know rules requiring product labeling have been attacked

and dismantled. 6. To deter concentration of global food supplies. Big agribusiness middlemen want the TPP to enable them to ―buy low‖ and ―sell high‖ throughout the Pacific Rim, a practicethat would help concentrate global food supplies in their hands, undercutting family farmers,forcing new waves of migration away from rural areas and potentially leading to wildfluctuations in food prices for consumers. 7. To protect local development policies. A range ofcorporations want the TPP‘s procurement provisions to prevent governments from institutingpublic purchasing preferences designed to keep taxpayer funds circulating in and supportinglocal economies. They also want to prevent government contracts from being used to advance a

variety of other environmental, social and human rights goals.

The TPP will allow for corporate takeover

Rochon 13 –Nicolas Rochon is a writer for The International, (―In the Dark, the Trans-PacificPartnership Advances to the Next Round of Negotiation‖, April 18, 2013,http://www.theinternational.org/articles/399-in-the-dark-the-trans-pacific-partnership)//sawyer

Prior to her arrest, Kilcher argued, ―The Trans Pacific Partnership would be devastating forpeople around the world and it is being negotiated in complete secrecy to hide the content…

While hundreds of corporate advisors have access to the information contained within thesedocuments, the American public, the media and even members of Congress do not.‖ Three months later, as another private meeting was underway, hundreds of New Zealanders

rallied outside the Sky City Convention Center in downtown Aukland, New Zealand. The crowdsset fires to petition boxes, representing nearly a million signatures worldwide, to demonstrate

their opposition to the TPP agreement. But as the demonstration escalated, protestors wereconfronted by an equally impressive police force ready to subdue the scene. Specializing ininternational economic regulation, the University of Auckland‘s Jane Kelsey proclaimed togovernment: ― We say to our prime minister, whose theories of democracy are that you shouldignore the people when they are telling you that they don‘t want what you are doing in secret intheir names, we say, shame, shame, shame.‖ Seemingly unaffected by public outcry, the TPP‘sauthors – corporate lobbyists and national leaders – continue to work in the dark.

A 21st century ideal? Described on the US Trade Representative‘s website, the TPP isconsidered to be ―an ambitious, next-generation, Asia-Pacific trade agreement that reflects USeconomic priorities and values.‖ The department goes further to say that one of the mainreasons for US involvement is for it to become fully integrated into the Asia-Pacific economicmarket. Authors of the TPP highlight five distinct features that they argue make it a ―landmark,21st century trade agreement‖ set to ―boost the competitiv eness of TPP countries in the globaleconomy.‖ First, the TPP provides comprehensive market access to create opportunities foremployees, employers and consumers by eliminating tariffs and other barriers on goods andservices. Next, the TPP employs a fully regional agreement, so that participating countrymembers can better development production and supply chains to promote sustainable growthinto the future. It also incorporates four ―cross-cutting‖ trade issues that are designed toimprove trade and investment efficiency to allow for a more cohesive union between TPPmembers and their local enterprises. Furthermore, the TPP will work to tackle the new tradechallenges of the modern age, as innovative digital and green technologies become the building

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blocks of future economies. Lastly, the TPP will remain as a ―living agreement,‖ allowing forupdates to be made as challenges emerge. Or a corporate coup? Arguing against those in favorof the TPP, Andrew Marshall cites that of the twenty-six chapters constructing the body of theagreement, only two chapters actually discuss trade. Instead, the majority of the chapters focuson intellectual property rights, environmental standards, government procurement and aderegulation of various international industries. In fact, a letter from the US Congress to US

Trade Representative Ron Kirk affirms that the agreement indeed goes far beyond trade: "[TheTPP] will create binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas,‖ like ―those related tolabor, patent and copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, naturalresources, the environment, professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and governmentprocurement policies, as well as financial, health care, energy, telecommunications and otherservice sector regulations.‖ One of the most vocal groups opposed to the TPP, Public Citizen,leaked internal documents which concluded that the Obama administration "intends to bestowradical new political powers upon multinational corporations… [with] policies thatenvironmental activists, financial reform advocates and labor unions have long rejected foreroding key protections currently in domestic laws.‖ In reference to transnational corporations,the TPP would protect multinational corporations from the national laws and regulations offoreign countries, transcending any rights given to domestic companies or even citizens. In

addition, these transnational corporations could legally sue governments for any loss ofpotential profit that stemmed from such laws and regulations. On this point, Marshall writes,―[L]et‘s be clear: for corporations, such regulations and concerns over health, safety andenvironmental issues are perceived solely as ‗barriers‘ to investment and profit. Thus their‗government‘ w ould sue the foreign government on behalf of the corporation, on the premisethat such regulations led to potential lost profits, for which the corporation should becompensated.‖ Another characteristic of the TPP is its potential stronghold on medicine.Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a French secular humanitarian-aid non-governmentalorganization, worries over the ―evergreening‖ effect that TPP members are working toimplement. Defined by MSF, ‗―evergreening‘ allows pharmaceutical companies to obtain orextend monopoly protection for old drugs simply by making minor modifications to existingformulas," even if the modifications do not serve to increase efficacy. Furthermore, negotiators

of the TPP hope to eliminate the ability of third parties to challenge the granting of unjustifiedpatents of drugs, which many consider as public health safeguards. As written in their ―Dangersfor Access to Medicines in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,‖ authors Burcu Kiliç andPeter Maybarduk assert that such ―opposition [to unjustified patents] is a safeguard againstpatent abuse, improvidently granted patents and unwarranted pharmaceutical monopolies,‖

while ―[t]he absence of pre-grant opposition would make patent examination less informed and would be likely to increase… costs associated with the patent opposition system… and lead tolow-quality patents and unjustified drug monopolies…‖ But the most potentially harmful tool ofthe TPP is ―the setting up of a three attorney tribunal, with no checks on conflicts of interest, to

judge foreign corporate complaints regarding government regulations in the countries they aresetting up operations in,‖ as reported by Mark Vorpahl on truth-out.org. The danger posed bysuch a corporate tribunal is the potential for offers transnational corporations the ability toessentially govern themselves in a court of law, except, in this case, the law is themselves.Speaking with The Real News Network‘s Paul Jay, co-director of It‘s Our Economy.org, ActivistKevin Zeese describes the backwardness of such a court: ―By individual corporations in a tradetribunal… Most of the judges will be corporate lawyers on leave from their corporate job, puttingon their robe and being a judge, deciding in favor of the corporation, no doubt, and then going

back to their corporate job.‖ Besides these possible implications, the TPP would also affect foodstaples, internet privacy, the environment, and many other such resources that we appreciate intoday‘s world.



TPP and free trade place corporations above human beingsDuRand 13 - Cliff DuRand is a Research Associate at the Center for Global Justice and a

contributor to the CIP Americas Program www.cipamericas.org. He is co-author and co-editor ofRecreating Democracy in a Globalized State, (―Trans-Pacific Partnership: Free Trade vs.Democracy, 04/12/13, http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/9355)//sawyer

As closed-door negotiations concluded in Singapore on the Trans-Pacific Partnership,opposition begins to build in many countries. At the urging of the United States, Canada andMexico have joined the nine countries in the talks and now Japan has announced it too wants to

be part of this new free trade pact of Pacific rim countries, described by its critics as ―NAFTA onsteroids‖ Going into its 17th round of negotiations, the Obama administration aims to wrap upan agreement by October, hoping to push ratification through the Senate on a fast- track basis.Called Trade Promotion Authority, fast track would mean an up or down vote withoutamendments or even hearings on the agreement presented to it. It is a profoundly anti-

democratic procedure because it shuts down debate. But from start to end, TPP has been thoroughly anti-democratic. On the first day of the Singapore talks a broad range of civilsociety organizations issued an open letter to Congress calling for greater transparency in theproceedings. The agreement is being hammered out in secret discussions amongtrade ministers. Even Senators have been denied a look at its draft provisions. However, some 600 transnational corporations are in the inner circle. They are writing the rulesfor trade in their own interests without any democratic input from the people whose lives will beprofoundly affected. If adopted, TPP will deny citizens their democratic rights to shape publicpolicies on a host of domestic issues, conceding those decisions to the large corporations. Some

sections have been leaked. They reveal ― an agreement that actually formalizes the

priority of corporate power over government ,‖ according to Lori Wallach of Public

Citizen‘s Global Trade Watch. Only 5 of the 29 chapters have to do with trade. Wallach says therest of the draft ―include[s] new rights for the big pharmaceutical companies to expand, to raisemedical prices, expand monopoly patents, limits on Internet freedom, penalties for inadvertentnoncommercial copying, sending something to a friend. There are the same rules that promoteoff-shoring of jobs that were in NAFTA that are more robust that literally give privileges andprotections if you leave. There is a ban on ‗buy American‘ and ‗buy local‘ or ‗green‘ or sweat-freeprocurement. There are limits on domestic financial stability regulations. There are limits onimported food safety standards and product standards. There are limits on how we can regulateenergy towards a more green future – all of these things are what they call ‗Behind the Borders‘agenda. And the operating clause of TPP is: ‗Each country shall ensure the conformity of itsdomestic laws, regulations and administrative procedures with these agreements.‘‖ Global Class

War Free trade is about more than trade. It is about favoring corporations over the

democratic rights of citizens and the sovereignty of nations . As the former Director-General of the WTO, Renato Ruggiero, said in 1995, ―We are no longer writing the rules ofinteraction among separate national economies. We are writing the constitution of a singleglobal economy.‖# What is being created is a global governance order in which corporation arethe citizens, not flesh and blood humans like you and me. With free trade, corporations are

making an end run around democracy. TPP is the latest offensive in a global class war .

For nearly 40 years now, since the mid 1970s, corporations have been rolling back the populargains of the New Deal era and the 1960s. Democracy has been the target of a class war to restore





the class power of capital. And there has been weak resistance, at best, by the popular classes.But the stakes have become increasingly clear to more and more. Indeed, on the issue of freetrade, there is now a broad public sentiment against this aspect of the corporate offensive. TheUS has become the world advocate of ―free trade,‖ promoting it through trade agreements likeNAFTA and other bi-lateral agreements as well as through global governance institutions it hassponsored such as IMF, World Bank and WTO. The US has promoted free trade for much the

same reason Great Britain promoted it in the 19th century, viz. the economically strongestcountry in the world benefits from free trade. It is the weaker countries that seek tariffprotection for their infant industries, protection from competition with cheaper and higherquality imports. That protection is what enabled the US to industrialize in the last half of the19th century. But then when the US became economically strong enough to compete regionallyand eventually globally, it became an advocate of free trade and demanded that others abandonprotectionism. The justification for free trade rests on the theory of comparative advantage. Thisis the view that if countries trade free of government impediments, the market will tend to directeach to export that which they can produce most efficiently and import what can be producedmore efficiently and thus more cheaply elsewhere. The invisible hand of the market will guideeach to specialize in producing what they have a comparative advantage in. Thus a rationalproduction and trading system will emerge that maximizes efficiency. Free trade agreements

like NAFTA were sold to the US public by appealing to consumer‘s interest in having access tocheaper goods imported from Mexico. What was deliberately soft-pedaled was their interest as

workers in having jobs. Organized labor opposed NAFTA, fearing it would pit US workers incompetition with low wage Mexican workers. Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot

warned of ―a giant sucking sound‖ as jobs would be off -shored to Mexico. But the Clintonadministration said US exports to Mexico would create new jobs. And so, ignoring oppositionfrom its traditional base in the unions, new Democrat Clinton pushed ratification of NAFTAthrough the Senate as his first priority. Perot proved to be correct as US companies shiftedproduction to low wage Mexico – until even lower wage Chinese workers were brought intoplay when China joined WTO. But Clinton was also right as cheaper consumer goods fromabroad filled the shelves of Wal-Mart with bargains welcomed by US workers who found their

wages reduced. Free trade proved to be a mixed blessing. Capital Becomes Global One

important point about free trade that is often overlooked is that it is not only about the free,frictionless movement of goods and services across borders, unrestricted by tariffs, quotas and

regulations. It assures the free movement of capital, as corporations are freed to

invest abroad. The mobility of investment capital is of utmost importance, with

profound economic consequences and consequences for democracy. Unable to find

sufficiently profitable venues for investment in the overdeveloped US economy, largecorporations have increasingly moved abroad. They sought not just new outlets tosell their commodities, but low wage workforces that would decrease theirproduction costs and thus boost their profits. Frequently that would involve locatingdifferent stages of the productive process in different countries so as to take optimal advantageof local conditions. The assembly lines of US industry were disaggregated and disbursed acrossthe globe. Global assembly lines emerged. These global production chains have become asignature feature of contemporary capitalism. Components may be manufactured in Singapore,transported to China for subassembly and then shipped to Mexico for final assembly before salein the United States. Although global assembly lines are geographically dispersed, theyovercome the limitations of the fixed assembly lines of the Fordist era in that they no longerhave to rely on a fixed labor force that can organize itself to effectively claim a share of thesurplus they create. Instead, the global assembly line gives capital the flexibility to seek out thelowest wage workforce and friendliest business environment available anywhere in the world.This has been made possible by the development of a global computerized network of instant



communications via satellite. That and the computerization of banking have made moneytransfers and the movement of capital both easy and instantaneous. The communicationsnetwork also allows the decentralization of technological development and design. Technicianscan work at points distant from the processes of production to which they address themselves.

And the entire process can be coordinated by management located anywhere on the globe. Thelimitations of space and time have been overcome by digital communications and cheap energy

for transporting goods to their ultimate consumers. For such globalized production to bepossible, capital must be able to flow freely across national borders and products have to be ableto move with minimum friction across those borders, unhampered by tariffs or quotas or non-uniform standards. In other words, there must be free trade for transnational capital to optimizeaccumulation.# But transnational corporations also need legal protection of their investments.They need protection from expropriation of their assets, laws and governments that can ensuretheir property is secure. A crucial part of free trade agreements is protection of what are calledinvestor rights. This involves more than just protection from expropriation, as happens withrevolutions. It also involves protection from governmental actions that might reduce the value oftheir property or potential profits by environmental and health regulations, labor laws or othersuch measures even though they might be for the public good. What in US law is called―regulatory takings‖ are seen as tantamount to expropriation. When such governmental actions

do occur, free trade treaties give the foreign corporation the recourse to sue. The suit is notadjudicated in a national court, but by a transnational body of experts operating in secret. Statesare expected to enforce its decisions on their own nation‘s taxpayers and consumers. This favorsinvestor rights (i.e. the interests of transnational corporations) over the democratic rightsof a nation.-

The TPP will empower corporate control – specifically in MexicoPaley 13 -Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist and independent researcher, (―TremendousPharmaceutical Profits or Totally Protected Plunder, 4/17/13,

http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/9369)//sawyer What the TPP really means for Latin America Quieter is better. That seems to be the mottodriving the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The trade deal was initially called theP2, and it was a two-way affair between New Zealand and Singapore. Chile and Brunei joinedthe negotiations, which were renamed the P4. Then the US joined, and the deal was re-brandedas the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP). Today, negotiatingcountries are splayed across the globe like a constellation only a highly trained astronomer couldrecognize. In addition to the first five, the TPP now includes Australia, Malaysia, Peru, and

Vietnam. Canada and Mexico recently joined the talks and Japan is vying to participate in thenegotiations The next round of negotiations will take place in Lima, Peru, and proponents arepushing for a final agreement by fall. But the language of TPP promoters rings hollow for those

who have tracked the progress of other trade agreements, like NAFTA. ―They‘re saying that it‘sgoing to open up opportunities for exporting more Mexican goods to other countries, like to

Asia… That Mexico will become more competitive in other markets,‖ said Manuel Pérez-Rocha,associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and member of the Mexican Action Networkon Free Trade (RMALC). Pérez-Rocha pointed out there‘s little concrete evidence thatMexican exports to Asia will increase as an outcome of the agreement. ―Mexico hasactually signed many Free Trade Agreements with other countries, and itsdependency to the US market hasn‘t changed a bit,‖ he told the Americas Program.Since the US got on board, the TPP has taken shape as a second generation of geographically-distributed multilateral negotiations after the collapse of the World Trade Organization (WTO)



talks and the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal. According to the Office of the US TradeRepresentative, ―This agreement will advance U.S. economic interests with some of the fastest-growing economies in the world; expand U.S. exports, which are critical to the creation andretention of jobs in the United States; and serve as a potential platform for economic integrationacross the Asia-Pacific region.‖ During the negotiations, concerns have been raised that the TPP

will limit access to generic medications, impact Internet access, and affect local markets for

textiles, shoes, milk, and grains in negotiating countries. ―[The TPP] is a way to isolateChina, it‘s a way to do an end run around the WTO and to kind of pursue the USagenda, which was not getting very far with countries that are willing toparticipate… it‘s just an expansion of the general free trade architecture that was beingcontested to some extent,‖ said Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

With the TPP, secrecy is the name of the game. So far, ―there‘s been no text released, the onlytext that‘s come out is through leaks,‖ said Trew. One of the key areas of concern is with theinvestment protection segment of the TPP, which was leaked in June 2012 to the US rightsgroup Public Citizen. The TPP would bring in an augmented version of NAFTA‘s controversialChapter 11, an investment protection agreement by which companies can sue governments forimposing health and environmental legislation, among other things, applied across all countriesinvolved. ―The leaked text reveals a two-track legal system, with foreign firms

empowered to skirt domestic courts and laws to directly sue TPP governments inforeign tribunals,‖ according to an analysis prepared by Public Citizen. ―They can demandcompensation for domestic financial, health, environmental, land use laws and other laws theyclaim undermine their new TPP privileges.‖ The fact that the TPP is being negotiated betweencountries that have already signed various Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and multilateral tradeagreements has shifted the nature of the concerns among activists in negotiating countries awayfrom strictly market based concerns and towards issues of Intellectual Property (IP) andinvestment protection. Intellectual Property (IP) represents another area where the US ispursuing an aggressive agenda in TPP negotiations. ― While the TPP has some similarities withthe free trade agreement that Chile signed with the United States in 2004, but from what hascome out through leaks of the negotiating text, the TPP has intellectual property standards thatare much higher than [the US-Chile FTA], which in the Chilean case could imply changes to laws

which protect innovation and internet users,‖ according to Francisco Javier Vera Hott, projectdirector of Derechos Digitales, an internet rights group based in Santiago de Chile. ―Chile hascommercial agreements with all parties of the TPP, so this agreement doesn‘t represent anyeconomic or employment gains or [changes to] market access, instead it represents losses as weare required to implement stricter norms with regards to intellectual property, without anyretribution.‖ IP is similarly a major concern in Peru and in Canada. ―In the case of the TPP inPeru, for example, it‘s not just another agreement with countries with which we already have[Free Trade Agreements], the threats go beyond commercial exchange strictly speaking…They‘re more in the area of deepening institutional reforms in sensitive sectors like intellectualproperty,‖ Alejandra Alayza, executive coordinator of the Peruvian Network for Globalization

with Equity (redGE Perú), told the Americas Program from her office in Lima. ―The USproposal [regarding intellectual property] has been on the table for more than a year and a half,and regardless of the fact that the other countries have rejected the proposal, the US is insistingon raising the standards and they haven‘t pulled their proposal, at the same time, they‘reseeking to wrap up negotiations in the next few months,‖ said Alayza. ―This shows a clearintention to press for new intellectual property regulations on behalf of the pharmaceuticalsector, which would strengthen the transnational monopoly of the pharmaceutical companies,

weakening access to medicines and competition of internal markets and generic drugs.‖Pharmaceutical drugs and the IP chapter in the TPP could also have an impact on theavailability of generic drugs of other negotiating countries, including Canada, according to Trew,

who says drug prices in Canada will likely rise if the TPP is passed. ―Proposed by U.S.



negotiators, the IP rules enhance patent and data protections for pharmaceutical companies,dismantle public health safeguards enshrined in international law, and obstruct price-loweringgeneric competition for medicines,‖ reads a statement released last month by Doctors WithoutBorders (MSF). The stakes are a little different in Mexico, which has an economy that is muchmore dependent on the US than the other Latin American nations involved. If anything, theTPP will deepen Mexico‘s dependence, according to IPS‘s Pérez-Rocha. Compared to

Peru, for example, ―Mexico is much more dependent on the United States, more dependent toNAFTA, in general Mexican producers are very concerned that the privileges Mexico has withthe United States will be diluted, that Asian companies will be able to come and assemble inMexico and export to the United States, affecting very strongly Mexican producers,‖ he said,noting that the Mexican textile and shoemaking sector have shown opposition tothe pact. ―For example textiles, they could import from Vietnam, to name a country, and they

wouldn‘t pay tariffs on the imports, and then they could produce clothes to export to the UnitedStates from here in Mexico, so basically that‘s one of the gravest concerns of the textileassociations.‖ In addition to the textile and shoemaking sectors, Pérez-Rocha pointed out thatMexico‘s milk, coffee and basic grains sectors could all be negatively impacted through thepassage of the TPP. Canada‘s dairy sector could also take a hit if the TPP is passed. ―Really its

just another race to the bottom, but no one wants to get left out, no one wants their

economy to be somehow damaged if they‘re not part of the negotiations,‖ saidTrew. Though Alayza said she isn‘t expecting mass mobilizations in Peru during TPPnegotiations there, events are being organized in Peru and elsewhere to coincide with the talks.The TPPxBorder group has started compiling a list of events being organized against the TPP,

beginning with a day of action on May 11th.

The TPP gives corporations domination – specifically the TPP is a death sentence for

MexicoNadal 13 -Alejandro Nada is a Mexican economist, professor of economics, and researcher atthe Centro de Estudios Economicos, (―Threat of the Trans-Pacific Agreement‖, 04/23/13,

http://xwww.cipamericas.org/archives/9416)//sawyer

This week negotiations begin again in Singapore on the Transpacific agreement, a project hailed by its promoters as the biggest, most ambitious trade agreement ever. Eleven countriesparticipate: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, United States, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zeeland,Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. It‘s billed as a tool for growth, employment andprosperity, but the reality will be quite different. The world economy has seen threedecades of neoliberal trade agreements along with strong financial liberalization, bothdomestically and in transborder flows. They have been accompanied by new rules on intellectual property, government procurement, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, laborrelations and the prohibition of performance requirements on international corporations.These agreements radically redefine any nation‘s development strategy, delivering it into the

hands of transnationals and the ―free market‖. What has the result been? A semi-stagnant worldeconomy, high unemployment, rapid environmental deterioration and the worst crisis in 80 years. One might think that with these ―achievements‖ we would have stopped negotiating newtrade agreements. But it‘s exactly the opposite. The transnational corporations need toopen up new terrain for making profits, even if it goes against the rules of socialand environmental ethics. And since these transnational corporations have takencontrol of the regulatory realm, their servants in government are workingovertime to invent new trade pacts. Mexico agreed to join negotiations on the TPP last

year. By doing so, it accepted two harmful conditions. The first, to renounce any attempt to

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reopen negotiations on the terms already agreed on by the countries in the TPP –that is, itagreed in principle that what was already agreed on should be accepted by any new partnerseeking to join the process. The second is that it cannot request the inclusion of new issues on

the agenda. So Mexico went into negotiations as always: on its knees and giving up

everything before even entering into talks. One might think that with the North

American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) our country already handed over everything andthere isn‘t much left to lose. That is partially wrong. Mexico gave up everything to Mexico and

Canada, not to the other eight countries of Asia and Latin America. That‘s why the TPP

poses a new threat to Mexico. One of the characteristic traits of the TPP is that a foreign

company can sue the governments when the company feels that its expected earnings have beenaffected. This part of the TPP is inspired by Chapter 11 of NAFTA, which poses a particularlydangerous threat to public health, consumer protection and the environment. In fact, thisinstrument was already used by Metalclad in 1996. Now Monsanto could cite Ch. 11 of NAFTA toforce the federal government to completely open the Mexican countryside to its harmfulgenetically modified corn. Will the Peña Nieto cabinet dare to reject with a clear NO thedangerous plans of the transationals or will it agree to play the role of subordinate?

The TPP gives corporations the ability to dominate citizensStadius et al 12 - Eric Stadius and Elizabeth Briggs, Research Associates at Council onHemispheric Affairs, (―THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: FREE TRADE AT WHATCOSTS?‖, August 20, 2012, http://www.coha.org/the-trans-pacific-partnership-free-trade-at-

what-costs/)//sawyer

Because the TPP removes the host state of the foreign investors from litigation, investors would be capable of exploiting loopholes such as Most Favored Nation (MFN) status or utilizing the broad definition of indirect expropriation to pick advantageous standards and dispute

settlement mechanisms.[22] These investor-to-state negotiations will enable transnationalcorporations to reap profits from foreign citizens over policy in the countries where thecorporations operate, even when no international state-to-state disputes exist. IntellectualProperty Chapter[23] The intellectual property chapter appears to carry with it the mostsubstantive changes to international law to be found in the entire TPP. A leaked text, available

via House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), details a harsh copyright law,mirroring that of the United States, which has the potential to alter domestic laws throughoutthe region. This chapter, driven primarily by the U.S., if adopted in its current state, would enactthe strongest intellectual property protection and enforcement standards in any FTA to date.The proposed document embraces the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement(ACTA) and recalls the rejected Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), pushed by the powerfulpharmaceutical and Hollywood-funded lobbying firms in Washington, by altering the ability to

access information and vital resources for developing countries. The primary issues in theintellectual property chapter surround the extension of copyright, restriction of parallelimportation, the enforcement of new laws, and the ramifications for such products as textbooksand medicine. The intellectual property chapter best exemplifies the maximalist stance

Washington has taken in these negotiations, which contradicts the development agendaproposed in more transparent, multilateral agreements such as the 1994 WTO Trade Related

Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS). In terms of copyright, the TPP willdramatically expand its minimum international standards in scope and length, many of whichdo not even reflect settled U.S. law. The treaty proposes to lengthen copyrights on published

http://www.coha.org/the-trans-pacific-partnership-free-trade-at-what-costs/)/sawyer







works; under the treaty they would expire 70 years after the death of the author or no less than95 years from the first authorized publication. This would extend the length of copyright in asignificant portion of signatory countries as well as annul the TRIPS standard of 50 years afterdeath or 50 years after publication. Although this copyright period mirrors U.S. law, the U.S. lawsets 70 years post-mortem as a ceiling, while the TPP denotes this as a minimum length. Theseextended laws go against economic rationality, as the government cannot incentivize the

creation of work that already exists under copyright, thus it draws no additional economic benefits. Rather, the extended laws would cut supply in the creative goods sector, particularly indeveloping countries where the public domain plays an increasingly important role ininformation dissemination.[24] The intellectual property chapter further enables the patent orcopyright holder to block parallel importation of copyrighted works. Parallel importation is thepractice of importing a legitimate copyrighted good, not an illegal reproduction, at lower pricesthan what is available domestically without the permission of the copyright holder.[25] Many ofthe smaller TPP countries benefit from this practice because they lack the sufficient populationor demand to attract a low market entry price. For example, with the TPP in effect, a school inMalaysia or Peru would be forced to purchase textbooks at higher domestic prices rather thancontracting with a buyer who could purchase the textbooks at a lower price in a market such asthe United States and then sell them to the school at the lower price. The restrictions on parallel

imports remain unsettled or unenforced in every TPP signatory nation, including the UnitedStates. The current international laws surrounding this practice, denoted in TRIPS, leavecountries free to adopt their own policies based on their domestic intellectual propertylaws.[26]Another area where the proposed TPP text threatens domestic laws and the pre-existing international intellectual property framework involves the easing and expansion ofpatentability standards. The TRIPS provision only allows for additional patents on a product orprocess if the addition has industrial applicability or alters the function of the product.[27] TheTPP, however, would allow additional patents for any new form, use, or method of utilizing anexisting product, even if no applicability or efficiency measure exists.[28] Where this technique,known as evergreening, is most applicable is within the competing pharmaceutical and genericmedicine industries. As Doctors Without Borders argued, evergreening allows majorpharmaceutical companies to extend monopoly protection by making slight alterations to

existing formulas, delaying the arrival of a more affordable generic version.[29] The firstgeneration of HIV antiretroviral drugs, in 2000 shortly before the patent expired, cost anaverage of $10,000 to $15,000 USD per person per year—far outside the means of an averageperson living in a developing country. However, by 2011, the price of a similar generic drugcombination had fallen to merely $60 USD per person annually.[30] Under the currentintellectual property chapter of the TPP, such a devaluation process would take far longer,keeping these important innovations in health care out of developing countries in exchange forgreater profits for the major pharmaceutical companies. This provision further contradictsPresident Obama‘s position on refusing to negotiate trade agreements that ―prevent developingcountry governments from adopting humanitarian licensing policies to improve access tolifesaving medications.‖[31] The final area of concern in the proposed intellectual propertychapter is the enforcement aspect of copyright infringement. The U.S. has proposed a multi-faceted scheme for patent violations that allows for prosecution based upon pre-existing orstatutory damages, a provision that appears in U.S. law, but not in that of any other signatorynation. This part of the TPP proposal takes the ability to punish infringers one step further byallowing for the prosecution of every infringer, rather than only willful ones.[32] This provisionencourages a rent-seeking behavior on patent filing and deters innovation, both of which couldprevent advances beneficial to social and economic development. Environmental Regulationsand Ramifications Many U.S. environmental groups, in particular the Sierra Club, haveexpressed both concerns and hopes over the potential ramifications of the TPP.[33] U.S.negotiators have allegedly been pushing for stronger environmental regulations in the



agreement, particularly regarding illegal logging, wildlife protection, and overfishing. But manyother aspects of the TPP have the potential to damage the environment due to increased rightsof corporations as well as the sweeping definition of investment. The TPP would likely allow forincreased exports of liquid natural gas with fewer regulations. This would undoubtedly result inan increase in hydraulic fracturing, a process that results in substantial environmentaldegradation, in order to obtain more natural gas. Hydraulic fracking threatens the environment

and human health through water and air contamination, the migration of poisonous gases andchemicals to the surface, and the mismanagement of hazardous waste.[34] Moreover, theaforementioned investment chapter stipulates that under the TPP, corporations will have theability to sue governments over any piece of legislation or regulation that they perceive asdamaging to their future profits. Many worry that this will allow corporations to challengedomestic laws protecting the environment. Under the U.S.-Peru FTA, U.S. mining companyRenco was able to sue the Peruvian government for $800 million USD in damages following thedenial of their request for a third extension for their obligated chemical clean up.[35] Under theTPP, lawsuits such as this one would likely become more common and would be resolved byforeign tribunals with rotating judges. The TPP may also allow for corporations to challenge―preferential‖ labeling because such stringent standards on labels could result in favoritismtowards a certain country‘s product, therefore violating the FTA. This provision could result in

more cases like the WTO ruling that forbid the U.S. from labeling tuna fished in amanner that prevented harm to marine mammals as ―dolphin safe,‖ because it―unfairly discriminated‖ against Mexican tuna that was not required to featurethis label.[36] In May 2007, due to concerns that FTAs were opening up the potential formultinational corporations to damage to the environment, Congress arrived at a bipartisanconsensus that all future trade agreements would include enforceable environmentalchapters.[37] The TPP will undoubtedly include such a chapter. In FTAs with countries that areparticipating in the TPP, the U.S. already has shown some commitment to strengthenedenvironmental standards. For instance, the U.S.-Peru FTA aimed to reduce illegal logging, aleading cause of deforestation.[38] Although there is the potential to help the environmentthrough free trade agreements such at the TPP, profits often outweigh environmental concerns.



Case answers



Solvency 1nc

TPP negotiations are likely to collapse because of US leadership

Paramonov, 13 – Dr. Igor M. Paramonov, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Calgary (“The Rise ofAsia and North American Economic Integration: A Canadian Perspective” The Business Review,

Cambridge21.1 (Summer 2013): 67-73. Proquest)

Despite obvious benefits and opportunities, the TPP is not a sure thing yet, and unlikely a panacea for all

Canadian problems. Despite a commitment to progress across all areas and consistency in the objectives

of negotiations, the TPP by its nature is "an unbalanced composition" (Ibbitson, 2012). In addition to the

world's largest economy (the U.S.), the TPP includes poor, communist-run Vietnam; small oil-rich

Sultanate of Brunei; two smallish Andean nations of Chile and Peru; two developed economies (Australia

and New Zealand), emerging Malaysia, and rich but small city-state of Singapore in the South Pacific;

and two newcomers from North America - Canada and Mexico. Taking into consideration differences in

size, sources of income, living standards, and political orientations of these nations, it can be difficult for

them to find common ground. The Americans are setting the terms for the deal, and many countries

don't like these terms. Negotiations could be stalled in a limbo-type situation analogous to the

promising but overly-complex deal to complete the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.

The absence of India, Japan, South Korea, and especially China, which is now at the very center of the

global manufacturing supply chain, makes the TPP incomplete and less attractive for businesses. Iwan

Aziz, head of the Asian Development Bank's regional integration office, concludes that any agreement

that does not include China will lose relevance (as cited in Pilling, 201 1). Most experts have serious

doubts that China will join talks any time soon. Proposed provisions placing limits on state-owned

enterprises make China's presence unlikely. The Chinese local media often portrays the TPP as an

"aggressive" US-led ploy to marginalize China (Ibid, 201 1).

From Canada's perspective, the absence of China is not the only pitfall of the new partnership. There are

other big implications, including pressure on protected industries in Canada to accept more foreign

competition. Americans are trying to take advantage of the TPP talks to push Canada and Mexico toward

giving up their traditional protectionism not just in agriculture, but in government procurement, culture

and financial services. Canada is expected to make concessions on copyright reform and intellectual

property. Copyright reform has taken over 15 years to fulfill and critics argue that new trade demands

sought by powerful U.S. pharmaceutical, technology, and entertainment industries could have

potentially disastrous consequences for Canadians (Brown, 2012).

All of these potential implications could cost Canadian businesses and consumers heavily, while

projected economic benefits look rather modest. Independent authors calculate that membership in the

TPP could increase the size of Canada's economy by US$9.9 billion by 2025 with 0.5% annual growth of

gross domestic product (Petri, Plummer, 2012).

Existing US protectionism will collapse TPP negotiations

Barfield 3/14 – former consultant to the office of the US Trade Representative and a resident scholar

at the American Enterprise Institute (Claude, “Mexican tomatoes and the US TPP negotiations,” 3/14/13,

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/03/14/mexican-tomatoes-and-the-us-tpp-negotiations/)//SJF



This is a huge, complex negotiating agenda — and to achieve its goals, the United States will have to

make concessions to accommodate the equally urgent priorities of its 10 TPP negotiating partners. Thus,

in some cases for the first time ever, the United States will have to tackle its own long-standing

protectionist practices and rules. This means liberalising high tariffs (and low quotas) on textiles, apparel

and footwear. It will also mean loosening market-distorting rules of origin that drastically curtail supply

chains by excluding parts and components from non-TPP members. Then there are the highly restrictive

quotas and tariffs in key agricultural sectors, such as sugar, dairy products and cotton.

On sugar, the United States has adamantly opposed curbing a protectionist regime that uses price

supports, combined with quotas and sky-high tariffs, to keep out competitors and force US consumers

to pay on average twice the world price for the commodity. Similarly, for dairy products, a combination

of subsidies, quotas and tariffs ‘milk’ US consumers and keep out foreign competitors. But cotton is the

real mindblower: currently US taxpayers are shelling out US$147 million per year to buy off Brazilian

cotton magnates who quite rightly won a case against US subsidy programs in the WTO.

With the presidential election out of the way, there was hope that the president’s trade team would

reveal a braver face on trade policy. Alas, in January the administration delivered a backhanded,

protectionist slap to its NAFTA and TPP partner, Mexico. As anyone who has suffered through rock-hard,

unripe Florida winter tomatoes knows full well, the arrival over the past decade of riper, juicier Mexican

winter tomatoes has been a godsend. When the Obama administration signalled last year that it wouldgo along with Florida tomato growers’ demands for more protection, the thought was that it was

bowing to election pressure. Well, Barack Obama won decisively. But a few weeks ago the government

mandated a steep price rise for Mexican tomatoes and cut the amount of the fruit that could be

imported — one can only assume out of conviction that US producers must be protected no matter the

cost or quality considerations for the consumer.

If this craven attitude and stance prevails in the TPP negotiations, they will surely fail. This would be a

double blow to the US and the world trading systems. First, on most of the 21st-century TPP issues, the

president and his team are spot on — these are the central issues to ensure more open future markets.

Beyond economics, however, TPP failure would be disastrous for US strategic leadership in East Asia

where the regional pact has become the central symbol of the US ‘pivot’ and rebalancing.

In coming months, it will be imperative for President Obama to use his hard-won political capital tochallenge entrenched protectionist interest groups and policies. After all, on his own word a central

element of his legacy is wrapped up in getting the TPP over the finish line. More parochially, during

these grey days of February it would be a boon to enjoy an edible Mexican tomato again.

TPP negotiations are stalling – five issues

Japan Times 7/17/13 (Japanese News, “TPP talks stall over tariff axing,” 7/17/13,

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/07/17/business/tpp-talks-stall-over-tariff-

axing/#.UfAiEY21Fsk)//AC

The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations remain stalled over five topics — including the key issue

of market access and tariff elimination, sources said. One market-access proposal under discussion calls for

all parties to agree on the removal of tariffs on all products before moratoriums are set up on the

removal of tariffs for certain products of special concern to TPP participants, they said Tuesday. One of the sources

said it was likely that some of the decisions would be subjected to political decisions in the final phase. The other four problematic

issues are intellectual property rights, environmental problems, labor and electronic commerce, the

sources said. The 11 TPP negotiation participants, including the United States, Australia and Malaysia,

hope to reach broad agreement on the free-trade deal by October and sign the pact by year’s end. But

the stalemate over the five topics and Japan’s imminent participation in the talks are expected to

make it difficult for the negotiating parties to meet the schedule, the sources said. Negotiations have ended on five of



the 29 planned chapters — trade facilitation, standard unification, telecommunications, development, small and medium-size enterprises —

and have effectively been completed on nine others, one of the sources said.



--XT – US influence derails it

US dominance makes the TPP ineffective --- alternative trade regimes without the US

are sufficient to solve

Palit, ’12 – Head (Partnership & Programme) and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute ofSouth Asian Studies (Amanda, “TPP may drive BRICS into action”, 10/16/12, National University of

Singapore. http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2012/10/16/tpp-may-drive-brics-into-action/)//SP

Second, the TPP is attempting to create a major trade bloc without some of the biggest emerging

economies. None from the BRICS group — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — are part of the

TPP. And while the countries negotiating the TPP are all members of APEC, some major APEC economies

— in particular the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Russia and Thailand — are not

included in the negotiations.

China’s exclusion is strange given its huge economic presence in the Asia Pacific. This has given rise to

views that the US is driving the TPP with the strategic objective of marginalising China.

Another concern with the TPP is its impact on Asian integration. Various models of economic integration

are being pursued in Asia. For example, APEC is pursuing a Free Trade Area for the Asia Pacific, the EastAsia Summit is developing a Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia, and ASEAN, China,

Japan and the ROK are pursuing the East Asia Free Trade Area (EAFTA). All these efforts will be

hampered by the advent of the TPP, which will add a strong ‘non-Asian’ flavour to economic integration

efforts in Asia and force Asian economies to develop different strategies for regional integration.

The complications created by the TPP are becoming visible in Asia. Japan and the ROK, while expressing

interest in the TPP, are also negotiating the EAFTA. The dilemma of choosing between the TPP and other

Asian trade frameworks will affect more Asian economies.

Emerging markets like China, Brazil and India will find it difficult to join the TPP, given its rigid rules and

the US dominance. But to ensure that the TPP does not divert global trade from them, they will need to

act together. The best thing for them to do would be to expedite BRICS’ development so that it can

provide an alternative trade framework to the TPP by creating rules that emerging market industries

find easier to implement and follow. A strong BRICS structure will also strategically balance global trade,which could otherwise be dominated by the TPP.



--XT – Negotiations dead

TPP negotiations stalling – medical patent protection

BSB 7/23/13 - BioSpectrum Bureau (News about Biology, “Trans-Pacific trade talks reach stalemate over

IP rights,” 7/23/13, http://www.biospectrumasia.com/biospectrum/news/192040/trans-pacific-trade-talks-reach-stalemate-ip-rights/page/1#.UfApVY21Fsk)//AC

Singapore: What started as an effort to lower trade barriers across 12 Pacific Rim nations, from the US and Canada to

Vietnam and Chile, the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations has brought together various drug companies

and development groups. However, the ongoing trade talks in Malaysia have reached a stalemate as drug

development groups and companies have got into a clash over intellectual property provisions. While

the US has been pushing for expansion of patent protection, there has been loud resistance against this

from emerging economies that fear losing access to affordable medicines. The issue came about as the biggest

sticking points at the 18th round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations that started on July 15 will go on till July 24. Although

the main initiative was to reach an agreement by the end of the year, the issue of patent protection

for pharmaceuticals is proving to be a big roadblock . Releasing an open letter to TPP countries, international charity

organization Doctors without Borders has expressed serious concern about what could emerge in a deal. "It threatens to restrictaccess to affordable medicines for millions of people, especially in low and middle-income countries.

Unless certain damaging provisions are removed, the TPP has the potential to become the most harmful

pact ever for access to medicines," the group said. They further added that the other issue of worry was that

the deal could become a ‘global standard with worldwide damaging repercussions.' PhRMA, that represents

large global pharma companies in Washington on the other hand countered this strongly. "Strong intellectual property

protections in the TPP to bolster biopharmaceutical innovation will help ensure that unmet patient

needs are addressed," the group said. The group explained that they wanted the US to use TPP negotiations to bring IP standards up to

American levels, including at least 12 years of protection for biologies. It argues that intellectual property protections are

not a barrier to access, when compared with the much bigger problem of scarce infrastructure in

doctors and hospitals. It also says strong patent protections offer an ‘incentive' for investments in areas

such as drug delivery systems suited to conditions of high humidity and temperatures. Only two years back, the

US tried to bridge the gap in the pharmaceutical debate with a plan that sought to establish a ‘TPP access window', which would give greater

legal certainty for generic manufacturers, and reduce customs obstacles and duties on medicines. But other TPP countries rebuffed the plan,

with the poorest such as Vietnam seen to be most adversely affected.

The TPP fails – currency clauseSolis 13 - Mireya Solís is the Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies and senior fellow at theBrookings Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and associate professor at AmericanUniversity. An expert in Japan‘s foreign economic policies, Dr. Solís earned a PhD ingovernment and an MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and a BA ininternational relations from El Colegio de México. Her main research interests include Japanesepolitics, political economy, and foreign policy; international and comparative political economy;

international relations; and government-business relations. She also has interests in broaderissues in U.S.-Japan relations and East Asian multilateralism, (―A Currency Clause in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is Unworkable, Unsuitable, and Counterproductive‖, July 8, 2013,http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/07/08-tpp-currency-clause-solis)//sawyer

Curiously, the repeated calls for including a currency clause in the TPP fail to tell us the mostimportant thing: what kind of clause? What behavior is to be proscribed? Who will be in chargeof monitoring for transgressions? What types of sanctions would constitute a fair remedy? Thesilence of pundits on these crucial matters reflects the lack of consensus on what constitutes

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/07/08-tpp-currency-clause-solis)/sawyer

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2013/07/08-tpp-currency-clause-solis)/sawyer



systematic currency manipulation. When countries maintain fixed exchange rates below theirmarket value, impose extensive controls on capital inflows, and directly intervene in the marketto defend a target exchange rate, it is easier to sustain charges of currency manipulation. But

beyond these textbook cases we enter a wide grey area. Take the argument that the buildup of excessive foreign exchange reserves constitutes currency manipulation. Where do wedraw the line on what constitutes excessive, and how can we determine that the objective is to

obtain unfair competitive advantage and not the accomplishment of legitimate policy goals?Many Asian countries concluded from the havoc wrought by the Asian Financial Crisis that theyneeded to boost their forex reserves as an insurance mechanism. And many oil producingcountries have channeled their foreign reserves into sovereign investment funds to diversifytheir economic portfolio. Recently, Japan has been accused of unfairly cheapening the yenthrough its quantitative easing program, but the actions of the Bank of Japan mimic what theFed has done to combat the post 2008-recession. The important lesson here is that currencymanipulation is largely in the eyes of the beholder. Critics read into these policies an attempt atcompetitive devaluation, while proponents note their merit in terms of prudential financialmanagement, economic diversification, and deflation abatement. Until we have a widely-accepted definition of what constitutes currency manipulation, we don‘t know what behavior tooutlaw in a trade agreement. Unsuitable The TPP is not the right platform to embark on the

quest for definitional clarity. Currency misalignment is a global issue, one that fallslargely outside the purview of this 12 member grouping. The country that generates themost concern in the United States for currency interventionChinais not participating in theTPP, and among current members only two (Malaysia and Singapore) are on the list ofmanipulators that according to a recent Peterson Institute study (using the foreign reservecriteria) merit a U.S. response. The problem is not that the TPP net will catch few currencymanipulators, but rather the folly of attempting to legislate in a trade agreement rules on crucialinternational financial matters such as currency intervention, without developing first withinthe IMF a set of specific guidelines on proscribed behavior. The risk of incompatible rules is notminor, if we keep in mind the recent worry that provisions on FTAs may disallow prudentialcapital controls that the IMF now deems can be useful to maintain global financial stability. Inthe rush to avail themselves of the trade sanction mechanism, proponents of a currency clause in

the TPP have not learnt this lesson and they insist on putting the cart ahead of the horse. Theseadvocates should also be careful about what they wish for. The United States may introduce theissue of currency manipulation to the TPP talks, but the final clause will be a negotiatedoutcome reflecting the views of the other parties to the agreement. And some of the ad hocarguments made these days by punditsthat the Bank of Japan‘s quantitative easing programcounts as currency manipulation, but not the actions by the Fedwill certainly not fly in the TPPdeliberations. Trade penalties are a double-edged sword: while the United States may go aftercurrency manipulators (and again we don‘t know what actions would count as unfairintervention, what the trigger points would be), its own actions will also be subject to legalchallenge if target nations challenge the evidence that the United States uses in building itscurrency manipulation case. Counterproductive A currency clause in the TPP can do muchharm and little good. For starters, it will introduce a very divisive issue on already heatednegotiations that are now reaching a delicate final stage. The deadline for completing theagreement has been postponed before, and by overloading the negotiation agenda we risknegotiation drift. Moreover, it can dim the possibilities of constructing an Asia-Pacific wideplatform of high level economic integration. If a currency clause discourages China from joiningthe TPP in the future, it will be a major lost opportunity as many of the disciplines onintellectual property protection and state-owned enterprises, to name a few examples, couldprovide impetus for the reform of Chinese trading practices. While the costs are high, the

benefits are in question. Currency realignment is not a magic pill to eliminate trade deficits. Asseveral economists have pointed out, shifts in the value of the Chinese yuan have had a marginal



effect in the American trade deficit with China. Nor did the sizable depreciation of the dollar vis-à-vis the yen during the 2000s had any impact in reducing the bilateral trade deficit. This pointis important because the auto caucus has used the argument of currency manipulation to opposeJapan‘s admission to the TPP. The impact of said clause in the auto trade balance will be modestgiven that the majority of Japanese brand cars sold in the American market are manufacturedon U.S. soil. Even before Japan sits at the TPP negotiation table, American trade negotiators

have substantially advanced the offensive and defensive interests of the Big Three carcompanies. The Japanese government has agreed to negotiate on non-tariff measures thathinder market access for foreign brands (such as emission standards and preferential taxschemes) and to accept a long phase out of American auto tariffs, a snap back mechanism toreimpose higher duties if disputes arise, and a special safeguard to prevent sudden surges in

American imports of Japanese cars. The U.S. auto industry has been well served by the nation‘strade negotiators. It is now time to contemplate how their demand for a currency manipulationclause will be a disservice to American objectives in the TPP.



Inherency

High-Level Economic Dialogue now and TPP coordination occuring

Meacham and Graybeal 5/9 – *director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and

International Studies, **program coordinator with the Americas Program at CSIS, provided research

assistance (Carl, Michael, “President Obama’s Trip to Mexico and Costa Rica: What was the Outcome?”,

5/9/13, http://csis.org/publication/president-obamas-trip-mexico-and-costa-rica-what-was-

outcome)//SJF

Q1: How did President Obama’s stop in Mexico highlight the growing importance of a broad U.S.-Mexico

relationship?

A1: The president’s bilateral meeting with the Mexican government and speech to Mexican students

highlighted the important role that Mexico plays in the U.S. economy, with Mexico the second largest

importer of U.S. goods after Canada. One of the chief outcomes of the meetings was the creation of the

high-level economic dialogue. The first meeting will likely take place this fall with cabinet-level

participation from both governments, including Vice President Biden.

As Ricardo Zuñiga, President Obama’s chief adviser on the region, stated at a recent CSIS discussion, theconnections between the U.S. and Mexican economies, and size of bilateral trade, means that dozens of

U.S. agencies are involved in various capacities. There are numerous opportunities to streamline the

activities of both governments and make regional trade more efficient. At the same time, the dialogue

will help both countries better coordinate positions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.

The trip’s outcome shows that the United States increasingly sees Mexico as one of its most important

economic partners globally, not just in the Americas.



AT: Economy advantage

TPP won’t boost the economy – it just replicates the economic inequality of NAFTA

Pérez-Rocha and Trew 12 – *helps to coordinate the Networking for Justice on Global Investmentproject, as part of the IPS Global Economy Project, **Trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians

(Manu, Stuart, “Don't Expand NAFTA,” 7/26/12, http://www.ips-

dc.org/articles/dont_expand_nafta)//SJF

The United States recently announced that Canada and Mexico will join negotiations for the Trans-

Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a secretive U.S.-led multinational trade and investment agreement currently

being negotiated with eight other countries in the Pacific Rim region.

On the other side of the Pacific, Japanese legislators are defecting in droves to try to stop the country’s

entry into the negotiations. But the situation is much different in Canada and Mexico, which were

admitted to the table with much fanfare during the G20 summit in June. The Japanese response is

justifiable, and a recent statement of solidarity against the TPP by North American unions offers a good

building block for resisting an agreement that for Mexicans and Canadians amounts to a neoliberal

expansion of NAFTA on U.S. President Barack Obama’s terms.

Mexico and Canada had been trying to secure a spot at the TPP table for months prior to the G20, and it

became a leading story in both countries. Their anxiety played nicely into Obama’s hands, allowing the

U.S. trade representative to put humiliating entry conditions on both countries — essentially giving

these NAFTA neighbors a second-rate status, or what in Spanish is called convidados de palo (to be

invited but without a say). Neither Canada nor Mexico will be able to see any TPP text until they finally

join the negotiations in December, following the required 90-day U.S. congressional approval process.

Once at the table, they will not be able to make any changes to the finished text or propose any new

text in the finished chapters. There is a very real possibility that the existing TPP countries, the United

States in particular, will use the following months to fashion a trap for the TPP latecomers.

North American Labor SolidarityWhile most media outlets welcomed the NAFTA partners to the TPP table, national labor federations

from the United States, Mexico, and Canada were cautious for very good reasons, and it wasn’t just the

obviously imbalanced negotiating dynamic. On July 11, the AFL-CIO, the Canadian Labour Congress, and

the National Union of Workers (UNT) of Mexico outlined some of those reasons in an important

statement of solidarity, which included a vision of what they believe a 21st-centry trade agreement

should look like.

The labor unions state that although they “would welcome a TPP that creates good jobs, strengthens

protection for fundamental labor rights—such as freedom of association and authentic collective

bargaining—protects the environment, and boosts global economic growth and development for all,

American, Canadian, and Mexican workers cannot afford another corporate-directed trade agreement.”

The joint statement explains that to have any positive effect on the region, “the TPP must break fromNAFTA, which imposed a destructive economic model that expands the rights and privileges of

multinational corporations at the expense of working families, communities, and the environment.”

The unions conclude that if “the TPP follows the neoliberal model and substitutes corporate interests for

national interests, workers in all three countries will continue to pay a high price in the form of

suppressed wages, a more difficult organizing environment, and general regulatory erosion, even as

large corporations will continue to benefit.” Unfortunately, by all accounts, including leaked TPP



chapters andstatements from the U.S. trade representative, this is exactly what the Obama

administration hopes to achieve through these negotiations.

Expanding Investor Rights

Instead of breaking with NAFTA, the TPP expands it in almost every chapter, from intellectual property

rights to “regulatory coherence,” and from rules for increased “competition” in state-owned enterprises

to opening government purchases to foreign bidders.

Particularly worrying to Canadians and Mexicans, and not mentioned in the joint statement from North

American unions, are the extreme investors’ rights foreseen in the TPP. Under NAFTA, Mexico and

Canada continue to be pummelled by investor-state lawsuits from U.S. and Canadian companies, or

international firms using their U.S. registration to challenge government measures that can be shown to

interfere with profits, even if that interference is not intended. These investment disputes, launched

under NAFTA’s Chapter 11 protections, have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in fines or

settlements to be paid out from public funds. Two recent cases against Mexico and Canada help

describe the problem.

In 2009, two separate NAFTA investment panels established through the International Center for

Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruled in favour of U.S. companies Cargill and Corn Products

International in their nearly identical cases against a Mexican tax on drinks containing high fructose corn

syrup (HFCS), a sugar alternative. The tax was a means of levelling the playing field for Mexican canesugar producers, who were having no luck accessing the U.S. market on equal terms to U.S. sugar

producers despite NAFTA’s promises of open borders.

Cargill and CPI argued in part that the Mexican tax made soft drinks sweetened with HFCS less

competitive on the Mexican market, depriving them of their national treatment rights in NAFTA. The

ICSID panels did not agree that the HFCS tax amounted to a form of regulatory expropriation or

performance requirement as the firms had also argued, but did agree on the national treatment claim.

Cargill was awarded more than $77 million and CPI more than $58 million in damages. In the CPI case,

the ICSID panel deprived Mexico of any countermeasures to defend against a one-way inflow of cheap

sugar supplements from the United States.

Canada also just lost an important investor-state dispute with Exxon Mobil, which could cost the

Canadian government as much as $65 million. At issue were measures requiring offshore oil and gasproducers in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to turn over a portion of their profits to

research and development or education and training programs. A NAFTA investment panel ruled in

favor of the company, which claimed that the measures were an illegal performance requirement on the

firm. Three Canadian courts had previously upheld the legality of the measures, and the Canadian

government had excluded the legislation enforcing the measures from national treatment and other

investment protections in NAFTA, making the investment panel ruling extremely perplexing. The

frustration is worsened by the fact that Exxon Mobil was the richest company in the world in 2011.

Under NAFTA and the TPP, investors have rights but no enforceable responsibilities to the countries in

which they are operating.

These are just two local cases amid a myriad of investor lawsuits against countries all over the world.

Though the Obama administration recently released a new model Bilateral Investment Treaty, it is

almost identical to NAFTA, with only modest safeguards for regulation in the public interest —

safeguards that closed-door tribunals are under little obligation to take into account. In fact, the trend

globally is for these secret tribunals to rule expansively in the interest of corporations, perhaps as a

means of perpetuating the system by making it more attractive to investors. There is simply no

justification for reproducing the investor-state dispute regime in the TPP. In fact, NAFTA should be

renegotiated to remove investor-state dispute settlement from Chapter 11.

This outcome—removing extreme investment protections from the TPP—is not out of the question. In

June of this year, before a negotiating round in San Diego, California, 130 state legislators from all 50



states and Puerto Rico signed a letter to President Obama’s senior trade official warning that they will

oppose the deal unless the administration alters its current approach. In the letter they say that “Our

experience with NAFTA and other trade deals shows that investor-state dispute settlement is used by

large corporations to undermine state and federal laws they don’t like – laws that are fully

constitutional, that do not discriminate, and that are needed to protect public health and safety.”

There is also the question of Australia, the one TPP partner refusing to abide by these investment rules.

In April 2011, the Australian government released a new trade policy that discontinues the inclusion of

investor-state dispute settlement in bilateral or regional trade agreements. Despite their second-rate

status at the TPP table, Canada and Mexico could eventually help the United States put pressure on

Australia and others who doubt the value of these extreme corporate rights. But public pressure might

prove strong enough to foil these efforts, as it did when the Multilateral Agreement on Investment was

ditched in 1999, followed by the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in 2005.

A New FTAA, A New Struggle

With Canada and Mexico joining the TPP, the agreement is looking more and more like a substitute for

the FTAA. So it is not surprising that opposition to the TPP is growing as quickly as it did against that

former attempt to expand the neoliberal model throughout the Western hemisphere.

The intense secrecy of the TPP negotiations is not helping the Obama administration make its case. In

their statement, North American unions “call on our governments to work with us to include in the TPPprovisions to ensure strong worker protections, a healthy environment, safe food and products, and the

ability to regulate financial and other markets to avoid future global economic crises.” But the truth is

that only big business is partaking in consultations, with 600 lobbyists having exclusive passwords to

online versions of the negotiating text.

A majority of Democratic representatives (132 out of 191) have expressed that they are “troubled that

important policy decisions are being made without full input from Congress.” They have written to U.S.

Trade Representative Ron Kirk to urge him and his staff to “engage in broader and deeper consultations

with members of the full range of committees of Congress whose jurisdiction touches on the wide-

ranging issues involved, and to ensure there is ample opportunity for Congress to have input on critical

policies that will have broad ramifications for years to come.” In their letter, the representatives also

challenge “the lack of transparency of the treaty negotiation process, and the failure of negotiators tomeaningfully consult with states on the far-reaching impact of trade agreements on state and local laws,

even when binding on our states, is of grave concern to us.” U.S. Senators, for their part,have also sent a

letter complaining of the lack of congressional access to the negotiations. What openness and

transparency can we in Canada and Mexico expect when the decision to join the TPP, under humiliating

conditions, was made without any public consultation?

NAFTA turns 20 years old in 2014. Instead of expanding it through the TPP we must learn from NAFTA’s

shortcomings, starting with the historic lack of consultation with unions and producers in the three

member countries. It is necessary to correct the imbalances in NAFTA, which as the North American

union statement explains enhanced corporate power at the expense of workers and the environment. In

particular, we need to categorically reject the investor-state dispute settlement process that has proven

so costly, in real terms and with respect to our democratic options in Canada and Mexico. The unions’

statement of solidarity provides a strong foundation for the growing trinational opposition to the TPP in

Leesburg, Virginia, and beyond.



No impact to debt – empirically proven, assumes all their warrants and specifically

indicts their authors

Krugman 12 - Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University (Paul, “Nobody

Understands Debt,” New York Times, Jan 1 2012,

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/krugman-nobody-understands-debt.html ) //JG

In 2011, as in 2010, America was in a technical recovery but continued to suffer from disastrously highunemployment. And through most of 2011, as in 2010, almost all the conversation in Washington was

about something else: the allegedly urgent issue of reducing the budget deficit. This misplaced focus

said a lot about our political culture, in particular about how disconnected Congress is from the suffering

of ordinary Americans. But it also revealed something else: when people in D.C. talk about deficits and

debt, by and large they have no idea what they’re talking about — and the people who talk the most

understand the least. Perhaps most obviously, the economic “experts” on whom much of Congress relies

have been repeatedly, utterly wrong about the short-run effects of budget deficits. People who get their

economic analysis from the likes of the Heritage Foundation have been waiting ever since President

Obama took office for budget deficits to send interest rates soaring. Any day now! And while they’ve

been waiting, those rates have dropped to historical lows. You might think that this would make

politicians question their choice of experts — that is, you might think that if you didn’t know anything

about our postmodern, fact-free politics. But Washington isn’t just confused about the short run; it’s

also confused about the long run. For while debt can be a problem, the way our politicians and pundits

think about debt is all wrong, and exaggerates the problem’s size. Deficit-worriers portray a future in

which we’re impoverished by the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see America as

being like a family that took out too large a mortgage, and will have a hard time making the monthly

payments. This is, however, a really bad analogy in at least two ways. First, families have to pay back

their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their

tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S.

economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation. Second — and this is the point almost nobody

seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent,

money we owe to ourselves. This was clearly true of the debt incurred to win World War II. Taxpayerswere on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of G.D.P., than debt today; but

that debt was also owned by taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt

didn’t make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didn’t prevent the postwar generation from

experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in our nation’s history. But isn’t this time

different? Not as much as you think. It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States,

including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is

matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S.

investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns more from its assets abroad than it pays

to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve

been misinformed . Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction. Now, the fact that federal debt isn’t at

all like a mortgage on America’s future doesn’t mean that the debt is harmless. Taxes must be levied topay the interest, and you don’t have to be a right-wing ideologue to concede that taxes impose some

cost on the economy, if nothing else by causing a diversion of resources away from productive activities

into tax avoidance and evasion. But these costs are a lot less dramatic than the analogy with an

overindebted family might suggest. And that’s why nations with stable, responsible governments — that

is, governments that are willing to impose modestly higher taxes when the situation warrants it — have

historically been able to live with much higher levels of debt than today’s conventional wisdom would

lead you to believe. Britain, in particular, has had debt exceeding 100 percent of G.D.P. for 81 of the last



170 years. When Keynes was writing about the need to spend your way out of a depression, Britain was

deeper in debt than any advanced nation today, with the exception of Japan. Of course, America, with

its rabidly antitax conservative movement, may not have a government that is responsible in this sense.

But in that case the fault lies not in our debt, but in ourselves. So yes, debt matters. But right now, other

things matter more. We need more, not less, government spending to get us out of our unemployment

trap. And the wrongheaded, ill-informed obsession with debt is standing in the way.



--A2: China Debt Scenario

Nope

Rapoza 13 – Contributor for Forbes (Kenneth, “Is China's Ownership Of U.S. Debt A National Security

Threat?,” Forbes, January 23 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2013/01/23/is-chinas-ownership-of-u-s-debt-a-national-security-threat/ ) //JG

Is China‘s ownership of nearly $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury debt a threat to our national security? I’ll start

with the short answer in case you want to go on to LOL Catz…no, it is not a threat. Such is the

assessment of the U.S. China Business Council (USBC), a lobby for U.S. multinationals doing business in

China. Oh, you jest, you might say. What do you expect a pro-China lobby to say? Consider this, the U.S.

has around $16 trillion in outstanding debt and most of it is held by us, and the bulge bracket banks here

at home: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America. Around 7.5 percent is held by China, the

biggest foreign holder of U.S. debt. One of the reasons why China has so much Treasury holdings is

because of trade. Companies put money in short term Treasury notes and bills to settle trade payments.

China’s government could also call all of its own holdings and demand full payment of the money it lent

us in principal plus interest, but under what circumstance would they do such a thing? It would be anational security risk if China held a position where they could dictate U.S. policy on fiscal and monetary

matters. They cannot. If the economy was crashing and China got terrified and wanted their money

back, unless the U.S. defaulted, it would hand it over and there would be nothing China would get in

return. Moreover, when the U.S. economy was collapsing in 2008 all the way to the 666 low on March 6

in the S&P 500, China never retreated from Treasurys, or demand Congress get its finances in order or

else it would choose to buy euros, or gold instead. The Pentagon did an evaluation on the risks posed by

China’s ownership of U.S. debt in July and came to the same conclusion: “Attempting to use U.S.

Treasury securities as a coercive tool would have limited effect and likely would do more harm to China

than to the United States.” The report was sent to congressional committees by Defense Secretary Leon

Panetta, who called China’s ownership of U.S. debt non-problematic and non-threatening. The USBC’s

take is that China wants its holdings of Treasury debt to gain value, not lose value. And just becauseinterest rates are going down, that doesn’t mean China is losing value on those holdings. Lower interest

rates might be bad for income generation, but they mean more demand for bonds, which means higher

bond prices. China wants the U.S. economy to prosper because that means China will be able to

continue exporting here. As it is, exports from China to the European Union are all down. Exports to the

U.S. are up. China is not in a position to threaten the U.S. with financial “terrorism” of any kind. A

decision by China to sell off massive positions of U.S. debt would send the American economy into a

downward spiral, harming not only the value of China’s investments, but also China’s export-driven

economy. The bigger issue for the U.S., says John Frisbie, director of the USBC in Washington is the size

of our fiscal deficit and the long term implications for the economy, not the level of China’s debt

holdings. USBC’s leadership unveiled their trade agenda for Congress on Tuesday in a report available on

their website. “The US-China relationship is fast becoming the most important bilateral relationship for

both countries, if it isn’t already,” Frisbie said in a statement on Wednesday. “Its importance is only

going to grow. We need to expand our engagement. Importantly, we need to get smarter about China.”

Congressmen Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Rick Larsen (D-WA), co-chairs of the Congressional US-China

Working Group, each gave brief remarks. “There is much to be gained in both economic and strategic

terms if we get the relationship right, but economic and strategic difficulties lie ahead if we do not,”

Larsen said.



China won’t dump US debt – would hurt them more than us

USCBC 13 – US China Business Council (“Is China's Ownership of US Debt a National Security Risk?,” US

China Business Council, 2013, https://www.uschina.org/info/trade-agenda/2013/debt-ownership.html )

//JGIf you believe what you hear from political campaigns, China's government owns so much of the United

States' government debt that it has leverage over us—and is waiting for the right moment to sell it and

undermine the US economy. Relax . China doesn't own as much of our debt as you might think. To the

extent that it does, the problem is China's, not ours. The bigger issue for America is the size of our fiscal

deficit and its long term implications for our economy, not the level of China's debt holdings. Consider

the facts: as of September 2012, the United States had over $16 trillion in debt—that is, how much the

United States owes to creditors for overspending in budgets over the years. US government debt is

financed in a variety of ways, including through the sale of Treasury bills, notes and bonds, US savings

bonds, and other government-backed securities. All of these are essentially promissory notes with pre-

determined payment due dates. Who buys these promissory notes? A wide variety of people and

entities. About two-thirds of US debt is owned by Americans—local and state governments, institutional

investors like banks and mutual funds, and individual investors. The remaining debt—about one third—

is owned by foreign governments and investors. China is the largest foreign debt holder, with about 21

percent of the foreign-owned debt. However, this amounts to only about 7.2 percent of total US debt,

worth around $1 trillion. What does all of this mean? Most importantly, it means the United States has a

large fiscal deficit that continues to contribute to our debt. This is an issue that affects the US economy

in a variety of ways, few of them positively, and it is something that we as a nation must address.

Beyond that, it also means that China is a stakeholder in the economic success of the United States. Like

any investor, China wants its assets to gain value, not lose it. In other words, it wants the US economy to

get stronger and continue to prosper, because that means China will be guaranteed a good return on its

investments here. A decision by China to sell off its shares of US debt would do just the opposite: send

the American economy into a downward spiral, harming not only the value of China's investments, but

also China's sales of products to the United States as the economy faltered. The Pentagon did its ownevaluation of the risks posed by China's ownership of US debt and came to the same conclusion:

"Attempting to use US Treasury securities as a coercive tool would have limited effect and likely would

do more harm to China than to the United States ." Ultimately, China has become proof of an old

adage: When you owe your bank thousands of dollars, it's your problem, but when you owe your bank

millions of dollars, it's your bank's problem. We owe China around $1 trillion dollars, so until we come to

terms with balancing the US budget and paying down our debt, China will continue to have a vested

interest in America's prosperity.



AT: Trade advantage

The bicycle theory of trade protectionism is empirically false

Alden 13 - Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and was projectdirector for the CFR Independent Task Force on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy (Edward, “Opportunity

Knocks for Obama on Trade,” World Politics Review, January 8, 2013,

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12604/opportunity-knocks-for-obama-on-trade)//AC

That 2013 should matter so much in trade policy is rather surprising. What has come to be known as the “bicycle theory” of

trade liberalization holds that if countries are not moving forward to lower trade barriers, they will tip

over into protectionism. If so, the past decade should have produced at least some painful bruises. The

collapse of the WTO’s Doha Round of negotiations, which are effectively dead if not formally buried, was

the first failed round of world trade talks since the creation of the post-World War II trading system. The

global financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed produced the first steep decline in world

trade since the Great Depression. Yet rather than falling down, the United States and other countries

have managed to swerve and keep going.

Success in the TPP will collapse Doha and destroy multilateral trade

Bhagwati 13 – American economist and professor of economics and law at Columbia University

(Jagdish, “Why the TPP is undermining the Doha Round”, East Asia Forum, 1/14/2013,

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/01/14/why-the-tpp-is-undermining-the-doha-round/)//JL

Under regional FTAs like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), far fewer countries are involved compared

to multilateral trade negotiations like the Doha Round. The potential trade-offs in negotiations are more manageable and

participant states may be more likely to make offers and examine concessions. But apart from this possible advantage, the TPP process

has many downsides, and is undermining successful multilateral free trade. Stronger countries often‘divert’ trade from cheaper non-member sources to more expensive member sources, bringing harm

rather than good. Also, the enormous growth of such FTAs, now more than 350 and still growing, has led

to a systemic effect: creating a ‘spaghetti bowl’ of preferences and chaos in the world trading system …

The American doctrine of inducing multilateral trade liberalisation by signing on FTAs has proven to be a chimera’. For example, to liberalise

agricultural trade, both production subsidies and export subsidies need to be eliminated. The Hong Kong Declaration in 2005 set out an

agreement to abolish export subsidies. But to get rid of production subsidies a multilateral agreement (through the Doha Round), and not a

bilateral one, is absolutely critical. This is because unlike with export subsidies, it is technically impossible to reduce or relax a production

subsidy so that it applies bilaterally to only one country. Under a regional agreement like the TPP, this problem is only slightly reduced, because

there are still not enough countries to effectively reduce production subsidies. The Republicans in Congress are now fiercely committed to

protecting US agriculture. Their continued control of the US House of Representatives will make it more difficult to reach an agricultural deal

under the TPP. US business lobbies also have little interest in liberalising agriculture — they want concessions in manufacturing and services.

Although it is not yet clear whether these can be achieved either, they certainly cannot be done with Doha. Many aspects of the TPP reflect the

demands of US business lobbies and are actually calculated to reduce the openness of the trade system for new members. Smaller countries,

like Vietnam and Singapore, are therefore being pressured to have ‘WTO Plus’ kinds of copyright protection. The same problem occurs with

respect to labour standards under the TPP. India could never agree to these aspects. Membership of the TPP should be open to countries

willing to make trade concessions, and members should not be required to sign onto all of the TPP’s provisions. For example, countries should

be allowed to sign onto the ‘WTO Plus’ rules on intellectual property, or sign onto different labour standards, but meeting the demands made

by US lobbyists should not be a pre-condition to joining the TPP. ASEAN+1 and ASEAN+3, which preceded ASEAN+6, deliberately excluded the

United States. But China’s aggressiveness on the external front pushed smaller Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, to

support the TPP. The TPP thus became the United States’ way of getting back into the Asian region. Yet US policy — wittingly or

unwittingly — is moving to fragment Asia in the same way that it fragmented South America. This is where the

ASEAN+6 grouping could play a role, by demonstrating to the United States that it is welcome, but only within a genuine trade grouping.

ASEAN+6’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) can only work if it is stripped of trade-unrelated demands, but it presents an

alternative to the TPP, one where other countries — even countries such as Canada and France — could be included. If ASEAN+6 has India and

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12604/opportunity-knocks-for-obama-on-trade)/AC

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/01/14/why-the-tpp-is-undermining-the-doha-round/)/JL

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/01/14/why-the-tpp-is-undermining-the-doha-round/)/JL

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12604/opportunity-knocks-for-obama-on-trade)/AC



China joining it, they can present the RCEP as a template where no comparable side conditions will apply. However, this may mean that the

United States will not join it. Finally, the investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms being advocated as part of the TPP

will invariably involve surrendering some sovereignty in order to gain other benefits. This is the case when a country joins any international

agreement. The problem with the TPP dispute settlement mechanisms is that there is already an incredibly

successful and wide-reaching dispute settlement mechanism at the WTO, a multilateral institution . But

regional agreements like the TPP and bilateral agreements automatically generate more dispute settlements and so-called

arbitration within those groups. The bigger powers within those groupings, such as the United States or

the European Union, have greater clout and will therefore have more influence over those arbitration panels

and their outcomes, and that will in turn eventually undermine the WTO dispute settlement process.

The WTO multilateral trade system and WTO dispute settlement system are likely to be undermined by

the TPP. Smaller powers have to ensure that the WTO dispute system remains paramount. Unless these

complexities are better understood, they are going to miss the boat on better multilateral free trade.

TPP will fail – FTA in the status quo, there are barriers to free trade, and gains will be

limitedJames 10 -Sallie James is a policy analyst with Cato‘s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy

Studies. James writes and speaks on a variety of trade topics, with a research emphasis on thesubject of agricultural trade policy, James received her Bachelor of Economics and Master ofEconomics degrees from the University of Adelaide, and her Ph.D. in Agricultural Economicsfrom the University of Western Australia, (―Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Worth the Fuss?‖,March 15, 2010, http://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/is-transpacific-partnership-worth-fuss)//sawyer

First, four of the seven TPP negotiators—the most important export markets for the UnitedStates in the group— already have bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) with the United States.

And as Table 1 shows, the non-FTA partners (Brunei, New Zealand and Vietnam) are notcurrently big markets for U.S. exporters: Vietnam—the most important of them—ranked 50th.Of course, one could argue that high trade barriers might be behind the poor performance, andthat the TPP would thus improve U.S. standings in those countries. But the non-FTA marketsare small. Even the generally protrade Peterson Institute for International Economics, in asubmission to the USTR in January in support of the TPP, admits that ―the U.S. payoff …depends on extending the TPP to other major economies of the Asia-Pacific region.‖5 Second,the potential to fully realize gains from free trade with the remaining TPP partners with whichthe United States does not already have an FTA is questionable. For example, they allpresent political problems. Although not necessarily a serious irritant, especially under the newadministration, New Zealand‘s long-standing refusal to admit nuclear-powered ships

into its harbors or join the Iraq war effort was seen as an obstacle to a previously

proposed bilateral trade deal.6 Human-rights concerns in Vietnam and Brunei

are in the sights of trade skeptics.7 Third, and assuming the political obstacles can be

overcome, the gains to American consumers from lowering tariffs on imports from

the non-FTA TPP partners are by no means certain. Brunei, for example, exports mainlyoil and petroleum products, which accounted for more than 96 percent of its total exports in2008.8 The U.S. tariff on petroleum products is relatively low, and Brunei is not a significantsource of oil for the United States. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, theUnited States did not import any oil or related products from Brunei in 2009; indeed, totalimports of all products from Brunei in 2009 came to just $41.6 million.9 The ability of Americanconsumers to benefit from lower prices and greater product variety is by no means assured,especially compared to the benefits offered by other, bigger deals that the administration couldpromote. Vietnam provides an instructive example of the significant distance between potential

http://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/is-transpacific-partnership-worth-fuss)/sawyer






and success. While Vietnam has potential to be an important export market for U.S. businesses because of its rapid growth and anticipated future need for high value-added imports of goodsand services, its experience with United States trade politics does not augur well for a trulyliberalizing agreement this time around. Two of its main export products, shrimp and catfish,are subject to extra tariffs under U.S. ―unfair trade‖ laws. Separate to the TPP negotiations, newsreports indicate that ongoing skirmishes over catfish inspections continue to complicate the

trading relationship and threaten to spill over into U.S. beef exports to Vietnam.10 Textile andapparel imports, which would offer significant benefits to American consumers if they wereallowed to come in freely, are politically sensitive and would likely be subject to long phase-insand carve-outs, if they are covered at all. Indeed, the U.S. textile lobby successfully convincedthe Bush administration to subject Vietnamese textiles to formal monitoring by the U.S.Department of Commerce when Vietnam joined the WTO in 2007, and has called fortextiles to be excluded from the TPP negotiations .11 Negotiators can expect stronglobbying efforts from special interests eager to protect their turf. Similarly, the bruisingexperience with the sugar lobby during the negotiations for the FTA with Australia serves as a

warning for those that hope a TPP might, through freer trade with New Zealand, bring U.S.consumers long-overdue access to competitive dairy products. Dairy would likely be subject tosignificant carve-outs and delayed liberalization, especially if, as Ambassador Kirk threatens,

members of Congress are intimately involved with proceedings. Hopes that a TPP would yield anopportunity to reopen the sugar provisions of the FTA with Australia look equally dashed. TheOffice of the USTR has already hinted that sugar would not be on the table forfurther liberalization, even though it would bring significant gains for U.S.consumers.12 An Unconvincing Sales Pitch The language the administration used to promotethe deal should give cause for concern to every proponent of genuinely liberalizing tradeagreements. First, but not unusually, this deal was pitched overwhelmingly in terms of itspotential to increase exports, thus reinforcing the damaging myth that promoting exports is thetrue end of trade policy and imports are, at best, a necessary evil. This is a recurrent theme withthe Obama administration which, in its recently-released 2010 trade policy agenda, mentionedimports only 5 times.13 During his appearance at the 2010 USDA Outlook Forum—an event thatpartly aims to talk up agriculture, one of America‘s key export sectors— Ambassador Kirk said

that members of Congress ―are more open and receptive‖ to the idea of creating a trans-Pacificagreement because they could start the agreement from scratch.14 Congress, in other words, would be free to insert potentially deal-breaking labor and environmental standards andgenerally assert their will. That is not good news. As a general matter, members of Congress takea more parochial view of trade agreements than do administrations, being naturally concernedabout the effect of any trade deal on politically powerful constituents rather than the nationalinterest. Deferring to the current Congress in particular is unlikely to lead to more tradefriendlyagreements: most of the Democratic majority has signed on to a bill sponsored by Rep. MichaelMichaud (DME) that calls for a new trade policy that includes a long list of environmental,labor, investment and consumer protection standards.15 Although the bill has little chance of

becoming law, support for it demonstrates the extent of trade skepticism in the 111th Congress. A newly introduced bill that would withdraw the United States from NAFTA is a similarindication of congressional mood. Far from upgrading trade agreements to ―platinum‖ status, assome commentators have insisted that they would, adding extraneous social and intellectualproperty standards may tarnish the sheen of otherwise promising opportunities to expandeconomic liberty. That assumes, of course, that the inclusion of such standards and conditionsdoes not preclude a deal entirely: developing countries strongly resist such standards as a rule,and it‘s likely that even the bilateral agreements within the TPP would need to be renegotiated tofit the new administration‘s vision. In a truly disappointing display of political timidity,

Ambassador Kirk gave depressing reasons for why the administration sees the TPP as higherpriority than other agreements that have already been signed. Negotiations would, he



said, be less of a political burden for Congress because they would likely take 18 to24 months to develop and the agreement would not come up in Congress forapproval until after the 2010 elections. Congress, he said, would look on these featuresfavorably.16 That should worry our TPP partners. When the main ambassador for U.S. trade isselling the slow pace and likely complications as a feature of the agreement rather than a bug,

you know to put the champagne back on ice. All of this calls into question the administration‘s

true commitment to freer trade. Why, for example, given their insistence about the importanceof the Asia-Pacific region for America‘s economic prosperity, is the administration not beingmore proactive in promoting the completed agreement with South Korea? The TPP is lesspolitically controversial, to be sure, but that is an indication that it is less ambitious.



--XT – TPP kills multilat trade

No multilateral trade deal – US only wants bilateral negotiations and past talks prove

Elms and Lim 12 – *Head, Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade & Negotiations and Senior

Fellow of International Political Economy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies AND**Ph.D, Specialist in international economic law and a former trade negotiator. Professor of Law at the

University of Hong Kong where he chairs the East Asian International Economic Law & Policy

Programme (Deborah and C.L., “The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Negotiations: Overview

and Prospects”, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2/21/2012,

http://www.rsis.edu.sg/publications/WorkingPapers/WP232.pdf)//JL

As a result of the problems of replacing existing PTAs, by the beginning of 2011, the United States began to argue against

‘reopening’ existing agreements.42 For the United States, the best outcome for narrow individual objectives was

likely obtained by bilateral negotiations. As the most powerful country in the talks with a market size

that dominates the rest of the group, the United States can largely get what it wants in bilateral settings.

(It may, of course, also dominate in larger group settings, although this is likely to be more difficult, especially if the

remaining eight members remain united in opposition.) It has demonstrated this ability repeatedly vis-à-vis this group of

countries and can be seen by examining the existing PTA arrangements. Because the U.S.-Peru agreement was negotiated most recently, it

contains some of the strongest rule provisions to date - some of which intrude deep into Peruvian domestic arenas. Even Australia, regarded as

the second most powerful state at the TPP table, was unable to prevail over the U.S. in bilateral negotiations. We have already discussed the

sugar issue. Of greater importance to Australia, however, was the set of new rules governing intellectual property rights and the abilities of

public health authorities in Australia to regulate pharmaceutical products. 43 In the TPP, therefore, the United States

proposed that it conduct negotiations by opening bilateral talks with countries with which it does not

already have a PTA. It would then attempt to get an agreement that includes the most critical items on its agenda. At the end of the

day, the eight different bilateral deals with the Americans will be put onto the table. Anything not already covered in these bilateral

agreements could be addressed multilaterally among the nine. The final document, then, would include a partial ‘common’ agreement that

applied to all nine countries as well as some separate annexes and schedules with specific commitments for individual countries. In

practice, this means that the TPP will simply be another PTA added to the mix of potential rules

governing trade with members. The second round of TPP talks in San Francisco in June 2010 failed to settle

the issue of how the TPP would sit in relation to other PTAs. The United States came out as a strong supporter of

keeping existing market access agreements from bilateral PTAs. Singapore, Australia and New Zealand argued hard for a comprehensive

agreement in the TPP that would supersede existing PTA agreements.44 The issue is most stark in market access for goods,

since all of the existing PTAs contain various provisions for reducing barriers to trade in goods. (This is

different from services, for example, since not all existing PTAs have rules covering services or offer the same comprehensive approach to

liberalizing trade in services between partners.) The lead negotiators and heads of trade departments dealing with goods met formally three

times between March and August 2010 in an attempt to deal with the vexing issue of how to negotiate. At the end of the third ‘inter-sessional’

meeting in Peru, the group essentially decided not to decide.45 Instead of agreeing to negotiate bilaterally or multilaterally, officials reached an

interim ‘agreement’ to avoid discussing it any longer. They agreed to ‘skip over’ the issue and focus instead on offering specific market access

deals to various members.46

A preferential TPP would damage the global trade system and encourage further

discrimination

Armstrong, ’11 – research fellow at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the

Australian National University and co-editor of the East Asia Forum (Shiro, Australia and the Future of

the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement”, 12/09/11, EABER Working Paper No. 71,

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1970129)//SP

There is a real danger that an inward looking TPP, which extends benefits only to initial members at the

expense of non-members, including some in East Asia, would damage the already weakened global

multilateral system. The region’s interest lies in protecting the global system which has benefitted it

greatly. A stalled Doha round was a widely used excuse for pushing FTAs with political allies but a

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weakened WTO after the Doha failure is reason to be extremely wary of damaging the global trading

system with regionally divisive discriminatory trade arrangements.

The East Asia region’s interests lie in the strength of the global system and the final form of the TPP

should relate to protecting that system, not serve to undermine it.

One of the main stated aims of the TPP is to tidy up overlapping rules of origin. The obvious way forward

for that is a common market-access schedule for all TPP members — an approach favoured by Australia,

Brunei and New Zealand — but that is at risk because of a US-led compromise made in Brunei in 2009

that allows market access offers on a bilateral basis or to the TPP as a whole (Barfield, 2011). This

feature is systemically important as it affects accession. As of April 2011, the United States was making

bilateral market access offers to TPP members which did not already have an FTA with the United

States, while Australia, Singapore and New Zealand were offering uniform offers to all TPP members

(Barfield, 2011). Bilateral market access offers may be multilateralised down the track, but that is by no

means assured.

The United States is pushing for existing bilateral market access schedules to remain in place (Barfield,

2011). There are two reasons for this: to maintain strong IPR and services provisions in its current FTAs

and not have them reduced to a lowest common denominator TPP-wide schedule; and to avoid

exclusions in current FTAs coming under negotiation (Barfield, 2011)12. That flies in the face of one of

the reasons Australian advocates wanted to prosecute the TPP, namely, so that it could gain greatermarket access in the United States than it was able to obtain in the AUSFTA. To avoid creating a noodle

bowl of overlapping agreements within the TPP would need clear, strong and preferably short schedules

written in so as to multilateralise all bilateral market openings.

TPP crushes multilateral trade

Armstrong, ’11 – a research fellow at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the

Australian National University and co-editor of the East Asia Forum (Shiro, “Australia and the Future of

the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement”, 12/09/11, EABER Working Paper No. 71,

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1970129)//SP

Progress with the TPP, and how it is managed, is important to the global trading system, especially post-

Doha. A major regional agreement such as this now needs to be tied to buttressing the global tradingsystem and supporting multilateral outcomes. A clear agreement on multilateralisation of preferences,

both in tariffs and non-tariff areas such as services, as an eventual goal and commitments to open the

region would be significant positives for the multilateral system.



--XT – no trade benefits

TPP can’t solve multilateralism or regionalism – not genuine and structural issues

Capling and Ravenhill 11 - Ann Capling went to the University of Melbourne, JohnRavenhill went to the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University,(―Multilateralising regionalism: what role for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?,December 12, 2011http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09512748.2011.634078)//sawyer

A genuine regional trade agreement? A second and related issue is whether the TPP will be agenuine regional trade agreement in which each party will have a single tariff schedule that willapply equally to all other parties, or whether TPP parties will have different tariff schedules fordifferent members. Again, there was a difference of opinion between Australia, Singapore andNZ on the one hand, which wanted a genuinely regional trade agreement, and the US, on theother hand, which did not want to re-open the issue of its existing market access commitments

with TPP partners. At the time of writing, this question was still undecided; it remains to be seen whether the TPP will emulate the P4 in being a genuine regional PTA, or whether it willresemble the ASEAN FTA‘s complex web of bilateral agreements. Should the latter modalityprevail, it is likely to make the TPP a less attractive proposition for future entrants (M. K. Lewis2011). Rules of origin Much of the literature on the multilateralisation of regionalism hasfocused on measures to minimise the systemic harm caused by preferential ROOs and rules ofcumulation (ROCs), which are the criteria that determine whether goods are eligible forpreferential treatment under the terms of a PTA. ROOs determine the proportion of non-originating inputs allowed in a good in order for it to qualify for preferential access. ROCsdetermine the list of countries whose inputs can be considered to have originating status for thepurpose of a PTA. Restrictive ROOs and ROCs increase trade costs by increasing barriers totrade between members and non-members of a PTA, by inhibiting access to competitively pricedinputs from outside the PTA and by increasing transaction costs for business that deal with

more than one PTA. The welfare damage caused by these rules is exacerbated by thedivergence of ROOs regimes around the world, which have the potential to

balkanise the global trade system and promote the rise of ‗hub and spoke‘ systemsthat disadvantage the smaller economies relegated to spoke status (Estevadeordal,Harris and Suominen 2009). The problem of divergence is especially acute in the Asia-Pacificregion due to the difference of approaches in East Asian and US ROOs regimes. The prevailingpractice in East Asia, which has a relatively liberal approach to ROOs, is the use of a fixedgeneral rule requiring for most products that a specific percentage of the value of a product beadded locally. By contrast, the US approach uses product-specific rules, which means that thereis more variability in the ROOs. This divergence in approaches is a problem for customsauthorities (due to the administrative costs involved in identifying the correct rules) and forcompanies that trade across different types of ROOs regimes. And, the more restrictive the

ROOs regime is, the more that divergence matters (Estevadeordal, Harris and Suominen 2009).To the extent that competition between the East Asian and US approach to ROOs is likely topose obstacles to the efforts to merge PTAs in the Asia-Pacific region (APEC 2008b), PTAs thatseek to address these diverging approaches to ROOs could be considered to be advancing thecause of multilateralisation (Scollay and Trewin 2006). The P4 was among the first of the Asia-Pacific PTAs to introduce the US model and these rules will also be used in the TPP. The

willingness of ASEAN members of the TPP – Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam – to move awayfrom the East Asian approach to ROOs in favour of the US approach suggests some convergencein the Asia-Pacific. On the downside, the US model is generally more restrictive and complex

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than ROOs regimes in Southeast Asia and Latin America. This relatively illiberal approach isevident in the P4, which, compared with other PTAs around the world, is at the higher end of thescale for both complexity and restrictiveness (Estevadeordal, Harris and Suominen 2009: 287–91). Non-tariff measures Most of the literature on multilateralising regionalism has focused onmarket access provisions for trade in goods and the related issues of ROOs and ROCs inqualifying for tariff preferences. However, recent work (e.g. Baldwin et al. 2009; Estevadeordal,

Suominen and Teh 2009) also gives consideration to the way in which the treatment of NTMs inPTAs may help to promote trade cooperation on a non-discriminatory basis. This objective may

be realised through the inclusion of most-favoured-nation (MFN) provisions for particular rulesor policies, either by design or because it is unfeasible to apply them on a discriminatory basis;the use of third-party MFN clauses that enable PTA partners to benefit automatically from anymore favourable treatment given to others in subsequent PTAs; and/or provisions that preventactions allowable under WTO rules from being applied in a discriminatory manner. The drafttext of the TPP draws heavily on the P4, which in turn was strongly supportive of multilateralrules and norms in its treatment of NTMs. For example, market access commitments in the P4regarding trade in services are made on an MFN basis; they include an upward ratcheting ofpolicy bindings which helps to lock in future liberalisation; and they provide for third-partyMFN such that each party receives as of right the benefits of any additional services

liberalisation that any party commits to in future PTAs with other countries. In relation to rulesregarding Technical Barriers to Trade and Trade Remedies, the P4 reaffirms existing WTOagreements. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that the TPP‘s treatment of NTMs will help toadvance the multilateralisation of regionalism in the Asia-Pacific. Overall, however, the designfeatures of the TPP constrain its potential to contribute to multilateralisation. While theapproach to NTMs is positive, those on ROOs and the efforts to replace existing bilateralagreements witha genuinely regional arrangement are far less so. To account for the limitedmultilateralising potential of the TPP, we turn, in the final section of this article, to the politicaleconomy forces shaping it.



AT: China advantage

China says no

Pastor 8 – professor and director of the Center for North American Studies at American University

(Robert A, “North America or Asia? The 21st Century Choice for the United States,” 1/23/12,http://www.canambusco.org/resources/UofMiamiPerspectives-Pastor-NA_or_Asia-FINAL.pdf)//SJF

If the TPP’s purpose is to put pressure on China to open its market, that won’t work for four reasons.

Some of the TPP provisions pressed by the United States, e.g., on government procurement and

neutralizing state-owned enterprises, are aimed at China, which will not accommodate Washington.

Second, the United States is already open to Chinese goods, and so why would China change these

policies in exchange for what it already has? Third, the other eight countries are very small and also

open to China.

And fourth, one week after the APEC Summit, China joined Japan and South Korea to announce steps to

expedite a free-trade agreement among themselves and with the ASEAN countries. In brief, China

already trumped the United States.

They can’t access China – they don’t reach out and relations cannot be solved – the

security dilemmaManning 13 - Robert A. Manning is a senior fellow of the Brent Scowcroft Center forInternational Security at the Atlantic Council. He served as a senior counselor to theundersecretary of state for global affairs from 2001 to 2004 and a member of the USDepartment of State Policy Planning Staff from 2004 to 2008. This piece first appeared on TheNational Interest., (―US, China Drift Toward Zero Sum‖, July 25, 2013,http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/us-china-drift-toward-zero-sum)//sawyer

Cybersecurity is too critical an issue to languish in an SED Working Group. If we are serious, why not have the U.S. cyber chief meet with their Chinese counterpart? Similarly, on therespective U.S. and Chinese postures in East Asia, new understandings need to be reached as to

what each side can live with. And it would be helpful—if only to counter Chinese paranoia andconspiracy theories—if the administration would clearly articulate that China would

be welcome to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). A major regional trade accord without the world‘s largest trading power would be of dubious virtue. As China institutes its next wave of economic reforms, meeting TPP‘s high standards will be in its own interest to becompetitive. There is a compelling, rational case for Washington and Beijing to move toward amore cooperative relationship for mutual benefit. It is difficult to see global prosperity and astable international system endure—let alone address global problems like climate change— withthe United States and China drifting toward zero-sum competition. But history is littered

with conflicts sparked by irrational actors. It will require leadership and visionfrom both sides to get past the current ―security dilemma‖ behavior and worst-case fears. But absent that, muddle-through management of the relationship mayrun out of fingers to put in the dikes over time

The TPP shuts out China and doesn’t help trade Solis 13 - Mireya Solís is the Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies and senior fellow at theBrookings Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and associate professor at American

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University. An expert in Japan‘s foreign economic policies, Dr. Solís earned a PhD ingovernment and an MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and a BA ininternational relations from El Colegio de México. Her main research interests include Japanesepolitics, political economy, and foreign policy; international and comparative political economy;international relations; and government-business relations. She also has interests in broaderissues in U.S.-Japan relations and East Asian multilateralism, (―The Containment Fallacy: China

and the TPP‖, May 24, 2013, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/05/24-china-transpacific-partnership-solis)//sawyer

In recent commentary for the Financial Times, David Pilling argues that the central

objective of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations is the exclusion of

China . In his view, the desire to build an ―anyone but China‖ club is due both to the

perception that China got an easy pass when it joined the WTO and has continued to flauntinternational trade and investment rules; and to the articulation of a larger political strategy tomarginalize this emerging superpower. Pilling goes on to predict that the TPP will fail todeliver major liberalization as the traditional pattern of shielding sensitive sectors

will emerge, and admonishes that only a much diluted trade agreement faces arealistic chance of ratification given the fractured consensus on the new proposed

rules. In this rendition, the TPP appears politically myopic and economicallyirrelevant.

The TPP will be used to isolate China – causes global nuclear warBillington 11 – Michael Billington is the Asia editor for the Executive Intelligence Review, andauthor of Reflections of an American Political Prisoner: the Repression and Promise of theLaRouche Movement, and graduated from Trinity University, (―Obama‘s Asia Trip Had Only One Purpose: War on China‖, November 25, 2011http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2011/eirv38n46-20111125/37-40_3846.pdf)//sawyer

Nov. 20—The self-imagined Emperor of America Barack Obama, while planning new warsagainst Syria and Iran, which are recognized by a growing number of international leaders to

be a certain spark for global nuclear war against Russia and China, has completed anine-day tour of Asia which served one and only one purpose: to launch a newstrategic confrontation with China, intended to prepare the world for the coming

war. The so-called ―justifications‖ for this global confrontation are as vacuous and deceitful asthose used to launch the wars on Iraq and Libya, or for the proposed wars on Syria and Iran. Itis the British Empire, through its puppet Obama, which is out to destroy any possibleopposition to the world dictatorship of the bankrupt financial oligarchy, and to carry out thedemands of the British monarchy to rid the world of its ―excess population.‖ The hugepopulation of China, and Asia generally, are a primary target for their genocide. The Obama tourincluded both military and economic confrontation with China; deploying new strategic U.S.forces in Australia and the Philippines to solidify a strategic ―ring around China‖; coercing

Southeast Asian nations to join in a U.S.-guided confrontation with China over territorialdisputes in the South China Sea; threatening China over the sovereign control of its currency;and forging an anti-China ―free trade pact‖ among a ―coalition of the willing‖ in the Asia-Pacificregion. In the course of three summits of Asia-Pacific nations over the nine-day period, Obamasucceeded in hijacking the proposed agenda of the majority of the Asian nations— whichfocused on the disastrous global financial-economic crisis in the trans-Atlantic region and itsimpact on Asia—imposing instead the imperial stamp of the lunatic emperor on hissubject nations. Multiple source reports from people who attended the various meetings

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indicate that Obama‘s imperial demeanor and delusional belief in his own infallibility wereeven more frightening than the content of his threats of war. ‗Grow Up and Play by Our Rules‘The first of the three conferences, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, washosted this year by the United States, in Hawaii. Obama, in several speeches to the heads ofstate and to business leaders, portrayed China as a primary cause of the economic crisis in the

West, ranting that China must ―grow up‖ and ―play by the rules.‖ In a private meeting with

Chinese President Hu Jintao, Obama ―made it very clear that the American people and the U.S. business community were growing increasingly impatient and frustrated with the state ofchange in China‘s economic policy and the evolution of the U.S.-China economic relationship,‖according to senior White House aide Michael Froman. Hu responded that in a time of massiveeconomic crisis, confrontation was not wise, but that the U.S. and China must ―increase theircommunication and coordination.‖ Pang Sen, the Deputy General of the Chinese ForeignMinistry, was more direct: ―Whose rules are we talking about? If the rules are made by theinternational community through agreement and China is part of it, China will definitely abide

by them. If rules are decided by one or even several countries, China does not have theobligation to abide by that.‖ Obama also used the APEC Summit to push U.S. allies to join theproposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free-trade pact, gloating that Japan (as well as

Mexico and Canada) had agreed to discuss participation in the TPP during the APEC Summit.

Making clear that Obama intends the TPP to be part of a strategic confrontation with

China (which is not ―qualified‖ tojoin it, according to U.S. officials), Japan‘s Prime Minister

Yoshihiko Noda told the Upper House of parliament upon his return to Japan that the TPP,supposedly a trade pact, would ―stabilize the security situation‖ in the region. Obamaconcluded the Summit by instructing China to revalue its currency by 20-25%, stating that the(substantial) revaluation carried out by Beijing over the past years was only due to ―U.S.pressure,‖ but that it ―hasn‘t been enough,‖ and that ―the U.S. and other countries feel thatenough is enough.‖ He even pointed to the lunatic bill passed by the U.S. Senate in October tolaunch a full-scale trade war with China if it fails to revalue its currency to the Emperor‘s liking,as proving that China‘s policy is ―out of kilter.‖ The Emperor, of course, made no response to theconstant cry from China and others that the U.S. bailout of the worthless trillions of

dollars in gambling debts in the Western banking system is degrading the dollar,driving global hyperinflation, and threatening the economies of every nation onEarth. Australia and the Ring Around China Obama‘s next stop was Australia, where hedemonstrated that the new U.S. strategic posture known as ―Air-Sea Battle‖ is in fact aimed atconfronting China. The ―Air-Sea Battle,‖ designed by the China-phobic Andy Marshall at thePentagon‘s Office of Net Assessments, is based on the concept that China‘s strategic policy is todeny the U.S. access to the strategic regions surrounding China, especially the South China Sea,through the development of anti-ship missiles and quiet submarines (i.e., modernization oftheir military capacities). Obama announced that the U.S. will establish a massive militarypresence in northern Australia, at the Bradshaw Field Training Area near Darwin, with 2,500Marines, nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines, B-52 bombers, F-18 fighter aircraft,Global Hawk drones, facilities for training exercises, pre-positioning of military supplies, andmore. Military officials and others pointed out that the permanent presence in Australia (whichis not being called a ―base‖ for political reasons) will be out of reach of Chinese strategicmissiles, unlike the U.S. bases in Japan, Korea, and Guam. U.S. officials do not attempt to hidethe fact that the purpose of the base is to prepare for military confrontation withChina. Obama, in announcing the new facility, said, ―The notion that we fear China ismistaken,‖ and repeated his warning that China must ―play by the rules of the world.‖ ―My

world,‖ he could have added. The new ―non- base‖ in Australia will give the U.S. a straight shotthrough the Indonesian islands, only 500 miles away, into the South China Sea and the IndianOcean. The Australian Citizens Electoral Council associates of Lyndon LaRouche, issued a



statement warning their countrymen that their governments had participated in ―every neo-con venture that the British trap America into, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, but now that involves

painting a target on itself also, just as Obama is provoking a nuclear showdown. ‖ China

agreed. The People‘s Daily, official paper of the Chinese Communist Party, posted an editorialNov. 16 which said: ―Apparently, Australia aspires to a situation where it maximizes politicaland security benefits from its alliance with the U.S. while gaining the greatest economicinterests from China. However, [Australian Prime Minister Julia] Gillard may be ignoringsomething—their economic cooperation with China does not pose any threat to the U.S.,

whereas the Australia-U.S. military alliance serves to counter China. Australia surely cannotplay China for a fool. It is impossible for China to remain detached no matter what Australiadoes to undermine its security. But one thing is certain—if Australia uses its military bases tohelp the U.S. harm Chinese interests, then Australia itself will be caught in the crossfire.

Australia should at least prevent things from growing out of control.‖ The Citizens ElectoralCouncil also succeeded in prominently displaying an ―Impeach Obama‖ poster, with the now -famous Hitler mustache on Obama, at a joint press conference held by the U.S. President andthe Australian Prime Minister, in Darwin. The Australian Associated Press, the country‘s mainnews agency, sent out a wire photo of the poster, coupling the image in split-screen format witha picture of Obama and Gillard, which was then carried as the lead photo across Australia on

Yahoo.news.com.au. While making his announcement in Australia, Obama deployedSecretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Philippines to release the updatedPhilippines-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty, which henceforth will function as a coverfor U.S. military targetting of China. Obama, in his speech to the Australian Parliament,referenced the new arrangement with the Philippines as an expanded port for naval operationsto confront China‘s supposed threats in the South China Sea (now called the West PhilippineSea by the Aquino government in Manila). He also referenced expanded basing rights for U.S.naval warships in Singapore and Vietnam. The Philippines shut down the U.S. bases there inthe 1990s, and added a ban on foreign bases to their Constitution. But the U.S. has had a―permanent presence‖ of troops, drones, supplies, ships, and aircraft in the south of the countrysince the early 2000s, to support operations against Islamic insurgents in the region. Tocircumvent the Constitutional ban, the presence is not called a ―base‖— which is the model being

used for the non-base in Australia. Also, the U.S. has covertly used the Philippine Trench toconceal the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet. The Philippine Trench, which lies within Philippineterritorial waters in the Pacific, is one of the only sea trenches in the world deep enough toconceal submarines from detection. Now, the U.S. military presence in thePhilippines will shift from a focus on counter-insurgency to confrontation withChina. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on the U.S. guided-missile destroyerUSS Fitzgerald Southeast and East Asian Summits Obama‘s last stop on the Asia tour was Bali,Indonesia, where two related conferences were held sequentially: the Association of Southeast

Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, including side meetings with the ―Plus 3‖ (China, Japan, andSouth Korea) and with India and the U.S.; and the East Asian Summit (EAS). Obama‘s effort todivert the ASEAN meeting to a brawl with China over the South China Sea was countered byseveral of the ASEAN nations themselves, especially Indonesia, whose President Susilo

Bambang Yudhoyono said that, against the backdrop of world economic difficulties, ― ASEAN isnot in favor of discussing detailed political and security issues at the Summit.‖



--XT – China won’t join

China cannot join the TPP and the plan is perceived as isolating it

Kissinger 12 - HENRY A. KISSINGER is Chair of Kissinger Associates and a former U.S.Secretary of State and National Security Adviser. This essay is adapted from the afterword to theforthcoming paperback edition of his latest book, On China (Penguin, 2012), (―The Future ofU.S. - Chinese RelationsConflict Is a Choice, Not a Necessity‖, January 19, 2012,http://www.henryakissinger.com/articles/fa0412.html)//SAWYERObama has invited China to join the TPP. However, the terms of accession as presented by

American briefers and commentators have sometimes seemed to require fundamental

changes in China's domestic structure. To the extent that is the case, the TPP could be

regarded in Beijing as part of a strategy to isolate China. For its part, China has put forward

comparable alternative arrangements. It has negotiated a trade pact with the Association ofSoutheast Asian Nations and has broached a Northeast Asian trade pact with Japan and South

Korea. Important domestic political considerations are involved for all parties. But if China andthe United States come to regard each other's trade-pact efforts as elements in a strategy of

isolation, the Asia-Pacific region could devolve into competing adversarial power blocs. Ironically,

this would be a particular challenge if China meets frequent American calls to shift from anexport-led to a consumption-driven economy, as its most recent five-year plan contemplates.

Such a development could reduce China's stake in the United States as an export market even as it

encourages other Asian countries to further orient their economies toward China. The key decision

facing both Beijing and Washington is whether to move toward a genuine effort at cooperationor fall into a new version of historic patterns of international rivalry. Both countries haveadopted the rhetoric of community. They have even established a high-level forum for it, theStrategic and Economic Dialogue, which meets twice a year. It has been productive on

immediate issues, but it is still in the foothills of its ultimate assignment to produce a trulyglobal economic and political order. And if a global order does not emerge in the economic field,

barriers to progress on more emotional and less positive-sum issues, such as territory andsecurity, may grow insurmountable

The TPP is exclusive to China – they wont joinGlaser et al 12 - Bonnie Glaser, CSIS/Pacific Forum CSIS Brittany Billingsley, CSIS, (―US-China Relations: US Pivot to Asia Leaves China off Balance‖, January 2012,http://csis.org/files/publication/1103qus_china.pdf)//sawyerProgress on the TPP trade agreement also ruffled some feathers. At the APEC Leaders Meeting,President Obama announced that the US and eight other countries – Australia, Brunei, Chile,

Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – had agreed to complete the TPP accord within one year. China was noticeably absent from the negotiations, and several Chinese officials

commented that US expectations for the TPP were “too high” for other Asian countries . Chinese

Assistant Commerce Minister Yu Jianhua stated at a press briefing in Beijing that such newtrade mechanisms should be ―open and inclusive‖ and called for members to find a balance

between TPP and pre-existing trade mechanisms, arguing that the latter should act as the majorchannel while other regional mechanisms could be supplemental. Yu complained that China hadnot received ―any invitation from any TPP economy ,‖ but that if it did, China would ―seriously

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study the invitation.‖ US Trade Representative Ron Kirk responded that the TPP is an openarchitecture and it ―is not designed to be a closed clubhouse.‖ Michael Fromanretorted that the TPP ―is not something one gets invited to. It‘s something one aspires to.‖Despite US reassurances, criticism of the TPP continued in Chinese media, where some argued

that the trade agreement was aimed at diminishing China‘s role and ensuring US leadership in

regional economic integration. For instance, Li Hongmei argued in Xinhua that the US intention

behind the TPP was to play a ―dominant role‖ in the Pacific by ―handpicking its members andsystemizing and regulating‖ these other countries in accordance with US standards. While Lirecognized that the TPP was part of the US pivot to Asia, the trade pact could also become areplacement for APEC and would thus ―contain and counterbalance‖ China‘s influence and―strategic space‖ in the region.

China won’t join the TPPPenghong 13 -Cai Penghong is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies andCenter for American Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies., (―AnInopportune Time for China to Join the TPP‖, June 19, 2013,

http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/an-inopportune-time-for-china-to-join-the-tpp/)//sawyer First, the TPP is a core element of the American rebalancing strategy. AsPresident Obama‘s security advisor, Tom Donilon indicated that the rebalancing strategy is acomprehensive concept that includes ―building regional economic architectures and the TPPobviously is at the core of that.‖ China has already tried to play a critical role in the process ofEast Asia integration but the U.S. has a very simple goal in utilizing the TPP to compete andeven to substitute the forming East Asia trade bloc led by China and cannot consider China as akey role in building the economic architecture in the Asia Pacific. Therefore, the US cannot allowChina to appear at the negotiation table unless China changes its regional policies. More thanthat, if President Obama shows an y positive signal for China‘s access, he will risk unfavorableinternal politics in the U.S. Just one month ago, he gave the clear signal that ―the objective now

is to complete the negotiations‖ and not to add new members. Second, negotiating the TPP

agreement has too high of a quality level for China to participate . By the end of May2013, the TPP negotiations will have seen 17 rounds of exchanges since early 2010. If concludedsuccessfully, the TPP will be a high standard free trade agreement (FTA) agreement for the 21stcentury. However, the schedule for conclusion has been postponed for two consecutive years.The crux of the problem comes as a result of the high threshold in horizontal and cross-cuttingissues such as regulatory coherence, supply chain competitiveness, state-owned enterprises(SOEs), small-and medium-sized enterprises, E-commerce, labor issues and others. In thecontext of the current TPP negotiations, the presence of SOEs in Vietnam—estimated torepresent 40% of output— warrants particular attention as it may hold effects on other regionalnations in the future, such as China. Another problem may arise with the issue of regulatorycoherence that was initiated by the U.S. to improve regulatory practices, reduce regionaldivergence in standards and eliminate some unnecessary barriers. Negotiators have been

reluctant to this since the beginning of negotiations and certain countries remain unwilling tochange their attitudes. A special phenomenon such as the proliferation of regulatory and non-tariff barriers has spread over the region and become a major hurdle for business trying to gainaccess to markets. The effort, particularly by China, in aligning the standards, eliminating testand certification redundancies and particularly facilitating customs efficiently should winapplause. But at this moment, it is hard for China, amidst an economic transition, to adjust andfit the strict requirements made by the TPP. Third, the TPP negotiation process has been over-

weighted in closed-door discussions, but under-weighted in public transparency . This is the

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reason that China cannot make an objective judgment on the TPP and its

implications on China‘s own national interests . Although no one could blame any FTA

negotiation for its intimacy, countries such as China may have reason to ask for transparency,particularly in the TPP process as it is under the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)framework to which China belongs. President Xi gave a clear indication during his dialogue with

President Obama that China was interested in being briefed on the process as it went forward. According to Donilon‘s remarks to press afterwards, President Xi also suggested setting up amore formal mechanism for the Chinese to get information on the TPP negotiation process. But

based on Donilon‘s response, the U.S. seemed evasive and noncommittal.

China won’t join – US and ASAENJie et al 13 -Woo Jun Jie is a PhD candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy,National University of Singapore. Suvi Dogra is a research officer for the Geo-economics andStrategy Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, New Delhi, (―Trans-Pacific Partnership may do more harm than good for China‖, June 10, 2013,http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1257183/trans-pacific-partnership-

may-do-more-harm-good-chinaNonetheless, China also has good reason not to join the trade partnership. Being a

member would mean having to accept America's leading role . American leadershipand dominance is likely to be cemented should the partnership emerge as the dominant trade

order for the Asia-Pacific. This would not only pose threats to China's regional role, but wouldalso not go down well at home. Furthermore, China is also involved in the Regional

Comprehensive Economic Partnership that comprises all 10 members of the Association ofSoutheast Asian Nations, plus Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

Essentially China-led, this trade pact has been seen as a rival to the Trans-PacificPartnership.

China can’t and won’t join the TPP Yang 13 – Yao Yang The writer is director of the China Center for Economic Research at PekingUniversity and editor of China Economic Quarterly, (―America‘s pivot to Asia will provokeChina‖, February 12, 2013, http://blogs.ft.com/the-a-list/2013/02/12/americas-pivot-to-asia-

will-provoke-china/#axzz2aH4kur6B)//sawyer

The more constructive part of the pivot should have been the Trans-Pacific

Partnership . But even on this count, the US has caused more suspicion than

goodwill in China . The TPP was designed for like-minded countries to form, in President

Barack Obama‘s words, ―a platinum‖ free-trade agreement for the Asia-Pacific region. It was theresult of both America‘s agony with the ineff ectiveness of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum and the White House‘s political strategy to please those on both the right andthe left – it expands free trade, so Republicans are happy; but it also requires member countries

to meet labour, environmental and even human rights standards, so Democrats are happy. Tomost Chinese, however, the TPP is one of America‘s intentional moves to exclude

China. For one thing, there is no way for China to meet its conditions in the medium

term. For another, the TPP will not bring significant gains to the US, precisely

because China, the US‘s largest trading partner in the region, is not going to join.

More importantly, China was not part of the design process . To China, the TPP is a club

set up solely on American will; China can knock on the door, but can be rejected. Ten



years ago, when China applied to join the World Trade Organisation, this would not be a

problem. Today, China feels differently: it has become reluctant to accept

something if it does not feel ownership. In a sense, all Chinese history since the mid-

1800s has involved China trying to become as equal as other world powers. Today, China‘sleaders and the Chinese people are increasingly feeling that point is coming. Yet the existing

powers, noticeably, the US and EU, may have different ideas about equality. To them, China will only be treated as ―one of us‖ after China is fully transformed politically andsocially. This discrepancy of beliefs will be a major source of tension between China andexisting powers in the coming years.



--XT – China isolation causes war

The TPP is the linchpin of the Asia Pivot and will be used to completely isolate China

FAB 13 - The Foreign Affairs Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet is comprised of Cmr.Leah Bolger, Secretary of Defense; David Swanson, Secretary of Peace; Col. Ann Wright,Secretary of State; George Paz Martin, Peace Ambassador; and David McReynolds,Peace Advisor to the President, (―TPP, Pivot to Asia, raise war risks in Asia Pacificregion‖, June 19, 2013, http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/tpp-pivot-asia-raise- war-risks-asia-pacific-region)//sawyer

There are many good foreign policy reasons to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free-trade agreement currently being negotiated between the U.S. and ten other Pacificrim countries: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. The participating nations have held 17 rounds of negotiations since2010 in complete secrecy and without any input from civic, social, or other non-corporate entity.

Even the U.S. Congress has been kept in the dark: in May of 2012, Oregon Senator Ron Wydenintroduced a bill which would require the release of the TPP negotiating texts to the U.S.Congress, yet at the same time, 600 U.S. ―trade advisers,‖ including representatives ofHalliburton, Chevron, Phillip Morris and other multi-national corporations have completeaccess to everything, and are in fact, writing the TPP to further their own interests. This is akinto the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) writing legislation which would benefit itsmembers, or in more colloquial terms, the fox guarding the hen house. There is significant andgrowing opposition to the TPP, even though what little is known about its specifics has arrivedthrough leaks. What we do know is that it seems to have little to do with actual trade issues, liketariff reduction and trade promotion, but everything to do with granting unprecedented powerto multi-national corporations and quashing consumer, labor and environmental interests. Weagree with those who have called the TPP ―…a wish list of the 1%--a worldwide

corporate grab of enormous proportions.‖ The TPP, like every other trade agreement before it, pays short shrift to workers rights, but gives multi-national corporations the equalpower of sovereign nations who can be sued for loss of expected profits due to health,environmental, zoning, labor or other policies. Investors can acquire land, natural resources,factories and more. Chevron is asking a corporate tribunal to release them from their obligationto clean up toxic contamination of the Amazon, and Phillip Morris is challenging Uruguay overcigarette warning labels. The desire of the Bush and the Obama administrations to pass the TPPis apparently an effort to create a coalition of nations to match China‘s exploding economy andincreased military and political influence in the region. On Nov 12, 2011, Obama spoke beforethe Summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum and stated that, ―… we‘ve turnedour attention back to the Asia Pacific region.‖ This is being accomplished through two vehicles:the TPP and the ―Pivot to Asia,‖ meaning a redeployment of American priorities and

military forces away from Europe and the Middle East to Asia. Also in the samemonth, this time speaking before the Australian Parliament, Obama said: ― As a Pacific nation,the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future.‖ TheUnited States now has 320,000 troops in the Pacific region, and the Pentagon has promisedthere will be no reductions as troops are drawn down in Afghanistan and other parts of the

world. This turn of focus to the Asia-Pacific region militarily, along with thepromotion of the TPP sends signals to countries in the region, particularly smallercountries like Malaysia and Singapore, that the U.S. is willing to play the role ofsecurity guard for their interests, while sacrificing our own long-term interests in the way

http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/tpp-pivot-asia-raise-war-risks-asia-pacific-region)/sawyer


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

http://www.alternet.org/environment/what-you-need-know-about-worldwide-corporate-power-grab-enormous-proportions?paging=off

http://www.alternet.org/environment/what-you-need-know-about-worldwide-corporate-power-grab-enormous-proportions?paging=off

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peru

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia





of good jobs and manufacturing. In other words, we seem to be willing to gain short-termgeopolitical tactical gains for long-term strategic losses — a plan that is doomed to failure. We

will continue to hemorrhage jobs and our trade deficits will continue to increase. It makes littlesense to treat China as an enemy by holding provocative joint exercises with Australia, SouthKorea and Japan, patrolling Chinese waters, and building new military facilities in Australia and

South Korea . The U.S. would be making a grievous mistake by getting into an arms

race with China. The decline of US influence in Asia is not due to lack of military power and

presence but rather to eroding competitiveness. Regaining economic strength has become amatter of the highest geopolitical priority. We can no longer subordinate trade to nationalsecurity considerations, because trade IS national security. The Obama administration does notrealize that although the TPP will strengthen the interests of major corporations and investors, it

will directly harm our national interests with increased unemployment and a smaller tax base. We cannot continue to try to solve every problem with our military. Any new trade agreementsmust protect workers rights, refrain from giving corporations the same status and power assovereign nations, and protect natural resources. The U.S. must protect and create good jobs insustainable industries and we need to understand that corporate interests and governmentinterests are not one in the same. A much better foreign policy would respect human rights,

labor rights, and protect the environment. It would seek to uplift people out of poverty andprovide basic human needs like shelter, food, water and education. The TPP is a truly badidea that would only speed up the race to the bottom.

The “Asia Pivot” will lead to Chinese aggressionBlumenthal 12 -Dan Blumenthal is the director of Asian Studies at the American EnterpriseInstitute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr.Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over adecade. From 2001 to 2004, he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at theDepartment of Defense. Additionally, he served as a commissioner on the congressionally-

mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission since 2006-2012, and heldthe position of vice chairman in 2007. He has also served on the Academic Advisory Board ofthe congressional U.S.-China Working Group. Mr. Blumenthal is the co-author of "An AwkwardEmbrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century " (AEI Press, November 2012).‘,(―Pivoting and rebalancing: The good, the bad, and the ugly‖, July 3, 2012,http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/07/03/pivoting_and_rebalancing_the_good_the

_bad_and_the_ugly)//sawyer

1) There is a danger of overpromising. The new defense guidelines were released in January2012 at same time as talk of a "pivot" began. Concurrently, details of a new operational conceptcalled Air Sea Battle were released, that despite protestations to the contrary, is more or lessabout how to defeat China in a conflict. This coincidence of events has regional allies believingthat the U.S. has carefully developed some new "secret sauce" to keep the peace in Asia. Thereality so far is two Littoral Combat Ships in Singapore, some good speeches in Vietnam, andsome marines in Australia. 2) The administration is making critical strategic choices that willaffect its posture in Asia. One choice is to slash the defense budget. It already did so in 2009 tothe tune of about $400 billion. This year the Budget Control Act will kick in lopping offhundreds of billions more. The president has every right to choose the salvaging of and creationof more social welfare programs over the defense that is needed in Asia, but it is dangerous tomisalign your stated strategic goals and your resources -- this is the famous "Lippman Gap." 3)The defense cuts badly affect the forces we need in Asia. The stealthy F-35 program has taken a

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big hit. The navy has said it needs anywhere from 500 to 313 ships in its fleet. It will end up witharound 285 total ships by the end of the next five year defense program. The much touted nextgeneration long-range bomber is underfunded -- by 2017 it is unlikely that we will have morethan an industrial competition to build it, which means years before it comes on line. The listgoes on: missile defense takes a hit, as does most certainly the workhorse of any Asiancontingency -- attack submarines. 4) India. There is simply no way to check China's power if

Afghanistan descends into chaos and India has to respond. In the rough and tumble ofinternational politics it is very difficult to get regions to conform with U.S. government flowcharts. India can only fully integrate into East Asia if there is some semblance of security alongits land borders. 5) It is also unrealistic to think we can spend less time on the Middle East inorder to spend more time in Asia for two reasons. First, the Chinese are competing with us inthat critical region to mostly bad effect. Second, our allies depend on the stability we provide in

the Middle East for oil. Now the ugly: 1) Things with China will get ugly . Our talk of

rebalancing is a response to Chinese power and provocations. The competition isintensifying. We repeat the mantra that our efforts in Asia are not about China as if saying itmakes it true. In reality, politics, like physics, has an action-reaction cycle. While we are doing

the right thing, China certainly views our actions as hostile. We should expect China

to up its game militarily.

The Asia pivot will lead to a deterioration of relations with china and remove the only

barrier to Chinese agressionZheng 13 – Henry Zheng is a writer for Policymic and is interested in human rights andinternational politics, (―US-China Relations: Why Obama's 'Asia Pivot' Strategy Could Lead toDisaster‖, 2013, http://www.policymic.com/articles/20675/us-china-relations-why-obama-s-asia-pivot-strategy-could-start-a-nuclear-war)//sawyer

An important plan that is receiving greater official attention and Chinese condemnation is "AirSea Battle," a comprehensive strategy developed by the Department of Defense in case "an

angry, aggressive and heavily armed China" should decide to attack American forces. Thiscounterattack by the Air Force and the Navy would involve conventional strike tactics. A graphicdepicting the strategy can be found here. Developed by Andrew Marshall and AndrewKrepinevich, the Air Sea Battle concept involves the following: 1. Increasing bomb resistantaircraft shelters and bring repair kits to fix damaged airstrips. 2. Using stealthy bombers andquiet submarines to wage a "blinding campaign" in which long range Chinese surveillance andprecision missile systems are targeted to open up the area of denial, which includes the disputedareas within the East and South China seas. 3. Dispersing aircraft to Tinian and Palau islands,

which are outside the range of Chinese land-based anti-ship missiles, in order to confuse theenemy's targeting processes. Critics doubt the necessity of such a plan. MIT SecurityStudies Program director Barry Posen says that instead of questioning whether there will besecurity concerns or threats, the highly influential Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon,

which Andrew Marshall heads, ―convince[s] others to act as if the worst cases are inevitable.‖ Infact, over two dozen war scenarios run by Krepinevich's defense think tank, the Center forBudgetary and Strategic Assessments, cast China as an aggressive enemy. This potentiallyalarmist thinking has lately attracted the attention of top military officials, suggesting that theplan or something similar may come to fruition. However, to realize this plan, there would haveto be an increase in or reallocation of military spending, which is something that may not be

realized if the U.S. goes over the fiscal cliff this upcoming January. Undoubtedly, such

strategies have been a growing source of concern for Beijing . Colonel Fan Gaoyue

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said, ―If the U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People‘s Liberation Army],the PLA will be forced to develop anti-Air-Sea Battle." The back-and-forth defenseescalation bespeaks the suspicious nature of security agencies in general that could contribute to

the deterioration of bilateral relations. With things as they are now, tensions are quickly

rising on both sides because they are both approaching each other with a zero-

sum mentality. Even with their almost inextricable economic and tradeinterdependence, the politics of Chinese containment and American repulsioncould become a military conflict before long. As shown by the Chinese-Japanese disputeover the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, Chinese citizens are willing to boycott foreign goods and

services in a surge of patriotic fervor. Therefore, even economic interdependence may

not deter war if the strategic interests of both the U.S. and China are

compromised. The two leaders must engage in an open discussion which addresses these

problems honestly, and come up with practical solutions that move beyond their ideological andcultural differences. If not done soon, we will all suffer.

Their impact defense makes no sense – The asia pivot takes away the one thing

holding China back – economic interdependence and it makes conflict more likelyGlaser 13 -John Glaser is Editor of Antiwar.com. He has been published at The HuffingtonPost, Al Jazeera English, The American Conservative, and The Daily Caller, among other outlets,(―Obama‘s Asia-Pivot Makes Conflict More Likely: Philippines Edition‖, July 25, 2013,http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/07/25/obamas-asia-pivot-makes-conflict-more-likely-philippines-edition/)//sawyer

One of the predictable consequences of Obama‘s Asia-Pivot is that, by boosting support to all ofChina‘s U.S.-allied neighbors, those countries are emboldened to stand up to China asan enemy and China is likewise emboldened to counter the onslaught. Needless to

say, this makes conflict more likely. The Washington Post: China‘s most daring adversary

in Southeast Asia is, by many measurements, ill-suited for a fight. The Philippines has a military budget one-fortieth the size of Beijing‘s, and its navy cruises through contested waters in 1970shand-me-downs from the South Vietnamese. From that short-handed position, the Philippineshas set off on a risky mission to do what no nation in the region has managed to do: thwartChina in its drive to control the vast waters around it. So, tiny little Philippines is angling fora fight with China despite a military budget one-fortieth the size of Beijing‘s. Are wesurprised? Throughout 2012, the U.S. increased its military and economic support for thePhilippines government while at the same time expanding the American military presence in thecountry. This at a time when the Obama administration publicly pledges to support any U.S. allythat is threatened by China and vocally chastises Beijing for subtly staking claims to contestedmaritime territories. Undoubtedly, Manila got the right message. But the militaristic response to

21st century China was not obvious to all Filipinos. ―Analysts say the Philippines‘ strategy, instanding up to Asia‘s powerhouse, is just as likely to backfire as succeed,‖ the Post continues.―But it provides a crucial test case as smaller countries debate whether to deal with China as amuch-needed economic partner, a dangerous maritime aggressor, or both.‖ And there is the rub.Conceivably, China and its neighbors could be getting along great through furthereconomic trade and interdependence. The same goes for the U.S.-Chinarelationship, but Washington has instead aimed to turn peaceful economic

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exchange into a casus belli – and encouraged its smaller Asian allies to do thesame.

The TPP and the Asian pivot will spark Chinese aggression, South China Sea and

Senkaku island conflictsRatner 13 -Dr. Ely Ratner is a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He served as apolitical officer on the China Desk at the State Department from 2011 to 2012, (―Rebalancing to

Asia with anInsecure China‖, 2013, http://csis.org/files/publication/TWQ_13Spring_Ratner.pdf)//sawyer

As President Obama enters his second term, continuing to shift U.S. attention and resources tothe Asia—/Pacific will be a leading U.S. foreign policy priority. While many in the region have

welcomed this renewed commitment, the U.S. ‗‗pivot‘‘ to Asia has created heightenedconcerns in China about U.S. intentions.1 U.S. efforts to expand its military force posturein Asia, to strengthen security ties with allies and partners, and to enhance the role of regionalinstitutions are viewed by many in Beijing as directly aimed at constraining China‘srise and as the principal cause of regional instability as well as the deterioration of

China‘s strategic environment. In the years ahead, China‘s perceived sense of insecurity will likely intensify as the United States continues to deepen its diplomatic, economic, andmilitary engagement in Asia. This will limit the possibilities for U.S.—/ Chinacooperation on geopolitical issues and place additional strain on the bilateralrelationship, leaving policymakers in Washington with the critical task ofreconciling the goal of maintaining stable U.S.—/China relations while pursuing nextsteps in the rebalancing effort. Even as major diplomatic breakthroughs and deliverables remainelusive, sustained commitment to intensive high-/level engagement with Beijing will beessential to cope with inevitable crises. Furthermore, from a broader regional perspective,continued engagement with China will be a key element to actualizing the rebalancing strategyand ensuring that the United States can advance its multitude of interests in Asia. At the sametime, it will be essential for U.S. policymakers to better communicate the origin and content of

the strategy, to further develop/with commensurate resources/the economic, diplo-/ matic, andcultural elements of the rebalancing effort, and ultimately to demonstrate that America‘s Asiapolicy is not only paying dividends to the relative strategic position of the United States, but tothe region as a whole. The U.S. shift toward Asia should and will continue, but its executionmust account for an insecure China in order for the rebalancing to achieve its intended aims.China‘s Insecurity Complex This past August in Beijing, a senior colonel in the People‘sLiberation Army (PLA) told a U.S. think tank delegation that: ‗‗You have your Pearl Harbor and September 11th, we have our 1999.‘‘ This was a reference to the widely held view in China thatthe U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during NATO‘s air campaign over Serbia

was an intentional warning to Beijing not to challenge U.S. dominance in international politics.However absurd on its face, the analogy exemplifies the pervasive perception that the UnitedStates is working to constrain China‘s rise and to maintain U.S. hegemony in the region.

Although China has long harbored concerns and conspiracy theories about U.S.efforts to weaken and encircle China, these perceptions are becoming increasinglydominant in Beijing.2 An editorial in the People‘s Daily, ground zero for quasi-/authoritativecommentary on U.S. foreign policy and the rebalancing, described U.S. strategy in Asia ashaving ‗‗the obvious feature of confrontation.‘‘3 Chinese public opinion, althoughdifficult to poll with precision, also appears to reflect growing suspicion toward the UnitedStates. The Pew Research Center found that the percentage of Chinese respondents who viewthe U.S.—/China relationship as hostile has risen from eight percent in 2010 to 26 percent in2012.4 These views are found not just among the public and in nationalist newspapers and

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micro-/blogs, but are widely shared among Chinese government officials, academics, and thinktank strategists. Wang Jisi, dean of Peking University‘s School of International Studies and aleading expert on U.S.—/China relations, has argued that in recent years the view throughoutChina has ‗‗deepened‘‘ that ‗‗the ultimate goal of the United States in world affairs is to maintainits hegemony and dominance and, as a result, Washington will attempt to prevent the emergingpowers, in particular China, from achieving their goals and enhancing their stature.‘‘5 Like

taking a Rorschach test, Chinese analysts perceive U.S. policies in Asia as a dizzyingarray of ink blots that combine to paint an ominous picture of U.S. intentions. Suchactivities include strengthening U.S. security ties with treaty allies, including Japan, SouthKorea, and the Philippines; deepening relations with emerging powers like Indonesia and

Vietnam; increasing U.S. engagement with ASEAN-/centered institutions; announcing U.S.national interests in the South China Sea; supporting the Trans-/Pacific Partnership(TPP) trade agreement; re-/engaging Burma; and deploying a rotational presence of U.S.Marines to Darwin, Australia. Taken together, leading Chinese thinkers view these actions asundermining China‘s security and increasingly believe the unifying rationale forsuch a seemingly coordinated U.S. approach is to constrain China‘s rise. Beyondpurely emotive impressions of malevolent U.S. intentions, two related arguments/often mixedin imprecise ways/form the basis for Chinese accusations about how the United States‘ renewed

commitment to Asia is destabilizing to regional security. The first is that the United States isproactively fomenting conflict between China and other regional states (including thePhilippines, Vietnam, and Japan) by ‗‗sensationalizing‘‘ divisive issues, like the South China Sea,and by actively pressuring and encouraging countries to challenge China.6 According to this

view, the United States instigates crises both to suppress China‘s rise and to cause the U.S.military to be drawn or invited more deeply into the region‘s security affairs.7 Upon SecretaryClinton‘s September 2012 visit to Beijing, a commentary in China‘s official Xinhua news agencycalled upon the United States to ‗‗stop its role as a sneaky troublemaker sitting behind somenations in the region and pulling strings.‘‘8 The second, and more nuanced, Chinese assessmentis that recent U.S. statements and activities in Asia have, even if unintentionally, emboldenedregional states to believe they can challenge China while the United States has their back.Chinese analysts argue that ‗‗the reason why some countries are so unbridled may be related

with the adjusted geo-/strategy of the United States.‘‘9 Much of China‘s ire with U.S.rebalancing has been concentrated in the South China Sea, where six governmentsclaim a variety of contested land features and surrounding waters in historical fishing groundsthat are believed to be rich in hydrocarbons. China has repeatedly claimed ‗‗indisputablesovereignty‘‘ over the sea, demarcating its claims on official maps with a nine-/ dash line thatstretches far from mainland China and snakes along the coasts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei,the Philippines, and Taiwan.10 Seeking to maintain maximum leverage over individualclaimants, China has bristled at repeated statements by U.S. officials, beginning with SecretaryClinton‘s intervention at the 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Hanoi, that articulate U.Snational interests in the South China Sea, including the freedom of navigation and respect forinternational law.11 Beijing has also objected to U.S. efforts to prevent and manage local crises

by strengthening regional rules and institutions. After the release of a U.S. State Departmentpress statement in August 2012 expressing concerns about particular Chinese actions in theSouth China Sea, the Communist Party‘s top newspaper, the People‘s Daily, told Washington to‗‗shut up,‘‘ accusing the United States of ‗‗fanning flames‘‘ of division.12 China‘s official ForeignMinistry response noted that ‗‗people cannot but question the true intention of the U.S.side.‘‘13 The most serious crisis in the South China Sea last year began in an April2012 standoff between Beijing and Manila over Scarborough Reef , when thePhilippines apprehended eight Chinese fishing vessels in disputed waters. China was furiousthat the Philippines had used a naval ship (rather than a maritime law enforcement vessel) toarrest the fishermen, and were further incensed that the ship was the BRP Gregorio del Pilar, a



decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard frigate transferred by the United States in May 2011. In theensuing months, as the crisis dragged on, Chinese diplomats doggedly accused the United Statesof both maintaining a biased position and encouraging the Philippines to take additionalprovocative actions. A scattershot of events during the crisis reinforced China‘s concerns: theseincluded the U.S.—/Philippines Balikatan military exercise in April, a port visit to Subic Bay inMay by the nuclear-/ powered submarine USS North Carolina, and a visit to Washington by

President Benigno Aquino in June. Chinese officials argued that these activities were stokingtensions and emboldening the Philippines to perpetuate the standoff. In a June interview withThailand‘s The Nation newspaper, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying expressed China‘sconcerns that, ‗‗against the backdrop of ongoing changes in the overall environment in the

Asia—/Pacific region, these problems and differences seem to be hyped up, and even used to justify certain policies or actions.‘‘14 Amidst what it viewed as unrelenting pressure inthe South China Sea, China saw disturbing parallels in the East China Sea withJapan. Strategists in Beijing perceived that the United States was again/bydesign/creating an additional source of instability on China‘s doorstep. Fordecades, tensions have simmered between China and Japan over the sovereigntyof the Senkaku Islands, which offer access to key shipping lanes, fishing grounds, andpotential oil reserves. These tensions began to boil over in April 2010 when Tokyo Governor

Shintaro Ishihara declared his goal of purchasing three of the islands from a private Japanesecitizen. Many in Beijing saw the maneuverings of the United States behind this, partly becauseGovernor Ishihara first announced his intentions in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, aconservative think tank in Washington, D.C. Subsequent events only fed Chinese suspicions. Forinstance, as the crisis escalated into the fall of 2012, U.S. officials reiterated Secretary Clinton‘sOctober 2010 statement that the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security/ which obliges theUnited States to defend Japan in case of hostilities/covers the Senkaku Islands.15 Furthermore,the Defense Department announced during Secretary Panetta‘s trip to Tokyo in August 2012that the United States would locate an additional X-/Band missile-/defense radar in southernJapan. China claims that this is an attempt at containment and could reduce the effectiveness ofits nuclear deterrent. Few in Beijing accepted the explanation by U.S. officials thatthese actions were not aimed at China. Professor Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for

American Studies at Renmin University‘s School of International Studies in Beijing, noted that‗‗the joint missile defense system objectively encourages Japan to keep an aggressive position inthe Diaoyu Islands dispute, which sends China a very negative message. Japan would not have

been so aggressive without the support and actions of the U.S.‘‘16 Similarly, former UnderSecretary-/ General of the United Nations and former Chinese ambassador to Japan, Chen Jian,said in an October 2012 speech in Hong Kong that many viewed the issue of the disputedislands ‗‗as a time bomb planted by the U.S. between China and Japan.‘‘17 MoreRebalancing to Come Recent U.S. initiatives in Asia by no means represent the culmination orcomplete execution of the Asia-/pivot strategy. Instead, it is more appropriate to view them asfirst or foundational steps in a decade-/long project upon which substantially more economic,diplomatic, cultural, and military initiatives will be built. The Defense Department‘s January2012 strategic guidance document pronounced that the United States ‗‗ will of necessityrebalance toward the Asia—/Pacific region.‘‘18 Secretary Panetta‘s June 2012 speech at theShangri-/La Dialogue in Singapore reinforced this message and described specific actions theUnited States would take to make good on its promise to provide ‗‗a deeper and more enduringpartnership in advancing the security and prosperity of the Asia—/Pacific.‘‘19 In his most citedannouncement, Panetta a vowed that ‗‗by 2020 the Navy will re-/posture its forces from today‘sroughly 50/50 percent split between the Pacific and the Atlantic to about a 60/40 split betweenthose oceans.‘‘20 He also noted that the United States would invest in systems toaddress China‘s anti-/ access/area-/denial capabilities (including advanced fifth-/generation fighters enhanced Virginia-/class submarines, electronic warfare and



communication capabilities, and improved precision weapons), as well as systems to address the‗‗tyranny of distance‘‘ that U.S. planners face in the Western Pacific (including aerial-/refuelingtankers, a new bomber, and advanced maritime patrol and anti-/ submarine warfare aircraft).21Finally, beyond hardware, Panetta noted that the United States would continue to develop newoperational concepts/including the Joint Operational Access Concept and the Air—/Sea Battleconcept/to meet the ‗‗unique challenges‘‘ of the Asia—/Pacific.22 In the security realm, the

future of the rebalancing strategy will go beyond U.S. military modernization toinclude further development and diversification of U.S. force posture in Asia.Obama administration officials have announced that the U.S. military is seeking new presenceand access arrangements in the region that are ‗‗geographically distributed, operationallyresilient, and politically sustainable.‘‘23 In March 2012, The Washington Post published a mapof Southeast Asia outlining a number of new potential operating locations for the U.S.military.24 These included a possible rotational deployment of U.S. Marines in the Philippines,including bases for surveillance aircraft and increased ship visits; plans to base four U.S. Navylittoral combat ships in Singapore; a possible upgraded airfield for P-/8 surveillance aircraft andGlobal Hawk drones on the Cocos Islands of Australia; possible expansion of the Royal

Australian Navy‘s primary base in Western Australia (HMAS Stirling in Perth) to accommodate visits by U.S. aircraft carriers, other warships, and attack submarines; the rotational deployment

of as many as 2,500 U.S. Marines in Darwin, Australia; and a possible new Australian fleet basein Brisbane, Australia, that could accommodate visits from U.S. warships and submarines.

While budget and political realities in Washington and the region will curb or slowthese plans, at least some are likely to move forward in ways that will disquietBeijing. Add to that the possibility of deepening U.S. security ties with additional partners inthe region beyond traditional U.S. allies, including those on China‘s periphery and with whichChina has ongoing maritime and territorial disputes. On China‘s southern border, for instance,high-/level visits have become routine between the United States and Vietnam, including thePolitical, Security, and Defense Dialogue, launched by the State Department and Vietnam‘sMinistry of Foreign Affairs in 2008, and the Defense Policy Dialogue, a high-/level channel fordirect military-/to-/military discussions first held in 2010.25 Since 2006, the two countries haveconducted at least nine joint naval patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin, and in August 2010 engaged in

a bilateral non-/combatant naval exercise in the South China Sea.26 Furthering these securityties, in June 2012, Secretary Panetta made the first visit since the end of the Vietnam War by aU.S. defense secretary to the former U.S. Navy base in Cam Rahn Bay. Aboard the USS RichardE. Byrd, Panetta declared that ‗‗access for United States naval ships into this facility is a keycomponent of this relationship and we see a tremendous potential here for the future.‘‘27 Helater spoke at a joint news conference about the potential to take the U.S.—/Vietnam militaryrelationship ‗‗to a new level‘‘ in the areas of maritime security, naval visits, search-/and-/rescueoperations, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and peacekeeping operations.28 Similarstories could be told about deepening U.S. security relations with any number of emergingpowers in the region including India, Indonesia, and Singapore. If current trends continue,China will also have to contend with deepening engagement between the UnitedStates and Burma, which at some point will include discussions about the contentand timing of military-/to-/military relations between the two countries. As a step inthis direction, Burmese officials for the first time participated as observers in the annual U.S.—/Thailand Cobra Gold military exercise in February 2013.29 Beyond security activities, U.S.diplomatic and economic efforts in Asia will also likely contribute to Beijing‘ssense of unease, including the prospect of progress on the Trans-/PacificPartnership (TPP) trade agreement, growing U.S. collaboration with ASEAN, andenhanced U.S. development assistance in Southeast Asia. Beijing will not view these actionsfavorably, and to the extent that relatively minor U.S. initiatives to date have already raisedconcerns and codified a view of malevolent U.S. intentions, additional activities closer to China‘s



borders/in the Philippines, Vietnam, India, or Burma/will likely be cause for even greatersuspicion. China‘s Vision: a ‗‗New Type of Relationship‘‘ With several acts in the drama of

America‘s rebalancing to Asia to follow, there is an increasing dissonance between thefuture direction of U.S. regional policy and China‘s view of what would constitute astable U.S.—/China relationship. In what could only be interpreted as a highly coordinatedeffort endorsed by the senior-/most leadership in Beijing, Chinese government officials have in

multiple venues and at the highest levels promoted the notion that the United States and Chinashould work toward a ‗‗new type of relationship between major powers.‘‘ The concept wasfloated during then-/Vice President Xi Jinping‘s visit to Washington in February 2012 andsubsequently reinforced and elaborated upon by the major players in the bilateral relationship,including President Hu Jintao, State Counselor Dai Bingguo, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, and

Vice Foreign Minister for North America and Oceania Cui Tiankai.30

TPP is bad – kills democracy and destroys US power putting China in a position of

leverage causing warStoller 12 – Matt Stoller has a background in financial journalist and was a Roosevelt fellow

(―Trans-Pacific Partnership: The biggest trade deal you‘ve never heard of‖, October 23, 2012http://www.salon.com/2012/10/23/everything_you_wanted_to_know_about_the_trans_pacific_partnership/)//sawyerThere are two major concerns about agreements like this. One is that these agreements continuea transition from a democratic system toward one in which the rights of foreign corporationscan trump laws passed by legislative bodies. As Lee put it, ―Every time you have a new tradeagreement you expand the number of companies who can challenge Americanlaws.‖ The second concern is far more frightening. America‘s dependence on China was not anissue in 1992, when NAFTA was signed. Today, it is. Lee noted, ―We‘ve put ourselves in a very

vulnerable position because of the concentrated source of supply on critical resources, whetherit‘s China or elsewhere. I don‘t agree that the TPP is the answer to this. In my view TPP, ifanything, will exacerbate this. In TPP what‘s being discussed are fairly weak rules

of country of origin. Some of these countries may get substantial inputs fromChina. The TPP could become a conduit for the U.S. to become more dependent onChina.‖ Barry Lynn spelled this out in a hypothetical disaster scenario, in which

American tensions with China cause genuine friction. This isn‘t far-fetched, as America is positioning military assets in the region. ―Officials [in China] do not evenneed to impose some sort of across-the-board trade embargo to achieve their ends. Far moreeffective would be to put the squeeze on one industrial system or other, or one company orother, day after day, in a systematic fashion, until Washington cried uncle. The Pentagon hassketched out complex plans for how to respond to any use of force by China. Far moreuseful would be to know how the United States as a nation would respond when, suddenly,grandma can‘t get her medicine. Or when, suddenly, the store shelves empty of batteries andlightbulbs. What does the president do when he has General Electric and Wal-Mart both on the

phone, demanding the restoration of normal trade? Or when Apple‘s stock plummets becausethe company can‘t move any of its iPhones through Chinese ports? The only real option is toembrace the logic of industrial interdependence, hence to recognize that the only way for theUnited States to achieve its most vital national aims — indeed, to be taken seriously by China — is no longer to reposition its aircraft carriers, but to force its industrial and trading corporationsto reposition the machines on which it depends. The United States does not need to bring all oreven any of these systems of production home. But it can no longer continue to live in a world in

which many activities remain in one location, under the control of one state, especially astrategic rival.‖ The TPP does not mitigate the threat of Chinese leverage over the American



supply chain at all. It is, at best, a weak agreement that looks and sounds big, but does very littleexcept further undermine the power of American government to maintain consumer,environmental and labor laws and protect public assets, while denying some medicine to poorpeople and making it easier for copyright owners to take down websites they don‘t like. But asthe TPP is being portrayed in elite circles as the answer to the China dilemma, perhaps the

biggest danger inherent in the TPP is that the enormous threat implied in China controlling

America‘s industrial base is being ignored, yet again.



AT: Asia Pivot

The status quo solves the entirety of the aff – dominant presence in asia and hightrade relations now with the Asian-Pacific – only a risk that the aff causes ChineseaggressionInnocent 12 –Malou Innocent is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. She is a member ofthe International Institute for Strategic Studies, and her primary research interests includeMiddle East and Persian Gulf security issues and U.S. foreign policy toward Pakistan,

Afghanistan, and China. She has appeared as a guest analyst on CNN, BBC News, Fox NewsChannel, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, CNBC Asia, and Reuters. Innocent has published reviewsand articles on national security and international affairs in journals such as Survival,Congressional Quarterly, and Harvard International Review. She has also written for ForeignPolicy, Wall Street Journal Asia, Christian Science Monitor, Armed Forces Journal, theGuardian, Huffington Post, the Washington Times, and other outlets both in the United Statesand overseas. She earned dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Mass Communications and PoliticalScience from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master of Arts degree inInternational Relations from the University of Chicago, (―Textile Protectionism in the Trans-

Pacific Partnership‖, July 23, 2012, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/textile-protectionism-trans-pacific-partnership)//sawyer

The greatest misperception surrounding Washington‘s ―pivot‖ to Asia is that America‘s

dominant presence is not already felt there on a regular basis. It is. The United

States plays a considerable role in the Far East, despite the Obama administration‘sproclamations last autumn that it would ―pivot‖ or ―rebalance‖ there in the future. For one, theUnited States maintains forward-deployed forces in South Korea, with 28,500 U.S.troops; Guam, with 4,500 U.S. troops;and Japan, with 40,000 U.S. troops. Guam, of course, ispart of America as a non-self-governing, unincorporated territory. South Korea and Japan,however, after decades of proven internal stability and peaceful democratic transitions, areequipped to defend themselves. Once upon a time, South Korea was incapable of surviving

without America‘s support. That began to change in the 1980s. Today, its economy ranks around13th in the world, it has twice the North‘s population, and, if South Korea‘s leaders chose to,could be spending on defense the equivalent of the North‘s entire annual GDP. As for Japan,despite its recent economic woes, it had the fifth highest defense budget in the world in 2011,according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Japan surpassed Russia, India, andBrazil, and fell only behind the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and France.Moreover, as scholars Shinichi Ogawa and Michael Schiffer have pointed out, in criticism of itspolicy, Japan possesses a nuclear ―breakout‖ capacity, meaning its civilian nuclear fuel cycle isso advanced ―that, at the flip of the switch, [it] could be militarized.‖ ― Washington‘s obsessivefixation on the Middle East and North Africa should warrant serious reconsideration.‖ Save for aplanned contingent of 2,500 U.S. Marines in Australia, four littoral combat ships stationed inSingapore, and rotating troops and surveillance aircraft in the Philippines, it is unclear whether

U.S. troop deployments will grow more robust in Japan and South Korea. They should not.Such prosperous allies can live without the generous welfare of American taxpayers. Aside fromthese forward-deployed forces, the Far East feels Washington‘s constant presence with theUnited States Pacific Command. This regional unified military structure consists of about one-fifth of total U.S. military strength. It includes six aircraft carrier strike groups, about two-thirdsof U.S. Marine Corps combat strength, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which goeson frequent patrolsconducting joint, military-training exercises with America‘s allies and partners. Talking aboutpartners, Uncle Sam has a lot of them in a region home to over 50 percent of the world‘spopulation. The United States has been cultivating warmer relations with India,

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/textile-protectionism-trans-pacific-partnership)/sawyer







most especially after accommodating New Delhi‘s nuclear expansion with a symbolic,2008 agreement facilitating civilian nuclear cooperation between them. Moreover, despiterecent hand wringing over U.S.-Russia relations, Washington‘s so-called ―reset‖ has reboundedties from their 2008 low, particularly with regard to Moscow‘s help supplying NATO‘s war effortin Afghanistan. Elsewhere, the United States has forged better relations with Vietnam,Myanmar, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines, and has embraced existing multilateral

organizations and trade agreements, like the East Asia Summit, the Trans-Pacific Partnership,and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. In the end, Washington‘s obsessive fixation onthe Middle East and North Africa should warrant serious reconsideration. More of America‘sattention should be paid to the future of the Asia-Pacific, since maintaining peace in that region

will be the challenge of the 21st century. However, what foreign policy planners in Washingtonshould be asking themselves is what the United States should be willing to defend in this region,and at what cost? What implicit commitments should Washington make to prosperous,populous countries eminently capable of defending themselves? Allies are intended to

supplement a nation-state‘s power, not hinder or jeopardize it. Primarily, America‘s

deepening involvement in Asia is meant to reassure allies nervous over China‘s

growing assertiveness and increased military spending. However, the United States

can both value being a strong military power and allow other countries in the Far East to assert agreater leadership role. These policies are neither zero-sum nor mutually exclusive.For more than half a century, the United States has played a prominent military and economicrole in the Asia-Pacific. The American people should not be led to believe that their country wasa never a force to be reckoned with there. Indeed, the biggest tale proponents of U.S.prominence in Asia ever sold was the intimation that we do not already have it.



Counterplans



NAFTA 2 + China CP

NAFTA 2 + China solves better than the TPPParamonov, 13 – Dr. Igor M. Paramonov, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Calgary (“The Rise of

Asia and North American Economic Integration: A Canadian Perspective” The Business Review,Cambridge21.1 (Summer 2013): 67-73. Proquest)

NAFTA 2 + CHINA FORMULA

A number of experts agree that Canadians should have a long-term strategy which not only provides

access to Asian markets and capital, but also ensures that we view engagement with China through "a

Canada-US lens" (Dobson, p.5, 2011). All projections show that the U.S. will remain the main trade and

investment partner for Canada. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade forecasts

that, "By 2040 the U.S. share of Canadian exports is expected to be 75.5 percent" (Canada's State of

Trade, p. 67, 2011). If so, Canadians must avoid being caught between their largest market and their

fastest growing one at all costs (Crowley, 2012). This is particularly timely given that Ottawa's

engagement with China has already caused concerns on both sides of the border. Recent acquisition of

Canadian publicly traded oil company Nexen Inc. by the Chinese government-run firm CNOOC Ltd., andsecurity issues over the operation of Huawei Technologies in the telecom sectors of both Canada and

the USA have been widely publicized by the North American media. To ensure that any Canada-China

negotiations contribute to mutual benefits while at the same time keeping our relations with the U.S.

intact, Ottawa has to strike a balance that satisfies everyone. This paper recommends considering the

"NAFTA 2 + China" formula.

NAFTA 2 is known in the literature as a possible future scenario of renegotiation and deepening of North

American integration with the elimination of deficiencies in the initial 1993 agreement (Paramonov,

2012). Critics describe NAFTA as "outdated" and largely stalled (Dobson, Kuzmanovic, 2010). Many see

the TPP as a vehicle for upgrading and modifying NAFTA. The analysis above shows serious roadblocks

on the way to a complete TPP agreement anytime soon, which would subsequently delay NAFTA 2

progress as well. In theory, the suggested "NAFTA 2 + China" formula of negotiations allows for amodernization of the 20-year old agreement in terms of its deficiencies (including dispute resolution,

capital movements, rules of origin, and trade in services) while simultaneously harmonizing the interests

of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico in trade and investment with China. Modern, transparent, and mutually

beneficial rules of economic engagement in North America should be the foundation for regional

consolidation and collaboration for the next 20 years (Jeffs, 2012). NAFTA 2 should deliver the strength

and resolve which is so highly respected by China.

Renegotiation of NAFTA has been viewed as a remote possibility due to a lack of interest from the U.S.

government, but perhaps new developments in Mexico could motivate Americans to look beyond the

new and exotic markets in Asia and to return their attention to the home continent. Rising wages in

China and its geographic remoteness make Mexico's labour market appealing once again. The Economist

predicts that according to present trends, the U.S. will import more from Mexico than from any other

country by 2018 (Mexico and the United States, 2012). Mexico is one of the fastest growing markets and

the second-largest economy in Latin America, as well as a faithful member of NAFTA. As Canada's

largest-circulation national newspaper advised in its Editorial, the U.S. and Canada are right to reach out

to emerging markets, but should not lose sight of their NAFTA partners in the process (Mexico, a natural

partner for Canada, 2012).





If we are to repeat the success of two decades ago, we will require an even greater catalyst: a regional

trade agreement of such quality and scope that the rest of the world is galvanized.

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership recently announced by the European Union and

the United States could be that catalyst. That negotiation would involve roughly half the global

economy. The negotiation need not be protracted. The E.U. and the U.S. each recently concluded free

trade agreements with South Korea that could serve as a template upon which to build.

The proposed Trans-Atlantic Partnership could have even more heft if Canada and Mexico were added

— which makes sense, since Mexico already has a free trade agreement with the E.U., and Canada is in

the final stages of negotiating one. Including them would avoid having different rules covering trade

involving our two largest trading partners.

The global reaction to Nafta 20 years ago shows that “competitive liberalization” can be a powerful

catalyst. When governments see others taking economic action that generates growth and stability, they

do not want to be left out.

A broad, gold-standard trade agreement across the Atlantic could be such a catalyst for reigniting

support for multilateral trade liberalization, bringing W.T.O. members back to the table to finish the

Doha Round, which would give a real boost to the global economy.

It was done before with the Nafta, and it could be done again with the successful conclusion of the

Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

US backing is vital to Mexican negotiation credibility in TAFTA

Glickhouse and Zissis 4/26 – editor-in-chief of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas

(Rachel, Carin, “Explainer: President Barack Obama's Trip to Mexico and Costa Rica,” 4/26/13,

http://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-president-barack-obamas-trip-mexico-and-costa-rica)//SJF

Trade: Talking TPP and More in Mexico

Given that Mexico is the third-biggest U.S. trading partner, the two countries’ economies are deeply

connected. The North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is closing in on its twentieth birthday,

and U.S.-Mexican trade neared $500 billion last year, representing more than a fivefold increase sincepre-NAFTA days. As Herminio Blanco, one of the deal’s chief negotiators, commented on NAFTA to

AS/COA Online last month: “*I+f somebody would have told me, in 20 years Mexico will be exporting

more than a billion dollars per day, I would say, ‘You must be crazy.’” In 2011, trilateral trade between

Canada, Mexico, and the United States “reached the $1 trillion threshold,” notes a Congressional

Research Service report.

More recently, the three countries have become party to negotiations of a larger trade agreement —the

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a multilateral deal seeking to boost economic integration among Pacific

Rim countries. In terms of hemispheric membership, Chile and Peru are also members; Colombia, Costa

Rica, and Panama are observers (a new Americas Quarterly article notes that Costa Rica “is close to

signing with all members, one of the requirements of full membership”). “A concluded TPP would

solidify North America as an integrated production platform with Asia-Pacific and parts of South

America, while also offering an opportunity to strengthen NAFTA—cutting edge when it entered into

force almost 20 years ago but now in need of an update,” says COA Vice President Eric Farnsworth. “This

is in equal measure why both Mexico and Canada should be invited to join the United States in the

pending negotiations with Europe at the front end, not brought in after the fact when negotiations may

already be well advanced,” he added, referring to the EU-U.S. Transatlantic Trade and Investment

Partnership announced in February.



It was during Obama’s last trip to Latin America in June 2012—for the G20 in Los Cabos—that the United

States backed Mexico’s membership in the TPP. This time around the Mexican government could seek

U.S. support to join in the EU-U.S. negotiations.

TAFTA is better and solves the affs internal links – comparative evidence to TPPCooper 13 –Ryan Cooper is the web editor of the Washington Monthly, (―A Look at Tw oPotential Trade Deals‖, March 13, 2013, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_03/a_look_at_two_potential_trade043546.php#)//sawyerPrestowitz highlights several little-known facts about the TPP which ought to see widerdiscussion before any treaty is signed. For example, it has the potential to seriously alter manyof our existing trade agreements, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean: An additional problem is how the TPP would destroy the Caribbean Basin Free Trade

Agreement (CAFTA) and poke big holes in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). For example, under both agreements, textile producers in theCaribbean and Mexico who use U.S. yarn receive duty-free access to the U.S. market for textilesand apparel. The U.S. struck these deals partly in response to the discriminatory trade and

industrial policies of some Asian countries that were distorting markets and causing the loss ofU.S. jobs. A second objective was to help create jobs in Mexico and the Caribbean and therebyreduce the number of undocumented immigrants from these countries while also providing analternative to employment in the drug-trafficking trade. By removing tariffs on textile importsfrom Vietnam, the TPP would displace an estimated 1.2 million textile workers in the CaribbeanBasin and Mexico along with about 170,000 in the United States, according to Mary O‘Rourke,an industry analyst. Some see that as simply the price of achieving true free trade andoptimizing the planet‘s division of labor. But Vietnam is dominated by state-owned enterprisesand is far from being a market economy. Furthermore, under a situation of true free trade, it

would be China, not Vietnam, that would take most of the textile business, because China hasgigantic excess capacity in textiles, as it does in just about everything else. TAFTA, though,comes out as a better deal, according to Prestowitz. It should spark some nontrivial economic

growth, for starters, and would have little of the labor market undercutting that is such aproblem when dealing with countries like China: This experience is one reason why TAFTAdeserves a second look, but there are also others. First is the need for growth in anage of high debt and austerity . Neither the U.S. nor Europe is politically prepared tostimulate its economy through any significant increase in deficit spending. That means growthmust come from some other source, and the efficiencies that would come from furtherintegration of European and American economies are a plausible answer. Labor unions in the

EU are strong and wages are high, so there will be no race to the bottom. And the EU and the

U.S. largely share a commitment to free markets, free trade, and democracy . Much

of what has gone wrong with the WTO derives from systemic conflicts between the U.S. and theEU on the one side and the more interventionist and authoritarian political economies of the

rest of the world on the other. The biggest economic gain from TAFTA would be fromharmonizing regulation . Inconsistencies in regulation raise the costs of transatlantic trade

in automobiles, for example, by 27 percent, and by 6.5 percent in the electronics sector alone.The United States and Europe both have safe headlights, for instance, but EU cars exported to

America must have different headlights than those sold in Europe and vice versa. That non-tariff barrier inhibits exports while raising costs by forcing producers to keep extra stocks of differentheadlights. The same holds true for electronics and most other products. Mutual recognition ofessentially equivalent standards and removal of similar non-tariff barriers would boost U.S.



GDP by 1 to 3 percent ($150 billion to $450 billion), according to a 2005 study by theOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.



Condition CP

Text: Do the plan if and only if the full social, environmental, and economicimpacts are assessed and only if Mexico says yes to requiring a to

environmental protection standards higher than those of the internationalcommunity

Here’s a solvency advocateNCC 13 –Nelson City Council, (―Nelson is Second City to Pass Critical Resolution onTPPA‖, July 25, 2013, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories9/AK1307/S00665/nelson-is-second-city-to-pass-critical-resolution-on-tppa.htm)Nelson is Second City to Pass Critical Resolution on TPPA Nelson City Council passed aresolution setting a number of conditions for an acceptable Trans-PacificPartnership Agreement (TPPA) on Thursday 18 July. There were 6 votes for, 1against and 2 abstentions. The Nelson motion mirrors one passed by Auckland City lastDecember. The Council declined the recommendation of a council researcher for ashortened, less critical version and adopted the full resolution. Cr. Mike Ward, whomoved the motion, spoke forcefully in favour of it, pointing to the risk the TPPA posedto the healthy and participatory life of local communities. The resolution calls on thegovernment to conclude negotiations on the TPPA and other free trade agreements in a way that provides net positive benefits for Nelson and New Zealand– and sets out a listof criteria to satisfy that test. The conditions target areas of particular concern to thepowers and responsibilities of local government. They include retaining the right to givelocal preferences when spending ratepayers‘ money on public procurement, and theright to choose whether particular services or facilities are provided in house by council-controlled organisations. Nor should foreign investors have greater rights than locals.

The motion also stressed the need to preserve the Council‘s right to require more robusthealth and safety provisions, environmental protection, employment rights, communityparticipation, animal protection or human rights standards than national or

international minimum standards. In relation to democratic decision making, the

resolution urges that the text should not be signed off without full public

consultation on the drafts and that ratification is conditional on a full social,

environmental and economic impact assessment. A large crowd attended the

Nelson City Council public forum where the vote was taken. Graeme O‘Brien, the chiefpetitioner spoke to the meeting. Mr O‘Brien called on other councils to follow suit,flagging to central government that there is awareness and concern at local government

level about the dangers of this secretly negotiated agreement. The resolution will beforwarded to the Government. RESOLUTION: That the Nelson City Council encouragesthe government to conclude negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and FreeTrade Agreements in a way that provides net positive benefits for Nelson and NewZealand ie the partnership and agreements achieve the following objectives: a)encourages the government to conclude negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnershipand Free Trade Agreements in a way that provides net positive benefits for Nelson andNew Zealand. a) …, that is, provided the Partnership and Agreements achieve the

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories9/AK1307/S00665/nelson-is-second-city-to-pass-critical-resolution-on-tppa.htm)









2012. Written comments are due by noon, September 4, 2012. Submissions via on-line:www.regulations.gov. For alternatives to on-line submissions, please contact Donald W. Eiss at(202) 395-3475. For questions concerning requirements for written comments, please contactDonald W. Eiss at (202) 395-3475. All other questions regarding this notice should be directedto Kent Shigetomi, Director for Mexico and NAFTA, at (202) 395-3412. On November 13, 2011,Mexican Economy Secretary Bruno Ferrari stated Mexico's intention to begin consultations with

the current TPP participating countries regarding Mexico's participation in the TPPnegotiations. On December 7, 2011, USTR published notices in theFederal Register(76 FR76479), seeking public comments on Mexico's possible participation in the TPP negotiations. OnJuly 9, 2012, following consultations with relevant Congressional committees and after havingreached consensus on Mexico's participation with the other TPP negotiating partners (Australia,Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam), the U.S.Trade Representative informed Congress that the President intends to commence negotiations

with Mexico in the context of the ongoing negotiations of the TPP. The objective of thisnegotiation is to achieve a high-standard, 21st century agreement with a membership andcoverage that provides economically significant market access opportunities for America's

workers, manufacturers, service suppliers, farmers, ranchers, and small businesses. Theaddition of Mexico to the group of TPP negotiating partners will contribute

meaningfully to the achievement of these goals. In addition, under the Trade Act of 1974,as amended (19 U.S.C. 2151, 2153), in the case of an agreement such as the proposed TPP tradeagreement, the President must (i) afford interestedpersons an opportunity to present their viewsregarding any matter relevant to the proposed agreement, (ii) designate an agency or inter-agency committee to hold a public hearing regarding the proposed agreement, and (iii) seek theadvice of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) regarding the probable economiceffects on U.S. industries and consumers of the removal of tariffs and non-tariff barriers onimports pursuant to the proposed agreement. USTR intends to hold a public hearing on mattersrelated to Mexico's participation in the TPP negotiations on September 21, 2012. In addition,USTR has requested the ITC to provide advice to USTR on the probable economic effects ofincluding Mexico in a TPP agreement. To assist USTR as it develops its negotiating objectivesfor the agreement, the Trade Policy Subcommittee Chair invites interested persons to submit

written comments and/or oral testimony at a public hearing on matters relevant to Mexico'sparticipation in the TPP negotiations. Members of the public who submitted comments inresponse to the earlier request (76 FR 76479) need not make an additional submission unlessthe comments are different. Comments and testimony may address the reduction or eliminationof tariffs or non-tariff barriers on any articles provided for in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule ofthe United States (HTSUS) that are products of Mexico, any concession that should be sought bythe United States, or any other matter relevant to the inclusion of Mexico in the proposed TPPagreement. The TPSC Chair invites comments on all of these matters and, in particular, seekscomments addressed to: (a) General and product-specific negotiating objectives for Mexico inthe context of this proposed regional agreement. (b) Economic costs and benefits to U.S.producers and consumers of removal of tariffs and removal or reduction in non-tariff barrierson articles traded with Mexico. (c) Treatment of specific goods (described by HTSUS numbers)under the proposed regional agreement, including comments on— (1) Product-specific import orexport interests or barriers, (2) experience with particular measures that should be addressed inthe negotiations, and (3) approach to tariff negotiations, including ways to address exportpriorities and import sensitivities related to Mexico in the context of this regional agreement. (d)

Adequacy of existing customs measures to ensure that qualifying imported goods from TPPcountries, including Mexico, receive preferential treatment, and appropriate rules of origin forgoods entering the United States under the proposed regional agreement. (e) Existing sanitaryand phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade imposed by Mexico that should beaddressed in the negotiations. (f) Existing barriers to trade in services between the United States



and Mexico that should be addressed in the negotiations. (g) Relevant electronic commerceissues that should be addressed in the negotiations. (h) Relevant trade-related intellectualproperty rights issues that should be addressed in the negotiations. (i) Relevant investmentissues that should be addressed in the negotiations. (j) Relevant competition-related mattersthat should be addressed in the negotiations. (k) Relevant government procurement issues that

should be addressed in the negotiations. (l) Relevant environmental issues that should

be addressed in the negotiations. (m) Relevant labor issues that should be addressed in

the negotiations. In addition to the matters described above, USTR is addressing new andemerging issues in this proposed regional agreement. Specifically, USTR is considering newapproaches designed to promote innovation and competitiveness, encourage new technologiesand emerging economic sectors, increase the participation of small- and medium-sized

businesses in trade, and support the development of efficient production and supply chains thatinclude U.S. firms in order to encourage firms to invest and produce in the United States. TheChair of the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TSPC) invites comments regarding how Mexico'sparticipation in the negotiations might affect these new approaches. The TPSC Chair also invitescomments on the impact of Mexico's participation in the negotiations on other trade-relatedpriorities in this regional agreement, including environmental protection and

conservation, transparency, workers rights and protections, development, and other issues.USTR has already provided notice and requested comments on the scope for anenvironmental review of the proposed TPP trade agreement (see 75 FR 14470, March25, 2010). As described above, the present notice invites comments on, among other topics,

environmental issues to be addressed in the TPP negotiations to take into account

Mexico's participation in the negotiation . Further comments are also invited on the

environmental review, including possible changes in the scope or other issues that should beaddressed in the review. At a later date, USTR, through the TPSC, will publish notice of reviewsregarding the impact of the proposed agreement on U.S. employment and labor markets. Thesereviews will take into account Mexico's participation in the negotiations.



TPP bad



TPP bad – organized crime

Involving Mexico in TPP negotiations expands organized crime – causes widespread

instabilityPeele 12 – Rotary World Peace Fellow and holds a master's degree in International Relations from the

Universidad del Salvador (Justin, “A Call for Caution: The (Side) Effect of Mexico’s Entry into the Trans-

Pacific Partnership,” 7/3/12, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/a-call-for-caution-the-side-effect-of-

mexico%E2%80%99s-entry-into-the-trans-pacific-partnership)//SJF

Recently Mexico was invited to participate in talks which could culminate in its entry into the Trans-

Pacific Partnership (TPP). This proposed free trade area in the Asia-Pacific Region currently has nine

nations on board (Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the

United States) and aims to “enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, pr omote

innovation, economic growth and development, and support the creation and retention of jobs.”

On the surface these trade talks will be a positive step for Mexico’s business community and has beenmet with wide acclaim from the Mexican leadership. President Calderon, sitting directly beside

President Obama at the meeting, was overheard stating: “This is wonderful news,” adding that their

inclusion “implies economic growth and jobs for at least the next two decades.” But below the surface

there is a very real cause for alarm. While supporting legitimate businesses in international trade, the

Trans-Pacific Partnership runs the risk of also aiding significantly Mexico’s numerous Transnational

Criminal Organizations (TCOs), much to the same effect of NAFTA in the 1990s. NAFTA stipulated a

variety of demands, namely the removal of most tariffs and restrictions on trade between the three

participating nations, the United States, Canada and Mexico. NAFTA implemented a wide range of

agreements on everything from agricultural, textile and auto trade to telecommunications, intellectual

property and environmental policies. The results of NAFTA were mixed to say the least.

It is important to move beyond the common arguments for or against this multilateral agreement

regarding which country benefited the most or how many jobs were created or destroyed. Instead,focus should be heightened on an oft-talked about subject: that of the illicit markets and known

criminals that benefited tremendously from this policy. From there we gain insight into possible

undesired outcomes of Mexico’s future participation in the TPP, an agreement which according to one

Mexican trade expert the country has envisioned as “NAFTA-plus.” After all, if all interested countries

are admitted, this proposed economic pact would be about forty percent larger than the entire twenty-

seven nation European Union. This is not small change on the table.

The (Side) Effect of NAFTA in the Creation of Mexico’s TCOs

In 1990 Mexico approached the U.S. with the idea of forming a free trade agreement between their

countries, an endeavor which would eventually culminate in the creation of NAFTA several years later.

The then Mexican President Salinas de Gortari had several motivations in pursuing such a pact with the

United States, namely to increase economic growth by attracting foreign direct investment, to boostexports, the creation of industrial jobs and giving the Mexican economy an overall growth stimulus.

Overall, the increased foreign direct investment would help create jobs, increase wage rates, and reduce

poverty within the country (p. 1).

However, as an unintended consequence, the same policies which were designed to encourage business

and the integration of U.S.-Mexican economies aided significantly in the expansion of illicit markets,

primarily the illicit drug sector. NAFTA helped create not only the three most prominent drug trafficking



organizations in Mexico, but some of the country’s most notorious drug lords, criminals worth billions of

dollars.

As the majority of maquiladoras (factories operating in a free trade zone) were located along the U.S.-

Mexican border, it is no coincidence that the focus of Mexican drug-traffickers shifted from the Pacific

coast to the border states of Baja California, Chihuahua, and Tamaulipas. In time, these three states on

the U.S.-Mexican border would become the home of the Tijuana Cartel, Juarez Cartel, and Gulf Cartel

respectively. As one author describes the time period, Mexican drug trafficking organizations

consolidated their power “amid the gold rush of globalization (p. 75).” According to Eduardo Valle, who

resigned as personal advisor to the Mexican attorney general in 1994, the most successful drug capos

had become “driving forces, pillars even, of our economic growth (p. 129).”

In response to the doubling of U.S. imports from Mexico between 1993, the year before NAFTA took

effect, and 1997, Phil Jordan, the former Director of the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center remarked that

NAFTA served as a “godsend” to drug trafficking, “the best thing that happened to product distribution

since Nike signed up Michael Jordan (p. 3).” Based on this ‘growth stimulus’ of the free trade

agreement, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the leader of the Sinaloa Federation, Joaquín “El Chapo”

Guzman currently appears for the fourth consecutive year on Forbes Magazine’s list of top billionaires.

Not only was he recently named “The world’s most powerful drug trafficker” by the U.S. Department of

the Treasury, he has been named repeatedly as one of Forbes Magazine’s “World’s Most PowerfulPeople” throughout the years. His current location on the list places him just a few spots down from

President Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama. It is unlikely that so much wealth and power could be

amassed without the myriad of unintended consequences stemming from NAFTA.

In a study conducted to understand the impact of Mexico’s market reforms on the illicit drug trade, a

number of shocking conclusions were drawn, namely that the increased trade flows between Colombia-

Mexico-U.S., brought about by trade liberalization, provided the necessary cover for increased drug

trafficking. The privatization of companies and services was also utilized by cartels for money laundering

and narco-investment. The deregulation of the trucking industry inadvertently aided in the transport of

both legal and illegal goods, thus increasing transport of large drug shipments within Mexico and into

the U.S. market. It was found that foreign debt repayments also provided the incentives for a

government to tolerate a heavy influx of drug revenues. As public sector salaries were lowered, theincentives for officials to accept bribes increased, thus furthering corruption within the state. Financial

liberalization also increased money laundering opportunities for drug cartels, and capital markets

investment created a ‘narco-sector.’ The volume of legitimate cross-border trade increased

significantly, thereby providing a cover for increased illegitimate trade. Even agricultural reform brought

about the unintended consequences of families resorting to drug crop cultivation as a household

survival strategy. This would in turn increase narco-investment in rural areas of cultivation (p. 137). It is

apparent that there was a significant amount of collateral damage created by governmental policies

designed to increase the overall wealth of the country and the standard of living of the average Mexican

citizen.

There is an average estimate of 210 million illegal drug users throughout the world. This illicit market is

currently valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, a sum which “far exceeds the size of the

legitimate economy” of some countries plagued by drug trafficking (p. 8). With the Drug Trafficking

Organizations having graduated in recent years to Transnational Criminal Organizations, their portfolio

of illicit businesses and practices has grown exponentially. Edgardo Buscaglia, a leading Mexican

academic and advisor to several U.S. government agencies, has identified twenty-two illicit markets in

which these TCOs operate. These same illicit markets could be inadvertently expanded upon if given the

opportunity by the new TPP, much like NAFTA of the 1990s.

If NAFTA did for illicit substance distribution what Michael Jordan did for Nike- perhaps Mexico’s entry

into the Trans-Pacific Partnership would be akin to Nike’s humble beginnings as a small shoe company,



and its evolution over time into a multi-billion dollar brand easily recognized the world over, dominating

not only athletic shoes, but apparel, equipment and their distribution as well. A truly global empire.

An induction of Mexico into the TPP could very well result in an escalation in criminal activities for the

TCOs, already an empire and global enterprise in their own right. After all, the powerful illicit economy

that they enjoy is one of the primary employers in poor communities and is the number two source of

foreign currency behind Mexico’s oil exports (p. 147). A future evolution and growth into other

currently untapped markets around the globe would eclipse our old notion of the term ‘transnational

criminal organization,’ creating new meaning and an even more empowered Mexican criminal network,

the likes of which the world has never seen.

Conclusion

With Mexico’s first excursion into a free trade agreement with the United States, both the Clinton and

Bush administrations ignored, despite the evidence, the developing drug trafficking groups just across

the border. The priority was always the passage of NAFTA and the economic growth of legitimate

markets. Concerns were left off the negotiating table, prompting the Director of the DEA at the time to

call it “a hot potato we were not supposed to touch, no question (p. 2).”

We have since witnessed the numerous side-effects of this short-sightedness: the culmination of an

unprecedented body count, along with the terror, bombings, beheadings, mutilations, torture, mass

graves, and other forms of suffering that have been inflicted upon the Mexican people in recent years.Regarding Mexico’s admittance into the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a call for caution must be issued by

policy makers on both sides of the border, lest history repeat itself.



Aids turn

The TPP would deny the production of AIDS drugsHG 11 - Public Citizen, Health GAP, Global Access Project, Healthgap.org, (―The Trans PacificFree Trade Agreement Deadly Big-Pharma Greed Threatening AIDS Drugs‖, June 16, 2011,http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/9727221/1663267868/name/TPP+Health+Gap+1+Page.pdf)//sawyer

The Trans Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (or TPP for short) is currently beingnegotiated in secret with hundreds of corporate lobbyists ―advising‖ on the largest regional free

trade agreement the U.S. has ever seen. Multinational pharmaceutical companies are

driving an agenda that would deny affordable AIDS drugs to people in Asia and

Latin America. It‘s part of a broader power-grab to shut down production of generic

AIDS medicines globally, and the Obama administration is acting as a pharmapuppet in

support! The biggest drug companies, job-killing corporations, major global banks, and

agribusiness giants want this deal to be another corporate power tool that could eventuallyinclude every Pacific Rim nation from Vietnam and Thailand to Mexico and Russia. Theproposed deal would halt generic production of AIDS drugs plus drive down wages,environmental standards, and Wall Street regulation!

AIDS drugs are key to stop the spreadPettypiece and Langreth 12- Shannon Pettypiece is an American print and broadcast journalist. She currently reports on health care and markets for Bloomberg, RobertLangreth is a reporter for Bloomberg News, (―AIDS Deaths Drop as Global Access toHIV Drugs Expand ―, July 18, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/aids-deaths-drop-as-global-access-to-hiv-drugs-expand.html)//sawyer

Deaths from AIDS continued to decline last year as the number of people onHIV drugs worldwide surged 21 percent from 2010, according to a report thatfound poor and middle income countries spent more on treatment. Deaths dropped 5.6percent to 1.7 million in 2011 from the previous year as 8 million people in developingregions gained access to medicines that fight the infection, according to a reporttodayfrom UNAIDS, the United Nations‘ program to treat and prevent the illness. In Sub-Sahara Africa, where 69 percent of people with HIV live, the number on therapy jumped

to 6.2 million from 100,000 in 2003. ― There is still a huge gap from where we

should be, but the world is doing better ,‖ said Mitchell Warren, executive director of

AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, in a telephone interview. ―The big story isno longer about the science; it is about the money and politics. The two biggestquestions now are where is the mone y coming from and where is it going to go.‖ About 7million people infected with HIV in low income countries still need drugs and don‘t getthem, the report said. Global health experts are now talking about getting millions morepeople on medications based on recent data showing that early treatment can preventtransmission of the AIDS virus. One concern is how to pay for it as the U.S. and someEuropean nations tighten foreign aid.

http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/9727221/1663267868/name/TPP+Health+Gap+1+Page.pdf)/sawyer


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/aids-deaths-drop-as-global-access-to-hiv-drugs-expand.html)/sawyer



http://www.unaids.org/en/

http://topics.bloomberg.com/africa/

http://www.avac.org/ht/d/Staff/pid/340


http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1105243

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1105243



http://topics.bloomberg.com/africa/

http://www.unaids.org/en/







An AIDS pandemic will cause extinctionDUJS 9 –Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, (―Human Extinction: TheUncertainty of Our Fate, May 22, 2009, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate#.UfAaaI3BsYk)//sawyer

A pandemic will kill off all humans. In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed up to one third of theEuropean population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been developed for theplague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging — a processthat maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction. Some surveyed

students mentioned AIDS as a potential pandemic-causing virus . It is true that scientists

have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS , mainly due to HIV‘s rapid andconstant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the virus‘s abnormally high mutationrate: 1. HIV‘s use of reverse transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8). Luckily, though, thereare certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection:HIV can lie dormant in the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself

does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune system. However, formore easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of new strainscould prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (pointmutations that lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) inthe influenza virus could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not

immediately find a cure. Since influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could

potentially lead to a ―global influenza pandemic,‖ according to the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918 when bird flumanaged to kill over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as theSpanish flu pandemic Perhaps even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations wererequired to convert the original viral strain — which could only infect birds — into a human-

viable strain (10).

.

http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate#.UfAaaI3BsYk)//sawyer






ext – tpp causes aids

The TPP would stop the occurrence of an AIDS-free generation through restrictive

trade policiesNaiman 12 - Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy, and writes for the DailyKos and the Huffington Post, (―Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Drone Strikes on People

With AIDS?‖, September 10, 2012, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/10/1130097/-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Agreement-Drone-Strikes-on-People-With-AIDS#)//sawyer

In August 2012, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders noted that the 19thInternational AIDS Conference "illuminated the profound contradiction" between the U.S.government's goal of "an AIDS-free generation" and "some of the U.S.government‘s trade policies." MSF noted the need to make antiretroviral therapy availableto "more than 7 million people still in need of urgent treatment." To achieve this, MSF said,"antiretroviral drugs need to be available at affordable prices." But, MSF said, USTR is

"promoting restrictive trade policies that would make it much harder for patients,governments and treatment providers like MSF to access price-lowering generic

drugs. " Leaked drafts of the TPP agreement, MSF said, "outline U.S. aggressive

intellectual property demands that that could severely restrict access toaffordable, life-saving medicines for millions of people… the U.S. is asking countries tocreate new, enhanced and longer patent and data monopoly protections for multinationalpharmaceutical companies so they can keep competitors out of the market andcharge higher prices for longer."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/10/1130097/-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Agreement-Drone-Strikes-on-People-With-AIDS#)//sawyer



http://blogs.plos.org/speakingofmedicine/2012/08/07/do-no-harm-how-a-us-led-free-trade-agreement-threatens-the-prospects-for-an-aids-free-generation/

http://blogs.plos.org/speakingofmedicine/2012/08/07/do-no-harm-how-a-us-led-free-trade-agreement-threatens-the-prospects-for-an-aids-free-generation/





Environment turn

The TPP will cause allow for corporations to subvert regulations accelerating

environmental collapse – the Asian-Pacific region is keyNash-hoff 13 -Michele Nash-Hoff, Founder and President at ElectroFab Sales (―The Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement Would Harm Our Environment‖, 7/10/13 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-nashhoff/the-transpacific-partners_1_b_3568136.html)//sawyer

Proponents say that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement would be a platformfor economic integration and government deregulation for nations surrounding the Pacific Rimand facilitate free trade to counter China's financial influence in Asia and the Pacific. Thenegotiating parties include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand,Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. Japan also announced its intention to join theagreement last spring. Because the TPP is intended as a "docking agreement," other Pacific Rim

countries could join over time, and the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, and others are alreadyexpressing interest. The TPP is poised to become the largest Free Trade Agreement in the world. According toCitizensTrade.org, "The ongoing, multi-year negotiations over the TPP aresupposed to conclude this year, so the window of opportunity for preventing this free tradeagreement is rapidly closing." Among other reasons about which I have written previously, opponents of the TPP say it would harm our planet's environment, subverting climatechange measures and regulation of mining, land use, and biotechnology . The PacificRim is an area of great significance from an environmental perspective. It includes Australia'sGreat Barrier Reef , the world's largest coral reef system, home to more than 11,000 species.

It includes Peru and its Amazon Rainforest -- one of the most biologically diverse

areas on Earth . In May 2007, citizen-led advocacy groups including the Sierra Club forged a

bipartisan consensus that set the minimum standards for environment, labor and other

provisions to be included in future trade agreements. According to sections of the TPP that

have been leaked, it appears that these minimum standards are being ignored. It is

essential that the environment chapter of the TPP build on the environmental protectionprogress that has been made: "At the minimum, the chapter should be binding and subject tothe same dispute settlement provisions as commercial chapters; ensure that countries upholdand strengthen their domestic environmental laws and policies and their obligations underagreed multilateral environmental agreements; and include biding provisions to address thecore environment and conservation challenges of the Pacific Rim region, such as efforts tocombat illegal trade in wood, wood products, and wildlife and to strengthenfisheries management." If you "Google" TPP and the environment, you come up with morethan 20 pages of articles by one organization after another and one author after another

expressing reasons why the TPP would harm the environment. The opposition to the TPP began as early as 2011 when the first drafts were leaked and intensified in 2012. Theseorganizations include the Sierra Club, Public Citizen group (founded by Ralph Nader), theCitizens Trade Campaign, and Economy in Crisis, among many others. A common thread of thearticles is either a subtle or overt accusation that President Obama has "sold out" to WallStreet/big banks and multinational/transnational corporations. On their website, Union-backed

We Party Patriots states, "...the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being put together in extremesecrecy. This secrecy comes complete with a total lack of mainstream media coverage despiteserious potential long-term effects. Leaked documents show that the TPP will have a chilling

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-nashhoff/the-transpacific-partners_1_b_3568136.html)/sawyer


http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/trade-policies/tpp-potential-trade-policy-problems/

http://savingusmanufacturing.com/blog/2013/02/

http://sierraclub.org/trade/downloads/TPP-LNG%20Factsheet%20FINAL.pdf


http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5411&frcrld=


http://economyincrisis.org/content/the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-will-cause-continued-harm-to-u-s-economy-manufacturing

http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2012/12/03/the-trans-pacific-parterships-international-tribunals-will-take-corporate-personhood-to-the-level-of-corporate-super-humanism/

http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2012/12/03/the-trans-pacific-parterships-international-tribunals-will-take-corporate-personhood-to-the-level-of-corporate-super-humanism/

http://economyincrisis.org/content/the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-will-cause-continued-harm-to-u-s-economy-manufacturing


http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5411&frcrld=



http://savingusmanufacturing.com/blog/2013/02/






effect on the ability of the United States government to take legal action againstmulti-national corporations for their abuses of environmental, agricultural, and laborlaws." The Fair World Project's website states that in late 2012, "a group of labor leaders, trade

justice advocates, family farmers, environmentalists, food sovereignty groups and others fromthe U.S., Canada and Mexico created a 'North American Unity Statement Opposing NAFTAExpansion through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),' with the goal of uniting 1,000

organizations in opposition to the TPP." On March 7, 2013, Friends of the Earth announced thatit had released a new video, "Peril in the Pacific: Trans Pacific trade agreement threatens peopleand the planet." The video illustrates these threats by telling the story of "Chevron v. Ecuador" international investment suit brought under an existing U.S. treaty. The video raises questionslike: "Who should pay to clean up what has been called the "Rainforest Chernobyl" in theEcuadorian Amazon? Why are the people of the rainforest who suffered the most notrepresented at the international tribunal hearing the case? Is it U.S. policy to favor thefinancial interests of multi-national corporations over people and theenvironment in such disputes?" The video also asks why the negotiating framework for theTPP favors Wall Street and multinational corporations at the expense of current U. S.environmental and climate policy and why does it allow multinational corporations to challengelaws that protect our air, land and water. Because the Asia-Pacific region accounts for

about one third of all the threatened species in the world, Friends of the Earth isconcerned that the TPP trade agreement potentially checkmates many of our

country's past environmental victories and would block new initiatives. The

natural environment and rich biodiversity of the Pacific Rim are threatened by

illegal and/or unsustainable commercial exploitation of the ocean, natural

resources, and forests. Friends of the Earth recommends that the TPP negotiators must

address the following issues to avoid the most serious environmental harms by: Including anenvironment chapter that would obligate countries to enforce domestic environmentalprotections and abide by global environmental agreements that are enforceable throughinternational lawsuits. Rejecting the proposed TPP investment chapter that wouldauthorize foreign investors to bypass domestic courts and bring suit before special international

tribunals biased in favor of multinationals to seek awards of unlimited monetarydamages in compensation for the cost of complying with environmental and otherpublic interest regulations. Rejecting "provisions of the TPP intellectual property chapterthat would provide international legal protections for corporate patents on plant and animal life,

granting companies ownership and sole access to these building blocks of life."

Rejecting the regulatory coherence chapter that could hamstring environmental regulation and"encourage cost-benefit analysis that exaggerates financial costs and minimizes the intrinsic

value of protecting living things, wild places, and the stability of the ecosystem." Friends of theEarth urges that the TPP "must serve to strengthen environmental protection andsupport the biodiversity in the Pacific Rim and not facilitate a race to the bottom inenvironmental deregulation." What surprises me is that all of the above organizationssupported President Obama in his bid for reelection last year despite the fact that he had gone

back on his pledge "to oppose Bush-style free trade agreements that lead to thousands of lost American jobs" and his word to "not support NAFTA-type trade agreements" in his 2008campaign. Now that he is elected for his second and last term, what incentive does he haveto listen to the opinions of these organizations that oppose the Trans-PacificPartnership agreement? None! A few conservative news outlets such as WorldNet Daily

began to recognize the dangers of the TPP early this year, beginning with the article, "Obamaskirting Congress in globalist plan?" in which Jerome Corsi warn that "the administrationapparently plans to restrict congressional prerogatives to an up-or-down vote" utilizing the"fast-track authority," a provision under the Trade Promotion Authority that requires Congress

http://fairworldproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/FWP_Spring_publication_2013_page12.pdf

http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2013-03-new-video-peril-in-the-pacific

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/09/120109fa_fact_keefe?currentPage=all

http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2012-02-the-rainforest-chernobyl--will-us-investment-treaty

http://www.populistpac.com/petition

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/08/obama-trade-deals

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/obama-skirting-congress-in-globalist-plan/


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/08/obama-trade-deals

http://www.populistpac.com/petition

http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2012-02-the-rainforest-chernobyl--will-us-investment-treaty

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/09/120109fa_fact_keefe?currentPage=all

http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2013-03-new-video-peril-in-the-pacific

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to review a FTA under limited debate, in an accelerated time frame subject to a yes-or-no vote.Under fast-track authority, there is no provision for Congress to modify the agreement bysubmitting amendments to ensure foreign partners that the FTA, once signed, will not bechanged during the legislative process. In a more recent article, "Obama's 2-ocean globalistplan," Jerome Corsi writes, "Quietly, the Obama administration is systematically putting intoplace a two-ocean globalist plan that will dwarf all prior trade agreements, including NAFTA,

with the goal of establishing the global sovereignty envisioned by New World Order enthusiasts.The two agreements are the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, and the Transatlantic Trade andInvestment Partnership, or TIPP. WND has learned the Obama administration plans to

jam the TPP through Congress no later than Dec. 31." We certainly cannot expect toinfluence the President to oppose the TPP near the end of three-years of negotiations that tookplace under his direction. With the virtual black out of coverage about the TPP in themainstream media, the best we can do is make our opinions heard loud and clear to ourSenators and Congressional representatives and urge our family, friends, and members of ourpersonal and business network to do the same. We must urge our elected representatives to voteagainst granting President Obama "fast track authority" under the Trade Promotion Authority.There is no time to waste. Contact your congressional representative and tell them we cannotafford another damaging "free trade" agreement that would destroy our national sovereignty,

hurt American manufacturers, and harm our environment. Tell them to vote "no" to grantingthe President "fast track authority."

Biodiversity collapse will lead to an invisible threshold of destructionDiner, 94 [David, Ph.D., Planetary Science and Geology, "The Army and the EndangeredSpecies Act: Who's Endangering Whom?," Military Law Review, 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161]

To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew 74 couldsave [hu]mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to[hu]man[s]in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because

their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively . In a closelyinterconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. 75Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remainingspecies increases dramatically. 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of speciespreservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. 77 As the current mass extinction hasprogressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs withinecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number ofindividuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverseecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecologicalniches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The morecomplex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which eachknot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than asimple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 Bycausing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As

biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desertin Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild

examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new

animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects,

could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction





increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from anaircraft's wings, 80 [hu]mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.



at – link turn

Even if the TPP includes environmental regulations they will fail

Vincent 13 – David Vincent University of San Diego School of Law, 2012; B.A., University ofCalifornia, San Diego, 2009, (―THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: ENVIRONMENTALSAVIOR OR CORPORATE C ARTE BLANCHE?‖, July 3, 2013,http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290333)//sawyer

The problem with these environmental efforts is that international law of any kind is inherently

weak due to the sovereignty each country possesses. International environmental law is

especially hard to implement and enforce because of the lack of incentives.

Environmental law runs into the tragedy of the commons dilemma, wherecountries acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest,

will pollute and deplete the environment despite knowing that doing so is contraryto their long-term best interests. Yet, even if this dilemma is attempted to be avoided

through treaties or other agreements, free-riding becomes an issue as well when countries whodecide not to join environmental agreements still reap the benefits of those agreements without

paying the costs. Therefore, any environmental provisions that are agreed upon are

likely to be inadequate to addressing the environmental issue. Furthermore,

enforcement of these laws is another enormous problem. The competing capitalist nature ofnations encourages the limited enforcement of any type of international law that wouldnegatively affect GDP. As environmental law poses a direct threat to the short terms gains ofcountries, many nations are unwilling to enforce international environment law absent anyincentives or enforcement measures. If a country fails to adhere to environmental law, theremust be consequences. Yet, if the consequences are too harsh, then countries will not engage inenvironmental agreements at all. For example, the Kyoto Protocol, which was organized to

create binding obligations on the industrialized countries to reduce their GHG emissions, wassigned but never ratified by the United States, and was withdrawn from by Canada.179 There were certain provisions in the Protocol with which the United States Congress disagreed and to which they declined to adhere.180 This is not the first time the United States has signed butfailed to ratify a treaty; the United States has made habit of signing but not ratifying treaties.181Scholars believe there are currently 10 treaties the United States has signed but not ratified that

would improve global environmental protection.182 With all the factors working against strongand effective environmental agreements, any opportunity for countries to enact effectiveenvironmental laws should be taken, which is why it is imperative that the TPP contain strongenvironmental provisions.

Environmental regulations will never be a part of the TPP Vincent 13 – David Vincent University of San Diego School of Law, 2012; B.A., University ofCalifornia, San Diego, 2009, (―THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: ENVIRONMENTALSAVIOR OR CORPORATE CARTE BLANCHE?‖, July 3, 2013,http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290333)//sawyer

Despite the poor environmental record of the United States on prior free tradeagreements, there have been some indications that the TPP will include strong provisionsregarding environmental protection. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Barack

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Obama‘s party pledged to ―not negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the governmentfrom protecting the environment.‖126 The United States Trade Representative (USTR )spokesperson Nkenge Harmon has said that ―[The Obama] administration is committed toensuring strong environmental…laws. Nothing in our TPP investment proposal could impair ourgovernment's ability to pursue legitimate, non-discriminatory public interest regulation,including measures to protect…the environment.‖127 In August 2010, USTR officials announced

that all TPP participants, despite differences in levels of development, would be required to meetthe same labor and environmental conditions,128 and USTR official Mark Linscott has statedthat an ―environment chapter in the TPP should strengthen country commitments to enforcetheir environmental laws and regulations, including in areas related to ocean and fisheriesgovernance, through the effective enforcement obligation subject to dispute settlement.‖129There is, however, cause for concern that the TPP will not adequately protectenvironmental interests. It is not an easy task getting eleven or more countries to agree onany type of international law , but environmental provisions are an especially difficulttopic. Accordingly, the environment chapter has emerged as one of the most challenging areasof the negotiations.134 Developing nations are the most concerned with includingenvironmental provisions, as they would be at disadvantage if they must adhere to the same

standards as developed nations.135 Enforcement is also a large issue as several parties

do not want to make environmental obligations binding under the TPP dispute

settlement mechanism as the United States has proposed .136 Even though New

Zealand has proposed including climate change provisions in the TPP, its support has beenlimited to a non-binding affirmation of the benefit of pricing carbon.137 It remains uncertainhow hard the United States will push for strict environmental provisions when it may havehigher priorities regarding the TPP. Chinese scholars believe that the successfulimplementation of the TPP will have a negative impact on China.138 This has led for manypeople to speculate, including members of the press in China, that the United States is using theTPP to marginalize China‘s influence in Asia.139 President Obama himself said during the 2012presidential debates that "we're organizing trade relations with countries other than China sothat China starts feeling more pressure about meeting basic international standards.‖140

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has indicated that China has an open invitation to join TPPtalks,141 although China would likely not have much influence over the terms of the TPP. Withthe current concerns over China‘s growing economic influence, the United States may be usingthe TPP to force China either to ―meet basic international standards‖ or else risk substantial trade losses to countries in their own region. If this truly is the main priority of the TPP fromthe American perspective, environmental provisions could be left on the chopping

block if they become too controversial. China‘s undervalued currency is a mountingforeign policy concern that may take precedence over environmental goals.142

The TPP will not include environmental provisions Vincent 13 – David Vincent University of San Diego School of Law, 2012; B.A., University of

California, San Diego, 2009, (―THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: ENVIRONMENTALSAVIOR OR CORPORATE CARTE BLANCHE?‖, July 3, 2013,http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290333)//sawyer

Unfortunately for the environment and our future, strong environmentalprovisions that include real enforcement measures are not likely to be included in

the TPP. The TPP is a very expansive document and so environmental concerns are not

a high priority for many of the countries that want to focus on strengthening the





economy . The United States and other countries‘ main priority may be to marginalize China‘s

influence in the area, and therefore they would be willing to exclude strong

environmental provisions in order to reach an agreement. Additionally, the sheer

number of countries involved makes detailed environmental provisions and standards hard tomanage, and the public has had little say or influence over the document due to its secrecy in

negotiations. The likelihood of substantial new environmental provisions making their way intothe TPP is not great. Most of the proposed additions to the TPP in this comment are not beingconsidered in negotiations, and represent significant changes to past free trade agreements. Ifthere was more public awareness regarding the TPP, perhaps proposed provisions such as thesecould gain more traction, but as it stands the TPP has not received the level of press that should

be associated with such an important document. As a result, while the Trans-PacificPartnership does not pose a large threat to the environment, it is unlikely to be theenvironmental savior that is severely needed. Therefore, we must hope for the sake of presentand future generations that world leaders implement impactful environmental law

before it is too late.

Regulations on the environment will fail – no enforcementLevitt 13 – Tom Levitt is a writer for CNN, (―Overfished and under-protected: Oceans on the

brink of catastrophic collapse‖, March 27, 2013,http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/oceans-overfishing-climate-change)//sawyer

There's a real lack of public and political awareness of these issues," says Alex Rogers, professorof conservation biology at the UK's Oxford University. "They're too big to understand ineconomic terms. We can put a value on the loss of fishing, but how can we put a value on oxygen

production or the absorption of carbon dioxide?" he says. The problem is that most of the

world's ocean is located outside of international law and legal control. Any attempts

to implement rules and regulation come with the problem of enforcement , says

Rogers, who is also scientific director of the International Program on State of the Ocean (IPSO).

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/oceans-overfishing-climate-change)/sawyer

http://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/view/rogers_ad.htm

http://www.stateoftheocean.org/

http://www.stateoftheocean.org/

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ext – tpp hurts the environment

The TPP will destroy the environment – trading routes and illegal logging Vincent 13 – David Vincent University of San Diego School of Law, 2012; B.A., University ofCalifornia, San Diego, 2009, (―THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: ENVIRONMENTALSAVIOR OR CORPORATE CARTE BLANCHE?‖, July 3, 2013,http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290333)//sawyer

Wildlife conservation and illegal logging are additional environmental concerns that could be

address through the TPP as member countries contain primary trading routes for some of

the world‘s greatest concentrations of biological diversity in animal and plant

species .168 Illegal trade in wildlife endangers species and destroys wildlife, and

can cause the spread of disease as well as the undesirable effects of organized

crime. 169 Worldwide, illegal trade in wildlife generates anywhere from $10 to 20 billion

annually, and is especially prevalent in TPP members countries such as Peru, Chile, andthose in Southeast Asia.170 Illegal logging is a problem in TPP countries as well and occurs

when protected logging areas or endangered species of trees, logging without the necessarypermits, and logging in protected areas.171 Illegal loggings contribute to forest degradation andaccounts for 5% to 10% of global timber production, with annual losses estimated at roughly$10 billion.172 The United States is one of the world‘s largest timber product consumers andtop importers of tropical hardwoods, of which a significant portion is illegally logged.173 Peruis one of those sources of illegally logged timber, while Malaysia and Vietnam engage insmuggling and laundering of illegal logged timber and timber products.174

The TPP will cause a race to the bottom in environmental deregulations

SC 12 Sierra Club‘s Labor and Trade Campaign, (―A True 21st Century Trade Agreement:Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership the Way to Go?‖, 2012,https://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1987/images/Sierra-club-fact-sheet-A-True-21st-Century-Trade-Agreement.pdf)//sawyer

A True 21st Century Trade Agreement: Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership the Way to Go? TheTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement is an expansive Free-Trade Agreement beingnegotiated between countries in the Pacific Rim, including Australia, Brunei Darusslam, Chile,Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. Other countries,including Japan, Canada, and Mexico, may soon be joining the negotiations. Eventually, everyPacific Rim nation may be included. The Pacific Rim is an area of great significance from an

environmental perspective. It includes Australia‘s Great Barrier Reef , the world's largest

coral reef system, home to more than 11,000 species. It includes Peru and its Amazon

Rainforest —one of the most biologically diverse areas on Earth, with thousands of species of

birds, plants, mammals, and fish. The Rainforest is also home to Indigenous Peoples who live

with, live in, and rely upon the forest. In or around each of the TPP countries live critically

endangered species , such as the Javan Rhinoceros in Vietnam, the Sumatran Orangutan in

Malaysia, or the roaming Great White Shark. Tragically, the natural environment and

biodiversity in the TPP countries are threatened by, among other things, illegal


https://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1987/images/Sierra-club-fact-sheet-A-True-21st-Century-Trade-Agreement.pdf)/sawyer







and/or unsustainable commercial exploitation . The TPP must serve to strengthen

environmental protection and support the biodiversity in the Pacific Rim and not facilitate a

race to the bottom in environmental deregulation . Cloaked in Secrecy The TPP is the

first free trade agreement negotiated by President Obama. The proposed agreement touches ona broad range of issues having to do with the environment, workers and jobs, agriculture,

health, and access to medicines, and more. While the agreement is being touted by governmentofficials as a 21st Century Trade Agreement, it is hard to know exactly what this means or even

what is being negotiated because the talks are taking place in complete secrecy. TPP texts, orchapters, have been developed behind closed doors with very little public consultation. None ofthe texts have been made public. Moreover, the only people, apart from TPP governmentofficials, with access to texts are more than 600 business representatives who serve as officialUS trade advisors.

The TPP will devastate the environment including degradation of the Great Barrier

reef and the Amazon RainforestSC 12 -Sierra Club‘s Labor and Trade Campaign, (―The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement:

What it could mean for the Environment‖, 2012, http://sierraclub.org/trade/downloads/TPP-LNG%20Factsheet%20FINAL.pdf)//sawyer

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is an expansive trade agreement beingnegotiated between countries in the Pacific Rim, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile,Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. Japan hasalso announced its intention to join the agreement. Because the TPP is intended as a ―dockingagreement,‖ other Pacific Rim countries can join over time. The Pacific Rim is an area of

great significance from an environmental perspective. It includes Australia‘s

Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef system , home to more than

11,000 species. It includes Peru and its Amazon Rainforest—one of the most

biologically diverse areas on Earth. But the natural environment and rich

biodiversity of the Pacific Rim are threatened by, among other things, illegal

and/or unsustainable commercial exploitation. The Asia-Pacific region accounts for

about one third of all the threatened species in the world. The numbers of several speciesof oceanic sharks, including reef sharks, are declined rapidly. And illegal loggingpersists in a number of TPP countries, threatening not only natural forests, but thecommunities who live in and rely upon the forests. The TPP must serve to strengthenenvironmental protection and support the biodiversity in the Pacific Rim and not f acilitate arace to the bottom in environmental deregulation. Cloaked in Secrecy The proposedTPP touches on a broad range of issues—the environment, workers and jobs, agriculture, health,access to medicines, and more. Government officials tout the agreement as a ―21st Century

Trade Agreement,‖ but it is hard to know what this means or what they are negotiating becausethe talks are held in near complete secrecy. Negotiators are developing TPP texts, or chapters,

behind closed doors with very little public input. None of the texts are public (though a few haveleaked). Moreover, nearly the only people, apart from TPP government officials, with access totexts are more than 600 business representatives who serve as official US trade advisors. Evenmembers of Congress are left in the dark on the actual contents of the TPP. The TPP and theEnvironment Environmental chapters in our trade deals have a history of lacking meaningfulenforcement. But they've been strengthened over the years, largely thanks to citizen-ledadvocacy by groups including the Sierra Club. This pressure led to the forging of a bipartisan

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consensus in May 2007 that set the minimum standards for environment, labor and otherprovisions in our trade agreements. It is essential that the environment chapter of the TPP buildon this progress. At the minimum, the chapter should be binding and subject to the samedispute settlement provisions as commercial chapters; ensure that countries uphold andstrengthen their domestic environmental laws and policies and their obligations under agreedmultilateral environmental agreements; and include biding provisions to address the

core environment and conservation

The aff allows for environmental degradation – Mexico is pulling out the TPP in the

status quo only the aff reinvigorates environmental destructionSimmons 12 -Alisa Simmons: National Field Director for citizen.org, (―TPP‘s Investment RulesHarm the Environment‖, 2012, http://www.citizen.org/documents/TPP-and-the-environment.pdf)//sawyer

Trade officials from twelve Pacific Rim nations— Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan,Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam— are inintensive, closed-door negotiations to sign a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade

Agreement (FTA) in 2013. Every Pacific Rim nation from China to Russia could eventually beincluded. There are draft texts for many of this pact‘s 29 chapters, most of which have nothingto do with trade, but rather impose limits on domestic food safety, health,environmental, and other policies. The governments won‘t release the texts to the public.But about 600 U.S. corporate ―trade advisors‖ have full access. America‘s worst job-offshoringcorporations, global banks, agribusiness, and pharmaceutical giants want this deal to beanother corporate power tool like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Consumer, labor, environmental, and other public interest advocates want a transparentprocess and a ―Fair Deal or No Deal.‖ A major goal of U.S. multinational corporations for theTPP is to impose on more countries a set of extreme foreign investor privileges and rights andtheir private enforcement through the notorious ―investor-state‖ system. This system allowsforeign corporations to challenge before international tribunals national

environmental, land use, health and other laws and regulations that apply todomestic and foreign firms alike. Outrageously, this regime elevates individualcorporations and investors to equal standing with each TPP signatory country‘s government – and above all of us citizens. This regime empowers corporations to skirt national courts and sueour governments before tribunals of private sector lawyers operating under UN and World Bankrules to demand taxpayer compensation for domestic regulatory policies that investors believediminish their ―expected future profits.‖ Many of these regulatory policies are designed forenvironmental protection. For example, in 2012, the U.S. Lone Pine company launched a $250million NAFTA investor-state case against a Canadian ban on fracking. If a corporation ―wins,‖the taxpayers of the ―losing‖ country must foot the bill. Over $380 million in compensation hasalready been paid out to corporations in a series of investor-state cases under NAFTA-style dealsalone. This includes attacks on natural resource policies, toxics bans, zoning and permits,

health and safety measures, and more. In fact, of the nearly $14 billion in the 18 claims nowpending under NAFTA-style deals, all relate to environmental, public health and transportationpolicy – not traditional trade issues. Governments have paid out over $3 billion to investors ininvestor-state disputes under U.S. FTAs and bilateral investment treaties (BITs) – over 85percent of this related to oil, mining, gas, and other environmental and natural resourcedisputes. A review of just some of the outrageous anti-environment cases broughtunder this system highlights the extreme peril of these radical investor privileges, and their investor-state private enforcement, being included in the TPP: Renco Group Inc., acompany owned by one of the richest men in America, invested in a metal smelter in La Oroya,

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Peru. The site has been designated as in the top 10 most polluted in the world. The firm has been sued in U.S. court on behalf of severely lead-poisoned children in La Oroya. Sulfur dioxideconcentrations at La Oroya greatly exceed international standards, with sulfur dioxide levelsdoubled in the years after Renco‘s acquisition of the complex. Renco‘s Peruvian subsidiarypromised to install sulfur plants by 2007 as part of an environmental remediation program.

Although it was out of compliance with its contractual obligations, the company sought (and

Peru granted) two extraordinary extensions to complete the project. In December 2010, Rencosent Peru a Notice of Intent that it was launching a U.S.-Peru FTA investor-state attack, allegingthat Peru‘s failure to grant a third extension of the remediation obligations constituted a

violation of the firm‘s FTA foreign investor rights. The company is demanding $800 million incompensation from Peruvian taxpayers. The Renco case illustrates two deeply worryingimplications of investor-state arbitration. Even the mere threat of a case can put pressure ongovernments to weaken environment and health policies. Recent developments suggest that thethreat of this case was highly effective. While full environmental compliance has yet to be seen,the government has allowed the smelter to restart zinc and lead operations. That would be badenough, but Renco is also attempting to evade justice in U.S. domestic courts through theinvestor-state mechanism. Renco has now successfully argued that the U.S. lawsuit filed on

behalf of La Oroya‘s children must be removed from a U.S. state court, where it had a decent

chance of success. Renco tried to derail the case this way three times before without success. Butafter filing the investorstate case, the firm claimed that the matter now involved an internationaltreaty and thus was outside the state court‘s remit. In January 2011, the same federal judge whorejected the past attempts determined that the existence of the investor-state case made this afederal issue and allowed Renco to terminate the state court case. An unprecedented ruling inthe 18-year struggle of Ecuadorean indigenous people to force Chevron to clean up horrifictoxic contamination in a swath of the Amazon the size of Rhode Island provides a chillingglimpse of how corporations can use international investor tribunals in ―trade‖ agreements toevade justice. After 18 years of losing in U.S. and Ecuadorean courts and endless delay tactics,Chevron was ordered by an Ecuadorean court to pay $18 billion for cleanup and punitivedamages. An appellate court affirmed the decision in January 2012. Chevron turned to an adhoc ―investor-state‖ tribunal under the U.S.- Ecuador BIT as the last chance to evade justice. In

February, that tribunal ordered Ecuador‘s government to interfere with the country‘sindependent court system to halt enforcement of the ruling, even though it had not evendetermined that it has jurisdiction over the case. The case stems from damage caused to 30,000indigenous people in the Amazon by Texaco, which operated in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992 and

was purchased by Chevron in 2001. During this time, the company admits that it dumped morethan 16 billion gallons of toxic water into streams and rivers used by local inhabitants fordrinking water. The trial included dozens of technical reports containing evidence of open pitsof toxic waste and severe health problems among residents. An Ecuadorean court rejected thetribunal‘s order. However, the ad hoc panel may still prevent the clean-up from starting, as itsruling may be recognized by other countries whose cooperation is needed to collect the $18

billion from Chevron, which has no assets in Ecuador now. Pacific Rim Mining Corp. (aCanadian-based multinational firm also known as Pac Rim) made plans to expand into ElSalvador in the 2000s, as the price of gold was climbing. Pac Rim‘s plan is for an undergroundmine and the use of a process employing large amounts of water and cyanide to extractgold from the ore it excavated. For decades, there had been no large scale gold mining in ElSalvador, a densely populated country with limited clean water supplies. In a country onlyrecently recovered from civil war, opposition to cyanide-leach gold mining united thepopulation. Right and left party presidents pledged to review mining policy, citing the negativehealth impacts and threats to scarce water resources. Meanwhile, Pac Rim never completed

various studies required to apply for the license to operate the mine, and halted its operations.However, it also reincorporated in the U.S., and months later launched an attack on El



Salvador‘s mining policies under the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Thefirm is demanding $200 million in compensation from the Salvadoran people, whose averageannual income is $7,200. In 2012, the investor-state tribunal determined on very narrowgrounds that the case was outside CAFTA‘s jurisdiction. Though Pac Rim is a Canadian firm,according to the tribunal, the company could have used CAFTA by merely filing properownership papers for its U.S. subsidiary. As the case now proceeds at World Bank-based

hearings, El Salvador‘s mining policy remains unresolved and violence has killed four anti-mining activists.In a similar NAFTA case, Mexico was ordered to pay the U.S. MetalcladCorporation $15.6 million after a Mexican municipality refused to grant the firm a constructionpermit for a toxic waste facility unless it cleaned up existing toxic waste problems. The facilityhad been closed when it was owned by a Mexican firm, from which Metalclad acquired thefacility in a transaction that specifically noted the clean up condition for obtaining a permit. TheNAFTA tribunal ruled that Mexico violated NAFTA‘s ―minimum standard oftreatment‖ guaranteed foreign investors, because the firm was not granted a―clear and predictable‖ regulatory environment. It also ruled that a provincialecological decree amounted to an indirect expropriation, or what is sometimes called aregulatory taking. There are even outrageous investor-state cases between TPP negotiatingparties, including recent attacks by U.S. investors on Vietnam‘s land use policies and on Peru‘s

oil, gas, and mining policies. But such challenges are not all brought by developed countryinvestors. In 1996, after a four-day visit to the country and minimal due diligence, MTD (a set ofMalaysian investors) decided to build a whole new planned community outside of Santiago,Chile. But to do this, they needed to get authorization from both Chile‘s foreign investmentauthorities and its environmental zoning authorities. As is common in many countries, foreigninvestment authorities are tasked with considering the impact of foreign inflows on a country‘s

balance of payments. But all developers – national and foreign – have to comply with zoningrules, which are administered by authorities with a whole different set of objectives andexpertise. Although MTD passed the first hurdle in April 1997, Chile‘s zoning authoritiespromptly started sounding concerns about the ecological impact of the development. In 2004,an investor-state tribunal ordered Chile to pay nearly $6 million to MTD, even though thetribunal noted that the investors themselves had not conducted due diligence. To reach this

conclusion, the tribunal used the most favored nation provisions of a Malaysia-Chileinvestment treaty to import a so -called ―fair and equitable treatment‖ provision from a Croatia-Chile bilateral investment treaty, and said that this provision requires government to act ―as amonolith.‖ This type of uniformity in policymaking is not remotely possible for TPP nations,many of which have multiple agencies of government at the national, state and local levels.There are serious questions as to whether this type of uniformity is even desirable, sincedifferent agencies may have different objectives to fulfill. The anti-environment cases don‘t endthere. dian ban ofPCB exports that complied with a multilateral environmental treaty on toxic-waste trade. Aninvestor-company challenged Canada‘s implementation of the 1996 U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber

Agreement. The tribunal dismissed the company‘s claims of expropriation and discrimination, but held that the rude behavior of the Canadian government officials seeking to verify the firm‘scompliance with the lumber agreement constituted a violation of the ―minimum standard oftreatment‖ required by NAFTA for foreign investors. The panel also stated that a foreign firm‘s―market access‖ in another country could be considered a NAFTA -U.S. chemical company called Ethyl Corporation challenged a Canadian environmental ban ofthe gasoline additive MMT under NAFTA‘s investor-state provisions. Although the panel madeno ruling on the merits, the Canadian government revoked the ban and settled for $13 million

governments risk great expense. Methanex, a Canadian corporation, produced methanol, a



component chemical of the gasoline additive MTBE. The company challenged California‘sphase-out of the additive, which was contaminating drinking water sources around the state.The company lost on the merits, and was even ordered to pay the federal government‘s legalexpenses. But the State of California had also expended significant sums on the case, and itremains to be seen if the state‘s attorneys will be compensated for their time. The investor-statesystem is so extreme that it is losing whatever small political support it ever had. Australia has

said it will not include investor-state in its trade deals. South Africa and India are among thecountries now conducting critical reviews of the regime. Brazil has always refused it. Latin

American countries are pulling out of various arbitration agreements that

provide venues for these private corporate attacks. President Obama even campaigned

against this system! But career bureaucrats and big business want to stay the course byexpanding the extreme system through the TPP, no matter the cost.



ext – invasive species

Increased trade with the trans-pacific will cause an influx in invasive species killing

biodiversity and the economyCallaway et al 6 – Ragan M. Callaway University of Montana, Missoula, MT Shi Li Miao SouthFlorida Water Management District Qinfeng Guo U.S. Geological Survey, (―Are trans-Pacificinvasions the new wave?‖, 1-1-2006,http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=usgsnpwrc)//sawyer

The movement of organisms among continents by humans has caused profound changes in theecology of relocated species and of communities to which they have been introduced. Perhapsless than 1% of all species that arrive at foreign shores become invaders (Williamson and Fitter1996), but the few that explode in abundance wreak tremendous environmentaland economic damage (Mack et al. 2000; Pimentel et al. 2000; Xu et al. 2006). During the

last decade research on invasive species has dramatically increased. For example, from 1988 to1990 the journal Ecology published three papers with the words ‗invasive‘ or ‗invader‘ in theirtitle or abstract that related to exotics. From 1998 to 2000 this number increased to 14.However, the focus of the increasing volume of research on exotic invaders has been primarilyon the exchange of species between North America and Europe. Of the 14 papers on exoticinvasions published in Ecology from 1998 to 2000, seven involved Europe–North Americainvasions and all primary empirical research focused on at least one species from Europe orNorth America. Two focused on a species moving to or from Asia and North America. The focuson North America and Europe may be driven by the unusually high numbers of organismsmoved between these regions in the last few centuries (or to the unusually high numbers ofecologists), but regardless of why the historic focus has been on North America and Europe,future research on invasive species may shift to include those coming from andgoing to eastern Asia (Normile 2004). As pointed out by Jenkins and Mooney (2006), trade

between the United States and China has mushroomed from $200 million in 1978 to over $6

billion in 2002. This increase in trade is highly likely to increase accidental

invasions of organisms between North America and eastern Asia, a problem that

will be di cult to solve . However, many invasive plant species appear to have been

introduced intentionally for horticulture, agriculture, or forestry; and these invasions can be

prevented by a farsighted and proactive policy. Increased trade is not the only reason for

concern about new trans-Pacific invasions . The probability that the introduction of

organisms will result in new invasions is exacerbated because eastern Asia and North Americaalso have similar latitudes and climates and therefore share many biomes and taxa (Guo 2002).

Because rapidly growing trade between East Asia and North America also

increases the probability of new trans-Pacific invasion s, it is imperative to accelerate

research designed to predict which species will invade and which ecosystems are vulnerable, tounderstand the mechanisms by which species transform into overwhelming competitivedominants, and to develop policy for preventing invasions and economic risk analysis forinvasive species. This growing threat of exchanging invaders between eastern Asia and North

America was addressed at the 2004 Beijing International Symposium on Biological Invasionstitled ‗Species Exchanges Between Eastern Asia and North America: Threats to Environmentand Economy ‘. About 100 scientists from academia, governmental agencies, and other

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organizations from both regions focused on the current status of species exchange of trans-Pacific invasions (Liu et al. 2006; Xu et al. 2006; Kohli et al. 2006), predicting and preventinginvasions (Erhenfeld 2006; Williamson 2006; Wu et al. 2006), eliminating invaders,understanding invasions (Alpert 2006; Guo 2006; Kitijami et al. 2006; Liu and Stiling 2006;

Wang et al. 2006), and developing policy recommendations (Jenkins and Mooney, 2006) andmanagement approaches (Gu 2006). This special feature was motivated, in part, by the outcome

of the symposium. Although only a start, this special feature provides an initial model forinternational collaborations, information sharing (Simpson et al. 2006), and bilateral eff orts tostem the increase in exotic invasions. There were 283 invasive alien species in China includingmicroorganisms, plants, invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and mammals (Xu et al.2006). Over 50% of these invasive species originated from North America (e.g., commonragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia and annual fleabane, Erigeron annuus). The total economiclosses caused by invasive alien species to China were $14.45 billion in 2000, with direct andindirect economic losses accounting for 17 and 83% of total economic losses, respectively. Yet,much more (ca. 800) plant species introduced from eastern Asia to North America haveestablished, including the most notable invasives such as Chinese tallow (Sapium sebiferum),kudzu (Pueraria lobata), saltcedar (Tamarix chinensis), and two large carp species(Hypophthalmichthys molitrix and nobilis) that leap out of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers

and injure boaters (Normile 2004). Predicting future invasions has proved to be exceptionallydifficult (Williamson 2006), but without some level of predictive ability, developing soundpolicy for restricting entry of particular species may be elusive. Classifying invaders bytaxonomic relationships or by shared suite of traits has been helpful, but there are manyexceptions to the rule, so many exceptions that prediction is quite inaccurate (Mack et al. 2000).In this feature, Williamson argues that looking for universal attributes and causes of invasions isnot profitable, because invasions can go through a series of stages and the important factors areoften diff erent at each. When a cause has been found for a particular part of a set of invasions, itis important to distinguish between explanation (relatively easy) and prediction (much harder).Erhenfeld (2006) proposes that screening for novel plant secondary chemistry may be a usefulpredictive tool and collaborations among new groups of scientists may help us to predict newinvasives. Preventing invasions ultimately will be determined by policy makers. As

argued by Mooney and Jenkins in this feature we are much better at determining whether aspecies proposed for import will invade. They suggest the adoption of a ‗clean list‘ policy in which only approved species can be allowed to enter. As trade and transportation of speciesincreases among the countries of North America and eastern Asia, we may have the opportunityto develop preemptive policy based on collaborative science between the regions rather than theretroactive responses once invasives have already established and spread. Eliminating invadersmay prove to be the most difficult, and in most cases perhaps, impossible task of all. Theapparent permanence of many invasive species emphasizes the crucial necessity of goodimportation policies. Furthermore, rapid collaborative responses toward eradication of invadersmust occur if we are to eliminate invaders before they become thoroughly naturalized. Again,explicit collaborative eff orts among scientists in diff erent continents, such as modeled in thisfeature, may allow much more rapid responses than in the past. Scientific responses mayincluded the rapid development of herbicides, identification of host-specific and eff ective

biological control agents (Ding et al. 2006), or simply a level of awareness promotingelimination of small populations before they spread. Despite the fact that exotic invasions canresult in astounding ecological changes, we do not know why they occur. The oldest and most

widely accepted hypothesis is that invaders have escaped consumers, predators, herbivores, orpathogens that control them in their native habitat. But clear evidence for such escape from suchpowerful top–down regulation is scarce and invasions appear to have other causes such asresponse to human disturbance, occupation of empty niches, or the possession of novel

biochemical weapons (Hierro et al. 2005; Kohli 2006). Relative to North America, the



ecological and economic impact of exotics in eastern Asia is lower but on the rise (Li and Wilcove 2005). One of the reasons for the Beijing symposium is that, although studieson invasives in China are relatively recent, some good progresses have been made. Therefore itis now feasible to make some meaningful comparisons in both research and invasivesmanagement between North America and eastern Asia. We hope that future collaborationsamong scientists in eastern Asia and North America, such as initiated in this special feature, will

shed light on the nature of exotic invasions

Invasive species will collapse biodiversity and cause extinctionSimberloff 2k – Ecologist Daniel Simberloff, Ph.D., is the Nancy Gore Hunger professor ofenvironmental studies at the University of Tennessee. His interests include the ecology andevolution of introduced species, conservation biology, and the composition of bioticcommunities. He is a member of the U.S. Invasive Species Advisory Committee, (―IntroducedSpecies: The Threat to Biodiversity & What Can Be Done‖, December 2000,http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/simberloff.html)//sawye r

There are many ways in which the introduction of non-native or exotic species

negatively affects our environment and the diversity of life on our planet . Thestatistics are startling and more attention must be paid to the problem and devising a solution

before the cost is more than we can bear. Invasive species cause more damage than

some pollutant s. Almost half of the native species in America are endangered because of

invasive species. Compared to other threats to biodiversity, invasive introduced species ranksecond only to habitat destruction, such as forest clearing. Of all 1,880 imperiled species in theUnited States, 49% are endangered because of introduced species alone or because of their

impact combined with other forces. In fact, introduced species are a greater threat to

native biodiversity than pollution, harvest, and disease combined. Further, through

damage to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and other human enterprises, introduced speciesinflict an enormous economic cost, estimated at $137 billion per year to the U.S. economy alone.

Of course, some introduced species (such as most of our food crops and pets) are beneficial.However, others are very damaging. Introduced species are not good guests The greatest impactis caused by introduced species that change an entire habitat, because many native speciesthrive only in a particular habitat. Florida‘s fires are fueled by a tree imported from Australia.

When the Asian chestnut blight fungus virtually eliminated American chestnut from over 180million acres of eastern United States forests in the first half of the 20th century, it was adisaster for many animals that were highly adapted to live in forests dominated by this treespecies. For example, ten moth species that could live only on chestnut trees became extinct.Similarly, the Australian paperbark tree has replaced native plants, such as sawgrass, over400,000 acres of south Florida, because it has a combination of traits (for example, spongyouter bark and flammable leaves and litter) that increase fire frequency and intensity. Many

birds and mammals adapted to the native plant community declined in abundance as paperbark

spread. The invasive zebra mussel is depleting the food of marine natives. In similar fashion,aquatic plants such as South American water hyacinth in Texas and Louisiana and marine algaesuch as Australian Caulerpa in the Mediterranean Sea change vast expanses of habitat byreplacing formerly dominant native plants. The zebra mussel, accidentally brought to the UnitedStates from southern Russia, transforms aquatic habitats by filtering prodigious amounts of

water (thereby lowering densities of planktonic organisms) and settling in dense masses over vast areas. At least thirty freshwater mussel species are threatened with extinction by the zebramussel. Other invaders, though they do not change a habitat, endanger single species or evenentire groups of them in various ways: Trout fishing is almost nonexistent in some American

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states because of a foreign parasite. The predatory brown tree snake, introduced in cargo fromthe Admiralty Islands, has eliminated ten of the eleven native bird species from the forests ofGuam. The Nile perch, a voracious predator introduced to Lake Victoria as a food fish, hasalready extinguished over one hundred species of native cichlid fish there. A parasite can besimilarly devastating. The sea lamprey reached the Great Lakes through a series of canals and, incombination with overfishing, led to the extinction of three endemic fishes. The European

parasite that causes whirling disease in fishes, introduced to rainbow trout in a hatchery inPennsylvania, has now spread to many states and devastated the rainbow trout sport fishery inMontana and Colorado. Herbivores can wreak great damage. The first sailors to land on theremote Atlantic island of St. Helena in the 16th century introduced goats, which quicklyextinguished over half the endemic plant species. Some impacts of invaders are subtle butnonetheless destructive to native species: Some alien species eliminate native species by

breeding with them, altering the gene pool. North American gray squirrels are driving native redsquirrels to extinction in Great Britain and Italy by foraging for nuts more efficiently than thenative species. Such competition for resources is not easy to observe, but the end result is theloss of a native species. Hybridization, or cross-breeding, of introduced species with nativesis an even subtler impact (no lineage goes extinct), but it is insidious because it leads graduallyto the extinction of many native species, as their gene pools inevitably evolve to become those of

the invader. Introduced mallards, for instance, are driving the native Hawaiian duck to a sort ofgenetic extinction by breeding with them. Of 26 animal species that have gone extinct since

being listed under the Endangered Species Act, at least three were wholly or partly lost becauseof hybridization with invaders. One was a fish native to Texas, eliminated by hybridization withintroduced mosquito fish. Rainbow trout introduced widely in the United States as game fish arehybridizing with five species listed under the Endangered Species Act, such as the Gila trout and

Apache trout. The endangered, endemic Hawaiian duck is being lost to hybridization with North American mallards introduced for hunting. The rarest European duck (the white-headed duck)is threatened by hybridization with the North American ruddy duck, which was originally keptas an amenity in a British game park. The ruddy duck escaped, crossed the English Channel, and

spread to Spain, the last stronghold of the white-headed duck. Invasion meltdown: when

an invasive species triggers destructive traits in another species.



ext – invasive species link

The TPP will expand illegal trade networks – crushing biodiversity and spreading

invasive speciesUSTR 11 – Office of the United States Trade Representative, (‗USTR Green Paper onConservation and the Trans-Pacific Partnership‖, December 2011, http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/fact-sheets/2011/ustr-green-paper-conservation-and-trans-pacific-partnership)//sawyer

Illegal trade in wildlife is significant worldwide. Its global scale presents several potential threats

to both the environment and regional security, including loss of biodiversity,

introduction of invasive alien species and growth of global criminal networks .

The TPP countries are source, transit or destination countries for this illegal

trade , and the region includes primary trading routes for illegal trade ranging from rhino

horn, live tiger cubs and tiger parts for medicinal purposes, to tortoises, snakes, iguanas, exoticpets and much more. Each of the TPP countries has a vested interest in protecting its wildliferesources for their ecological and economic value.

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/fact-sheets/2011/ustr-green-paper-conservation-and-trans-pacific-partnership)/sawyer









ext – overfishing

The TPP will accelerate overfishing

Sakai 11 – Courtne y Sakai is a staff writer for OCEANA, (―The Trans-Pacific Partnership:Promoting Sustainable Trade in Seafood Products‖, December 2011,http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/Wilson_Center_TPP_Handout__Dec2011_FINAL.pdf)//sawyer

The world depends on the oceans for food and livelihood . More than a billion people

worldwide depend on fish as a key source of protein. Fishing activities support coastalcommunities and hundreds of millions of people who depend on fishing for all or part of theirincome. But now, nearly all of the world‘s fish populations in every part of the world are severelydepleted from overfishing. The situation is so severe that according to leading fisheriesscientists, if current trends continue, the world‘s fisheries could be beyond recovery withindecades. Despite the precarious state of the oceans, many practices continue in the fishing

sector that impede trade and threaten the sustainability of the resource. The two major fisheriestrade issues are subsidies and illegal fishing. Fisheries are an important economic sector for theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries. Yet to date, oceans and fisheries issues havelargely been neglected in trade agreements. The TPP has an immediate and pressingneed to address trade and fisheries -- to promote a level playing field, reduce trade distortions,and help shape international trade rules for the fisheries sector. The World‘s Fisheries

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 85 percent of the world‘scommercial fish populations are fully exploited, overexploited, depleted or recovering fromdepletion. According to the FAO, the maximum long-term potential of the world marine capturefisheries has been reached. As a result, increased demand for wild capture fish cannot be met byincreasing fishing effort without restoring fish populations and ensuring their ongoingsustainability – including by controlling illegal fishing and limiting subsidies that not onlydistort trade but also undermine management efforts and lead to overfishing. Fisheries, Trade,and Development. Fisheries are important to international trade and development. Fishproducts are highly traded. World exports of fish and fish products are currently about $86

billion a year. This represents more than a third of the industry‘s total production. This level oftrade is equivalent to the world trade in meat or trucks or cosmetics. Approximately 80 percentof the world fishery production occurs in developing countries. On average, each fisheries jobholder provides for three dependents or family members, so the fisheries sector and supportingsectors directly provide for more than 500 million people (8 percent of world population).

Fisheries and the TPP Fisheries are highly relevant to the TPP. The Pacific Ocean

accounts for 55 percent of marine wild capture production . Fisheries are important

economic sectors for all TPP countries. Five of the nine TPP countries (Australia, Malaysia,Peru, United States, and Vietnam) are among the top twenty countries in wild capture

production. The TPP countries in total account for about 22 percent of the world‘s wild captureproduction. If Japan is added, the figure becomes even larger, since Japan is the 6 th largestproducing country, accounting for approximately 5 percent of the world total by itself. TheUnited States and Japan are the world‘s largest importers of fish and fish products. As in alltrade agreements, an important objective is to reduce trade distortions and promote a levelplaying field. This is also what we should aim to do with respective to fisheries in the TPP. TheTPP can address two major fisheries trade issues -- subsidies and illegal fishing.

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Overfishing cause extinctionSafina et al 95 -Mercedes Lee and Carl Safina, Safina is author of 6 books and roughly 200scientific and popular publications, including features in The New York Times, and NationalGeographic and a new Foreword to Rachel Carson‘s The Sea Around Us, Originally published inCurrent: The Journal of Marine Education, 13: 5-9, 1995, (―The Effects of Overfishing on MarineBiodiversity‖, 1995, http://www.seaweb.org/resources/articles/writings/safina1.php)//sawyer

"The last fallen mahogany would lie perceptibly on the landscape, and the last black rhino would

be obvious in its loneliness, but a marine species may disappear beneath the waves

unobserved and the sea would seem to roll on the same as always ." (Ray, p. 45)

Overfishing occurs when fish are being caught faster than they can reproduce and replace

themselves. Overfishing can affect biological diversity. Biodiversity is the diversity

of living things, and can be thought of as occurring on three levels: genetic,

species, and ecosystem . Genetic diversity is the genetic variability that occurs

among members of the same species. Species diversity is the variety of speciesfound in a community or ecosystem. And ecological diversity is the variety of types

of biological communities. An additional means of categorizing biological diversity isfunctional diversity; the variety of biological processes characteristic of a

particular ecosystem. These units of diversity are interrelated. As Thorne-Miller and

Catena explain, In the face of environmental change, the loss of genetic diversity weakens apopulation's ability to adapt; the loss of species diversity weakens a community‘s ability to

adapt; the loss of functional diversity weakens an ecosystem's ability to adapt; and the loss of

ecological diversity weakens the whole biosphere‘s ability to adapt. Because

biological and physical processes are interactive, losses of biological diversity

may also precipitate further environmental change. This progressively destructive

routine results in impoverished biological systems, which are susceptible to

collapse when faced with further environmental changes. (Thorne-Miller and Catena,1991, p. 10)

http://www.seaweb.org/resources/articles/writings/safina1.php)/sawyer





ext – overfishing brink

The brink is now – overfishing has brought us to the brink – the TPP will open up Asia

and collapse the marine environmentLevitt 13 – Tom Levitt is a writer for CNN, (―Overfished and under-protected: Oceans on the brink of catastrophic collapse‖, March 27, 2013,http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/oceans-overfishing-climate-change)//sawyer

Many marine scientists consider overfishing to be the greatest of these threats.

The Census of Marine Life, a decade-long international survey of ocean life completed in 2010,

estimated that 90% of the big fish had disappeared from the world's oceans, victims

primarily of overfishing . Tens of thousands of bluefin tuna were caught every year in the

North Sea in the 1930s and 1940s. Today, they have disappeared across the seas of NorthernEurope. Halibut has suffered a similar fate, largely vanishing from the North Atlantic in the 19th

century. Opinion: Probing the ocean's undiscovered depths In some cases, the collapse hasspread to entire fisheries. The remaining fishing trawlers in the Irish Sea, for example,

bring back nothing more than prawns and scallops, says marine biologist Callum Roberts, fromthe UK's York University. "Is a smear of protein the sort of marine environment we

want or need? No, we need one with a variety of species , that is going to be more

resistant to the conditions we can expect from climate change, " Roberts said. The

situation is even worse in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, people are now fishing for juvenile fish and protein that they can grind into fishmeal and use as feed forcoastal prawn farms. "It's heading towards an end game," laments Roberts


http://www.coml.org/

http://www.coml.org/press-releases-2007

http://www.coml.org/discoveries/trends/predatory_fish_decline

http://cnn.com/2013/03/18/tech/oceans-woods-hole-oped/index.html


http://www.york.ac.uk/res/unnatural-history-of-the-sea/author/index.htm

http://www.york.ac.uk/res/unnatural-history-of-the-sea/author/index.htm


http://www.coml.org/discoveries/trends/predatory_fish_decline

http://www.coml.org/press-releases-2007

http://www.coml.org/




ext – tpp causes overfishing

The TPP will accelerate overfishing

Vincent 13 – David Vincent University of San Diego School of Law, 2012; B.A., University ofCalifornia, San Diego, 2009, (―THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: ENVIRONMENTALSAVIOR OR CORPORATE CARTE BLANCHE?‖, July 3, 2013,http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290333)//sawyer

Another environmental concern of the implementation of the TPP is the impact it could have onfishing. The United States, Vietnam, Canada, and Chile are among the top fifteen exporters offish in the world.164 Overfishing is an ever-increasing concern as one half of theglobal marine catch is designated as fully exploited, one quarter as over exploitedor depleted, and the other quarter as underexploited but composed mainly of low-

value species.165 This problem is not strictly a conservational one, as losses to the globaleconomy from the unsustainable exploitation of marine resources may exceed $50 billionannually.166 While relaxed restrictions on fishing contribute to overfishing, fishing subsidies

which total $16 billion worldwide each year are a more immediate concern as governments areactively promoting overfishing.167





democracy da

The TPP undermines democracy

Zeese 13 - Kevin Zeese is a participant in PopularResistance.org which will be announcing acampaign to stop the TPP in the very near future; and a member of the Green Shadow Cabinet where he serves as Attorney Genera, (―The Trans-Pacific Partnership is an Assault onDemocracy That Will Undermine the Economy‖, June 20, 2013,http://www.popularresistance.org/the-trans-pacific-partnership-is-an-assault-on-democracy-that-will-undermine-the-economy/)//sawyer.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a global corporate coup that undermines

democracy and makes corporations more powerful than government . It creates a

―trade tribunal‖ system that allows corporations to sue governments for expected lost profitsresulting from environmental, labor, health, consumer protection and other laws. The judges inthe tribunals will be corporate lawyers on temporary leave from corporate job in order to rule on

cases brought by corporations and then returning to their corporate job. This rigged rule oflaw system will prevent countries from acting in the public interest and for theprotection of the planet. The TPP undermines the rule of law.

The TPP will yank democracy out of the worldDoyle 13- Cyn Doyle is the President of Placements USA LLC, a healthcare recruiting firm thatspecializes in Nurse Practitioner recruiting and Physician Assistant recruiting. Her NursePractitioner jobs and Physician Assistant jobs company motto is ―We work hard to help keep

America working…‖ She uses her healthcare recruiting company to advocate for NursePractitioner jobs and Physician Assistant jobs, (―is President Obama Selling Our Democracy IfHe Signs the Trans-Pacific Partnership?‖, July 10, 2013, http://voices.yahoo.com/is-president-

obama-selling-our-democracy-if-he-signs-12175122.html)//sawyer

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, TTP, will enable corporations to override US Law

even while operating in the U.S. The TPP will yank democracy right out of our

hands by making law contrary to our interests! This act will allow corporations to just

about have no oversight at all. Pharmaceutical companies will be able to charge outrageousprices for medicine. The Banks will run roughshod over us (again), destroying our alreadyfragile economy. Chemical-Agricultural companies will have carte blanche over our food,accomplishing their goal of weeding out the world's population. Nestle and others will have fullcontrol over our water supply. This "trade" deal will only enrich the 1% and further thedestruction of our middle class and its freedoms. The Trans-Pacific Partnership's goal is to givemultinational investors (corporations) and domestic corporations the right to challenge any andall of our health, consumer safety, environmental, banking (Dodd-Frank, for example), patentand copyright laws and regulations before an international tribunal (most likely cherry-picked

by the corporations). This will place these corporations in an equal or higher

position than the nations of the world's governments and certainly above us, the

people . Basically, if we pass any laws or currently have any laws on the books that could

somehow restrict or diminish any "expected future profits", these corporations can demand thetaxpayers to compensate them for their "lost" earnings and also pay their legal bills.

http://www.popularresistance.org/the-trans-pacific-partnership-is-an-assault-on-democracy-that-will-undermine-the-economy/)/sawyer


http://voices.yahoo.com/is-president-obama-selling-our-democracy-if-he-signs-12175122.html)/sawyer









econ da

The TPP will cause economic instability and crisisGallagher 13 -Kevin P. Gallagher published the following op-ed in the Financial Times based

on the recent Pardee Center report from the Task Force on Regulating Global Capital Flows forLong-Run Development, which he co-chairs, (―Don‘t Trade Away financial Stability in TheTrans-Pacific Partnership Agreement‖, 2013, http://triplecrisis.com/expert-panel-dont-trade-away-financial-stability-in-trans-pacific-partnership-agreeement/)//sawyer

Negotiators will meet in Singapore this week for yet another round of talks on a Trans-PacificPartnership – it is the 16th time in just a few years. A TPP would bring together key Pacific-rimcountries into a trading bloc that the US hopes would counter China‘s growing influence in theregion. Among other sticking points, talks remain stalled because the US insists that its TPPtrading partners dismantle regulations for cross-border finance. Many TPP nations

will have nothing of it, and for good reason. The US stance stands on the wrong side ofcountry experience, economic theory and guidelines issued by the International

Monetary Fund. TPP nations such as Chile and Malaysia successfully regulated cross-borderfinance to prevent and mitigate severe financial crises in those countries in the 1990s. In the wake of 2008, there has been a global rethink regarding the extent to which cross-borderfinancial flows should be regulated. Many nations such as Brazil and South Korea have built onthe example of Chile and Malaysia and reregulated cross border finance through taxes on short-term debt and foreign exchange derivative regulations. After 2008, emerging markets anddeveloping nations want as many tools as possible to prevent and mitigate crises. New researchin economic theory justifies this. Anton Korinek and Olivier Jeanne have demonstrated howexternalities are generated by cross border financial flows because investors and borrowers donot know (or ignore) what the effects of their financial decisions will be in terms of financial

stability in a particular nation. Foreign investors may well tip a nation into financial

difficulties, and even a crisis. The authors argue that regulating cross border finance will

correct for the market failure and make markets work more efficiently. Such thinking has in parttriggered an about face at the IMF on capital flows. Last December, the IMF endorsed an―institutional view‖ on capital account liberalization and the management of capital flows. The

IMF now recognises that capital flows bring risk, particularly in the form of

capital inflow surges and sudden stops, which can cause a great deal of financial

instability. Under such conditions, the IMF will now recommend the use of cross-border

financial regulations to avoid such instability. I led a task force that held a compatibility reviewexamining the extent to which the regulation of cross-border finance was compatible with manyof the trade and investment treaties across the globe. It consisted of former and current CentralBank officials, IMF and WTO staff, members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as wellas scholars and members of civil society. In areport published this week, we find that US

trade and investment treaties were the most incompatible with new thinking andpolicy on regulating global finance. Not only do US treaties mandate that all forms offinance move across borders freely and without delay, but deals such as the TPP would allowprivate investors to directly file claims against governments that regulate them, as opposed to a

WTO-like system where nation states (ie the regulators) decide whether claims are brought.Therefore, under investor-state dispute settlement a few financial firms would have the power toexternalise the costs of financial instability to the broader public, while profiting from awards inprivate tribunals. Such provisions fly in the face of recommendations on investment from agroup of more than 250 US and globally renowned economists. The 2012 IMF decision echoes

http://triplecrisis.com/expert-panel-dont-trade-away-financial-stability-in-trans-pacific-partnership-agreeement/)/sawyer







these sentiments when it says ―these agreements in many cases do not provide appropriatesafeguards or proper sequencing of liberalization, and could thus benefit from reform to includethese protections‖.

The TPP will crash the housing industryPerry 13 – Sandy Perry is the secretary of Housing for the Green Shadow Cabinet isanoutreach minister for CHAM Deliverance Ministry in San Jose, Perry has been a leaderin the movement for housing in the San Jose area,Sandy Perry works with Poor People‘sEconomic Human Rights Campaign, World Courts of Women, National Alliance of HUDTenants, Occupy, and every other social movement battling for housing justice,economic human rights, and a better world (―TPP would make U.S. housing crisis much worse‖, June 21, 2013, http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/tpp-would-make-us-housing-crisis-much-worse)//sawyer

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will dramatically undermine the housing

rights of Americans, primarily by prohibiting meaningful government control

over financial institutions . Americans have already lost over five million homes to

foreclosure as a result of the 2008 economic collapse. Virtually every regulatorymeasure that could have averted this crisis will now be banned by the TPP.

According to the Citizen Trade Campaign, the TPP will put an end to any government

policy that: Imposes any limit whatsoever on the size of banks (―too big to fail‖)

Establishes a Glass-Steagell-style firewall between different types of financialinstitutions Limits or bans any specific financial derivatives no matter how toxic or riskyEnacts capital controls designed to protect national currencies against speculation The

TPP includes an ―investor-state‖ provision that specifically grants global banks thepower to challenge any law or regulation of any country that reduces their profits as a―regulatory taking‖. It could then take that country to a private international tribunalthat entirely circumvents all public judicial authorities. The tribunal would beauthorized to force countries to either rescind their laws or pay ―damages‖from their treasuries directly to global corporations. The TPP will not onlyallow further speculative bubbles like the 2000s sub-prime mortgage scandal: it will

make them much bigger and make them inevitable. Finally, the TPP will

undermine housing affordability by weakening government affordable housing

programs and further shredding public and HUD-subsidized housing all across

the country . It will accomplish this not only through corporate seizure of public assets, but also by dramatically eroding the tax base by offshoring millions of jobs.The TPP will outlaw almost every single housing and financial provision in the Stein-Honkala Green New Deal, and effectively nullify the right to housing. Public banks would be out of the question. The TPP would enthrone the power ofcorporations and tear down the very vision of human rights that hasinspired Americans for over 200 years.








eu trade-off da

The TPP will leave the EU by the wayside

Volz et al 12 -Florian Mölders PhD candidate and Researcher, DIW Berlin Ulrich Volz SeniorResearcher, German Development Institute (DIE); and Visiting Professor, Peking University,(―TPP negotiations, anticipatory trade creation, and implications for European trade policy‖,March 23, 2012, http://www.voxeu.org/article/trans-pacific-partnership-and-implications-europe)//sawyer

The prospect of a coming trade bloc in the Pacific region under leadership of theUS should be a wake-up call for EU trade policy. While the EU is in itself the biggesttrade bloc, total EU exports to the prospective TPP countries account for 23.8% of EU‘s externalexports (and 30.6% if Canada, Mexico, and Japan would join the TPP). Figure 1 depicts theimportance of different markets for the EU‘s external exports in 2010. Even though themembers of the TPP negotiations have already initiated several bilateral agreements amongthemselves, the EU may be losing out in terms of market access if the liberalisationprocess triggers exports within the prospective TPP without simultaneouslystimulating demand for European goods. Additionally, the TPP leaves significantpotential for vertical integration via production networks (Baldwin 2011). The risk of trade-diverting effects of the TPP on the EU‘s external trade is therefore real. Jagdish Bhagwati(2012), the most prominent and ardent critic of any kind of regional PTA, recently called theTPP a ―discriminatory plurilateral FTA [free trade agreement]‖.

EU trade is key to regional stability and the prevention of an arms race AFP 11 - Advokatur Fischer & Partner is a law firm in Switzerland, (―EU President urges tradeto halt Asia-Pacific militarization‖, November 9, 2011,http://www.spacewar.com/reports/EU_President_urges_trade_to_halt_Asia-

Pacific_militarisation_999.html)//sawyer

The Asia-Pacific region is showing signs of militarisation that could lead to an

arms race, EU President Herman Van Rompuy warned Wednesday, calling for closer trade

ties to defuse any political tensions. "Whereas Europe used to be the most dangerous continentin the past century... the focus of security analysts and hard power strategic planners hasrecently moved towards developments in Asia and the Pacific," said Van Rompuy in a speech atthe University of Zurich. "They do not yet observe a full-blown arms race, but interms of military spending and confrontational psychology, the premises of an

arms race are there," he added, without naming individual countries. " It will thus be key

to continue deepening economic relationships within that region, so as to make a

war as it were 'materially impossible'," added Van Rompuy. Noting that the EU is a key

trading partner to major economies in the region, the EU Council President said

Brussels "does not only have a significant stake in regional stability, but itself is a

potential major factor contributing to this stability. " This fact "should also be reflected

in higher political attention paid to and political activity shown in the region," he added.

http://www.voxeu.org/article/trans-pacific-partnership-and-implications-europe)/sawyer


http://www.spacewar.com/reports/EU_President_urges_trade_to_halt_Asia-Pacific_militarisation_999.html)/sawyer










ext – link

TPP will trade off with the EU

Volz et al 12 -Florian Mölders PhD candidate and Researcher, DIW Berlin Ulrich Volz SeniorResearcher, German Development Institute (DIE); and Visiting Professor, Peking University,(―TPP negotiations, anticipatory trade creation, and implications for European trade policy‖,March 23, 2012, http://www.voxeu.org/article/trans-pacific-partnership-and-implications-europe)//sawyer

What do these results imply for economic policy? Even though our estimates suggest thatnegotiations of bilateral trade initiatives are more likely to reap anticipatory trade effectscompared with a multilateral alternative, anticipatory trade effects will depend on more than

just the number of participating countries. The more credible the negotiations are, and thegreater the prospects of successful conclusion and implementation, the greater the chances torealise anticipatory effects in terms of increased investment and trade. If policymakers involvedin the TPP negotiations can credibly signal that multilateral trade liberalisation will be achieved,TPP may yet have its desired impact ahead of coming into force. Therefore, given potentialtrade-diverting effects, the TPP could have a direct impact on the EU‘s trade relations

with the Asia-Pacific region sooner than Brussels may realise. Instead of standing idly by,the European Commission should become more active and seek to strengthen trade ties betweenthe EU and the prospective TPP countries. One option for the EU would be to try to advance itscurrent bilateral PTA negotiations with Malaysia and Singapore and enter trade talks withJapan, Brunei, and Vietnam, which have been under consideration for a while. The secondoption, which is more ambitious, and likely to yield greater benefits not only for the EU but forthe entire world economy, would be to revive global trade talks by offering more concessions onmarket access for agricultural products from developing countries and cutting agriculturalsubsidies at home.



fracking da

The TPP will increase carbon emissions, fracking, and lng exports

SC 12 -Sierra Club‘s Labor and Trade Campaign, (―An Explosion of Fracking? One of the dirtiest secrets of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement‖, 2012, hhttp://www.sierraclub.org/trade/downloads/TPP-Factsheet.pdf) //sawyerThe United States is quietly negotiating an expansive trade agreement with ten other countriesthat could dramatically increase exports of liquefied natural gas to overseas

markets without any domestic oversight. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

trade agreement, therefore, could increase dirty fracking and carbon emissions;

put sensitive ecological areas at risk; and increase natural gas and electricity

prices, impacting consumers, manufacturers, workers, and increasing the use of

dirty coal power. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement The Trans-Pacific Partnership

agreement is an expansive new trade agreement being negotiated between countries in the

Pacific Rim, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru,Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. Because the TPP is intended as a ―dockingagreement,‖ other Pacific Rim countries can join over time. Japan—the world‘s largest naturalgas importer—has formally announced its intention to join the talks. The TPP touches on a

broad range of issues—the environment, workers and jobs, access to medicines, and more. Forexample, every indication is that the TPP would allow foreign corporations to sue governmentsdirectly--for unlimited cash compensation in foreign tribunals—over almost any domesticenvironmental or other law that the corporation believes is hurting its ability to profit. And, byoffering special benefits to firms that relocate investment and jobs to other countries, the TPPcould incentivize offshoring of goodpaying jobs to low-wage nations and undercut workingconditions globally. Despite the impact that the TPP would have on nearly every aspect of ourlives, the TPP is being negotiated in near complete secrecy. None of the draft chapters of the

agreement have been made public and apart from TPP government officials, nearly the onlypeople with access to texts are more than 600 business representatives who serve as official UStrade advisors. One of the dirtiest secrets of the TPP is its potential to pave the wayfor dramatically increase fracking across the United States. How the TPP couldincrease fracking In order for the United States to export natural gas to anothercountry , the Department of Energy (DOE) must first conduct a thorough public analysis todetermine whether those exports are consistent with the public interest. This analysis iscritical to understanding the environmental and economic impacts associated withnatural gas exports and to building a deliberate energy policy that protects theinterests of the American public.

Fracking sparks remote triggered massive earthquakesBegley 13 -Sharon Begley, the senior health & science correspondent at Reuters, was thescience editor and the science columnist at Newsweek, (―Study raises new concern aboutearthquakes and fracking fluids‖, July 11, 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/11/us-science-fracking-earthquakes-idUSBRE96A0TZ20130711)//sawyer

It comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducts a study of the effects offracking, particularly the disposal of wastewater, which could form the basis of new regulationson oil and gas drilling. Geologists have known for 50 years that injecting fluid underground can




http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/11/us-science-fracking-earthquakes-idUSBRE96A0TZ20130711)/sawyer









increase pressure on seismic faults and make them more likely to slip. The result is an"induced" quake. A recent surge in U.S. oil and gas production - much of it using vastamounts of water to crack open rocks and release natural gas, as in fracking, or to bring upoil and gas from standard wells - has been linked to an increase in small tomoderate induced earthquakes in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ohio, Texas and Colorado. Nowseismologists at Columbia University say they have identified three quakes - in Oklahoma,

Colorado and Texas - that were triggered at injection-well sites by major earthquakes a longdistance away. "The fluids (in wastewater injection wells) are driving the faults to their tippingpoint," said Nicholas van der Elst of Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory inPalisades, New York, who led the study. It was funded by the National Science Foundation andthe U.S. Geological Survey. Fracking opponents' main concern is that it will release toxicchemicals into water supplies, said John Armstrong, a spokesman for New Yorkers AgainstFracking, an advocacy group. But "when you tell people the process is linked to earthquakes, thereaction is, 'what? They're doing something that can cause earthquakes?' This really should be astark warning," he said. Fracking proponents reacted cautiously to the study. "More fact-basedresearch ... aimed at further reducing the very rare occurrence of seismicity associated withunderground injection wells is welcomed, and will certainly help enable more responsiblenatural gas development," said Kathryn Klaber, chief executive of the Marcellus Shale Coalition.

'DYNAMIC TRIGGERING' Quakes with a magnitude of 2 or lower, which can hardly be felt, areroutinely produced in fracking, said geologist William Ellsworth of the U.S. Geological Survey,an expert on human-induced earthquakes who was not involved in the study. The largestfracking-induced earthquake "was magnitude 3.6, which is too small to pose a serious risk," he

wrote in Science. But van der Elst and colleagues found evidence that injection wells canset the stage for more dangerous quakes. Because pressure from wastewater wellsstresses nearby faults, if seismic waves speeding across Earth's surface hit thefault it can rupture and, months later, produce an earthquake stronger than

magnitude 5. What seems to happen is that wastewater injection leaves local faults

"critically loaded," or on the verge of rupture . Even weak seismic waves from faraway

quakes are therefore enough to set off a swarm of small quakes in a process called "dynamictriggering." "I have observed remote triggering in Oklahoma," said seismologist Austin Hollandof the Oklahoma Geological Survey, who was not involved in the study. "This has occurred inareas where no injections are going on, but it is more likely to occur in injection areas." Oncethese triggered quakes stop, the danger is not necessarily over. The swarm of quakes, saidHeather Savage of Lamont-Doherty and a co-author of the study, "could indicate that faultsare becoming critically stressed and might soon host a larger earthquake ." Forinstance, seismic waves from an 8.8 quake in Maule, Chile, in February 2010 rippled across theplanet and triggered a 4.1 quake in Prague, Oklahoma - site of the Wilzetta oil field - some 16hours later. That was followed by months of smaller tremors in Oklahoma, and then the largestquake yet associated with wastewater injection, a 5.7 temblor in Prague on November 6, 2011.That quake destroyed 14 homes, buckled a highway and injured two people. The Prague quake is"not only one of the largest earthquakes to be associated with wastewater disposal, but also oneof the largest linked to a remote triggering event," said van der Elst. The Chile quake also caused

a swarm of small temblors in Trinidad, Colorado, near wells where wastewater used to extractmethane from coal beds had been injected. On August 22, 2011, a magnitude 5.3 quake hitTrinidad, damaging dozens of buildings. The 9.1 earthquake in Japan in March 2011, whichcaused a devastating tsunami, triggered a swarm of small quakes in Snyder, Texas - site of theCogdell oil field. That autumn, Snyder experienced a 4.5 quake. The presence of injection wellsdoes not mean an area is doomed to have a swarm of earthquakes as a result of seismic activityhalf a world away, and a swarm of induced quakes does not necessarily portend a big one. Guy,

Arkansas; Jones, Oklahoma; and Youngstown, Ohio, have all experienced moderate inducedquakes due to fluid injection from oil or gas drilling..



Unchecked natural disasters cause extinctionSid-Ahmed 5 [Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, political activist, writer and journalist with Al-Ahram

Weekly, January 2005 ―The post-earthquake world‖ Al-Ahram Weekly Onlinehttp://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm]

The contradiction between Man and Nature has reached unprecedented heights, forcing us tore-examine our understanding of the existing world system. US President George W Bush hasannounced the creation of an international alliance between the US, Japan, India, Australia andany other nation wishing to join that will work to help the stricken region overcome the hugeproblems it is facing in the wake of the tsunamis. Actually, the implications of the disaster arenot only regional but global, not to say cosmic. Is it possible to mobilise all the inhabitants of ourplanet to the extent and at the speed necessary to avert similar disasters in future? How toengender the required state of emergency, that is, a different type of inter-human relations

which rise to the level of the challenge before contradictions between the various sections of the world community make that collective effort unrealisable? The human species has never beenexposed to a natural upheaval of this magnitud3e within living memory. What happened in

South Asia is the ecological equivalent of 9/11. Ecological problems like global warming andclimatic disturbances in general threaten to make our natural habitat unfit for human life. Theextinction of the species has become a very real possibility, whether by our own hand or as aresult of natural disasters of a much greater magnitude than the Indian Ocean earthquakeand the killer waves it spawned. Human civilisation has developed in the hope that Man will beable to reach welfare and prosperity on earth for everybody. But now things seem to be movingin the opposite direction, exposing planet Earth to the end of its role as a nurturing place forhuman life. Today, human conflicts have become less of a threat than theconfrontation between Man and Nature. At least they are less likely to bring about the endof the human species. The reactions of Nature as a result of its exposure to the onslaughts ofhuman societies have become more important in determining the fate of the human species thanany harm it can inflict on itself.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm



ext – fracking causes earthquakes

Earthquakes are human induced and caused by fracking –empirics proveSweet 13 – Bill sweet blogs for IEEE Spectrum magazine about energy & climate and forForeign Policy Association about nuclear disarmament and weapons of mass destruction, (―Can

Wastewater Injection from Fracking Cause Earthquakes?‖, July 11, 2013,http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/fossil-fuels/can-wastewater-injection-from-fracking-cause-earthquakes)//sawyer

Hydraulic fracturing to release gas or oil trapped deep underground in shale rock is of coursehighly contested. In environmental circles and on the political left, indeed, the "politicallycorrect" view seems to be that fracking is just as bad as nuclear energy, however much eachmight contribute to energy security or greenhouse gas reduction. The wider mainstream view —and this is the attitude explicitly embraced by the Obama administration—is that fracking can begood if properly regulated to minimize negative effects on the environment, especially on water.That position may be complicated, however, by results of new study appearing Friday in Science,

which strongly suggest that wastewater injection in fracking operations cansignificantly aggravate earthquake risks. The study, led by Nicholas van der Elst ofColumbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, finds that a severe Chileanearthquake on 27 February 2010 triggered, less than a day later, a significant earthquake inPrague, Oklahoma, where there was a set of water injection wells. Unusual seismic activitycontinued near Prague for almost two years until late November 2011, when an earthquakedestroyed 14 homes and injured two people, according to a Lamont-Doherty press release. Then,in April 2012, a major earthquake in Sumatra triggered yet another earthquake near the Prague

wells, where injection continues. The Science article builds on an earlier study that appeared inGeology last March, in which a team of Lamont Doherty scientists hypothesized that high-pressure injection of water in a seismically active area could cause a known fault

to "jump." ― When you overpressure the fault, you reduce the stress that‘s pinning

the fault into place and that‘s when earthquakes happen ,‖ said Heather Savage, a co-

author of both the older and newer reports. Besides affecting Prague, the Chilean quake also is believed to have set off a temblor in Trinidad, Colorado, where suspicions about water injectionand seismicity already had attracted the attention of the U.S. Geolorgic Survey. Japan'sdevastating earthquake of March 2011 is thought to have triggered a temblor in the West Texas

town of Snyder, where high-pressure water injection was taking place. The van der Elst

research in Science appears together with other articles about how human

activity may be affecting earthquake risks.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/fossil-fuels/can-wastewater-injection-from-fracking-cause-earthquakes)/sawyer


http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6142/164.abstract



http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/3072




http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6142/1225942


http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1238948



http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1238948












human rights da

The TPP will violate human rights

Baraka 13 - Ajamu Baraka is Public Intervenor for Human Rights in the DemocracyBranch of the Green Shadow Cabinet, (‗The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Another assaulton human rights that must be opposed‖, June 18, 2013,http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/trans-pacific-partnership-another-assault-human-rights-must-be-opposed)//sawyer

The right to have the means to sustain one‘s physical life is a foundationalprinciple of human rights. The right to work and earn a livable wage in conditionscommensurate with human dignity that allow for securing adequate food,clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services is the basis formaterial sustainability and a dignified life. The right to join or form unions, engage incollective bargaining and live in a clean and healthy environment, free of pollutants in the airand land, are also fundamental for securing material sustainability and dignity for the

individual, peoples and States. And in order to secure these rights, the right to information,participation, popular sovereignty and national self-determination must be recognized andprotected. All states have an obligation, under the current regime of state-centered

international human rights, to respect, protect and fulfill the full range of human

rights. However, under the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a so-called free trade

agreement negotiated in secret by the Obama Administration and now scheduled to be fast-tracked into law this fall, it appears that the fundamental human rights of the laboringclasses in the U.S. and all of the countries involved in this free trade agreement

would be violated. It is difficult to determine the full extent to which the agreement poses athreat to human rights because of the wall of secrecy with which the Obama Administration hasexcluded the public during the negotiations. The secrecy surrounding the agreement also

extended to members of Congress, who have been denied access to the draft agreement by theObama Administration. Incredibly, even US Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the CongressionalCommittee with jurisdiction over the TPP agreement, was denied access to the negotiation texts.On the other hand, more than 600 private sector ―advisors‖ have had access to the draft—a factthat is consistent with the Administration‘s commitment to the private corporate sector over thepublic‘s right to know. Judging by the provisions of the agreement that have been leaked, it isquite understandable why the Administration would not want the terms and the scope of thisagreement made available to the public. The TPP goes well beyond what is commonlyunderstood to come under the purview of free trade. Not only will the TPP be the largest andmost ambitious trade agreement in U.S. history, it will set rules on non-trade matters such asfood safety, internet freedom, medicine costs, financial regulation and the environment, in favorof U.S. financial and corporate interests and to the detriment of workers and the general public

in the U.S. and in the countries that become part of the agreement.

http://greenshadowcabinet.us/statements/trans-pacific-partnership-another-assault-human-rights-must-be-opposed)/sawyer


http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-trans-pacific-partnership-obamas-secret-trade-deal/5329911

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-trans-pacific-partnership-obamas-secret-trade-deal/5329911





manufacturing da

The TPP will hollow out the US manufacturing industryOlen 13 – John Olen is a writer for Economy in Crisis, (―The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

Will Cause Continued Harm To U.S. Economy, Manufacturing‖, June 17, 2013,http://economyincrisis.org/content/the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-will-cause-continued-harm-to-u-s-economy-manufacturing)//sawyer

Perhaps one of the most alarming measures that the TPP will implement will be

the further destruction of the U.S. manufacturing sector , as the TPP will send

even more manufacturing jobs overseas. Furthermore, very little is known about theagreement. The negotiations have been taking place in secret and very few of the details have

been unveiled to the public. Like other trade agreements before it, such as NAFTA and theKorea-US Free Trade Agreement (KOR-US), the TPP is being advertised to the U.S. as a means

to improve our economy and increase exports. However, if the disastrous effects of NAFTA

are any indication, TPP will only serve to further cripple our industrial base. America has already experienced the destruction of our manufacturing capabilities with NAFTA,a ―free trade‖ agreement that saw much of our manufacturing industry outsourcedto foreign nations. If our leaders – primarily President Obama – continues to ram theTPP into law, then surely the United States will fall victim to even more economicdestruction. Another scary thing about this particular agreement is that the one‘s leading thenegotiations and gathering support aren‘t even taking into account or listening to what thePeople of the U.S. want. The U.S. public knows how damaging ―free trade‖ agreements are, butthose taking part in the TPP negotiations don‘t care. They‘re too busy working to appeasecorrupt corporations and other 1%-ers who stand to benefit financially from the TPP.

http://economyincrisis.org/content/the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-will-cause-continued-harm-to-u-s-economy-manufacturing)/sawyer






ext – tpp kills manufacturing

The TPP would devastate US manufacturingNash-Hoff – Michele Nash-Hoff, Founder and President at ElectroFab Sales, (―Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership would Hurt American Manufacturers‖, 05/02/13,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-nashhoff/why-the-trans-pacific-par_b_3186557.html)//sawyer

The Obama Administration has continued negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnershipagreement behind doors closed to the media and without the Congressional involvement that

was requested by Congress. Besides being a threat to our national sovereignty as I discussed in aprevious blog, it is time to shine the light on another egregious provision that would hurt

American manufacturers. The Buy American Act was passed by Congress in 1933 andrequired the U.S. government to give preferential treatment to American producers in awardingof federal contracts. The Act restricted the purchase of supplies that are not domestic endproducts. For manufactured products, the Buy American Act used a two-part test: first, the

article must be manufactured in the U.S., and second, the cost of domestic components mustexceed 50 percent of the cost of all its components. Other federal legislation passed sinceextended similar requirements to third-party purchases that utilize federal funds, such ashighway and transit programs. "Buy American" provisions do not help all U.S. firms equally.Corporations headquartered in the U.S. that offshore most of their manufacturing operations donot benefit from the system designed to promote domestic production in the way thatcompanies with actual U.S. manufacturing operations do. However, strengthening the "Buy

American" provisions in our federal procurement system is one of the recommendations I madein my book to benefit American manufacturers and help save American manufacturing. If adomestic producer offers the government a more expensive bid than a foreign producer, it canstill be awarded the contract under certain circumstances, but more recent free tradeagreements have granted other nations the same negotiating status as domestic firms. In certain

government procurements, the requirements may be waived if purchasing the material/partsdomestically would burden the government with an unreasonable cost, as when the pricedifferential between the domestic product and an identical foreign-sourced product exceeds acertain percentage, or the product is not available domestically in sufficient quantity or quality,or if doing so is not in the public interest. In recent years, the requirements have beenincreasingly waived to the point that we have lost domestic sources for some defensecomponents and products. In addition, the president has authority to waive the Act in responseto the provision of reciprocal treatment to U.S. producers. Under the 1979 GATT Agreement onGovernment Procurement, the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement, the U.S.-Canada Free Trade

Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and the Korea Free Trade Agreement, access to government procurement by certainU.S. agencies of goods for the other parties to these agreements is granted. Every one of these

trade agreements have increased the trade deficit that the U.S. has with the parties to theseagreements. The Obama administration is currently pushing to grant the several nationsinvolved in the Trans-Pacific agreement the same privileged status. What this means is that theTPP's procurement chapter would require that all companies operating in any country signingthe agreement be provided access equal to domestic firms to U.S. government procurementcontracts over a certain dollar threshold. To meet this requirement, the U.S. would have to agreeto waive Buy America procurement policies for all companies operating in TPP countries.Supporters of TPP argue that it would be good for America because these rules would apply toall the countries signing the agreement, so U.S. firms would be able to bid on procurements

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-nashhoff/why-the-trans-pacific-par_b_3186557.html)/sawyer






contracts in other countries on a national treatment basis. The question is whether this newaccess for some U.S. companies to bid on contracts in the TPP countries is a goodtrade-off for waiving Buy America preferences on U.S. procurement? Lori Wallach ofPublic Citizen has written several articles warning about the dangers of the Trans-PacificPartnership. In an article titled, TPP Government Procurement Negotiations: Buy AmericanPolicy Banned, a Net Loss for the U.S., she points out that the total U.S. procurement market is

more than seven times the size of the combined procurement market of the current TPPnegotiating parties: Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and

Vietnam. But the United States already has trade deals with procurement provisions with six ofthese countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Singapore. Removing thesecountries would mean that the U.S. procurement market is 24 times the size of the total "new"TPP procurement market. She concludes "the size of the new procurement markets that the TPPmay open for the United States is in the order of $53 billion (national) to $72 billion (total),

which is a terrible trade for giving up the U.S procurement market of $556 billion (federal) to$1.7 trillion (total)." In addition, she notes that the TPP procurement rules would constrain howour national and state governments may use our tax dollars in local construction projects andpurchase of goods and limit what specifications Governments can require for goods andservices, as well as the qualifications for bidding companies. She warns that if we do not

conform our domestic policies to the TPP terms, the U.S. government would be subject tolawsuits before foreign tribunals empowered to authorize trade sanctions against the U.S. untilour policies changed. "Also, any "investor" that happens to be incorporated in one of thesecountries would be empowered to launch its own extra-judicial attack on our domestic laws in

World Bank and UN arbitral tribunals with respect to changes to procurement contracts withthe U.S. federal government." A letter from Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and 68 otherCongressional Reps to President Obama on May 3, 2012 states in part, "We are concerned aboutproposals we understand are under consideration in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)agreement negotiations that could significantly limit Buy American provisions and as aresult adversely impact American jobs, workers, and manufacturers...We do not

believe this approach is in the best interest of U.S. manufacturers and U.S. workers. Of special concern is the prospect that firms established in TPP

countries, such as the many Chinese firms in Vietnam, could obtain waivers fromBuy American policies. This could result in larger sums of U.S. tax dollars beinginvested to strengthen other countries' manufacturing sectors, rather than ourown." On November 30, 2012, 24 Senators sent a letter to President Obama outliningguidelines for the TPP and calling for Congressional consultation for the TPP. The letter urgedthat the TPP: "Maintain "Buy American" government procurement requirements. The Americanpeople, through their elected officials, should not be prohibited from establishing governmentprocurement policies that prioritize job creation in the United States. We hope that you willdirect USTR negotiators to ensure that any TPP not restrict "Buyer American" and "Buy Local"government procurement policies at the Federal or sub-federal level. Require strong Rules ofOrigin. The Rules of Origin in the TPP should ensure that only signatories to the TPP will benefitfrom its increased market access and other provisions so that employment opportunities in theU.S. may be expanded. Non-TPP members must not be allowed to use weak rules of origin as a

backdoor way to enter the U.S. market and further depress U.S. job prospects. Ensure thatState-Owened and State-Supported Commercial Enterprises (SOEs) operate on a level plaingfield. Given that SOEs are more common in the other TPP countries than in the U.S., the TPPshould require that SOEs competing with private U.S. enterprises operate andmake decisions ona commercial basis. The agreement should also incorpoarte a reporting requirement so thatcountries have to provide infromation on the operation of their SOEs in other TPP countries ona regular basis." Country of Original labeling is another one of the recommendations I've writtenabout in previous blog articles and is the main recommendation of Alan Uke in his book Buying



Back America. This would help American consumers make choices when they purchaseconsumer goods and allow professional procurement specialists in industry and government to

choose to support American manufacturers through "Buying American." The TPP treaty

would exacerbate our trade deficit problem and make it even harder for American

manufacturers to compete in the global marketplace. Instead of weakening "Buy

American" requirements through additional trade agreements such as TPP, we

need to strengthen the requirements. This drastic curtailment of "Buy American"

procurement provisions is another reason why we must make sure Congress rejects any fast-track authority the Obama administration seeks to invoke when it comes time to get finalcongressional approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.



textile da

Pakistan’s textile industry is high now – exports

Khan 12 – Mubarek Zed Khan is a writer for Dawn, (―Pakistan's textile export rebounds‖, 11-22-2012, http://www.asianewsnet.net/news-39237.html)//sawyer

Pakistan's export of textile and clothing rebounded for the second consecutive month afterposting a decline for at least one year. The increase was mainly driven by a surge indemand from recession-hit key markets of Europe and US, suggested data of Pakistan Bureauof Statistics released here on Wednesday. In absolute terms, export of textile and clothing

witnessed a growth of 10.50 per cent in October 2012, from a year ago. The growth in export

proceeds in September 2012 was 12.91 per cent. The unprecedented growth was mainly

driven by substantial increase in export proceeds of readymade garments, towels, and

other low value products, like cotton yarn and cotton cloth, etc.

The TPP will crush India’s and Pakistan’s textile industries PTJ 13 – Pakistan textile Journal, (―Trans Pacific Partnership, a valid threat for Pakistan‘stextile sector‖, 06, 2013, http://www.ptj.com.pk/Web-2013/06-2013/PDF-June-2013/Editorial.pdf)//sawyer

While the motivation for this agreement may be China, it is countries such as Pakistan and India which will be badly affected when this agreement takes place in the near future. The USaccounts for 30% of total apparel and textile exports of India. While Pakistan is hoping for GSPplus status in 2014 from the European Union, India is on the verge of signing a free trade

agreement with the EU. The high duties as compared with the TPP member countries

will render textile and garment exports uncompetitive . The most disturbing aspect of

this agreement is the ‗yarn forward rule‘ that makes it obligatory to procure all the componentsof any manufactured products from other TPP member countries to avail the benefits of duty

waiver. If any component is found to be of origin outside of the member countries, full duties on

apparel and textiles would be applicable. This will negatively effect and disturb the

global supply chain in textile and apparel. While aimed mainly at China, Pakistan and

other countries who are manufactures of raw material for apparel and textiles willsurely suffer from ‗collateral damage‘ as a result of TPP . The large retailers and textile

buyers such as JC Penny and Levis from the US are not in the favour of any provisions that would exclude traditional suppliers of yarn and fabrics like Pakistan and India to TPP membercountries including the US. The government and the industry need to pay heed and lobby forflexibilities in the ―yarn forward rule‖before it is too late. We may gain GSP Plus to the European

Union but risk losing a big market share of the US and other member countries of Trans PacificParnership Agreement

Those are key to India Pakistan relations and tradePTJ 12 – Pakistan textile Journal, (‗Textile industry to benefit from open trade between Indiaand Pakistan‖, 04-2012, http://www.ptj.com.pk/Web-2012/04-2012/Editorial.htm)//sawyer

http://www.asianewsnet.net/news-39237.html)/sawyer

http://www.ptj.com.pk/Web-2013/06-2013/PDF-June-2013/Editorial.pdf)/sawyer



http://www.ptj.com.pk/Web-2012/04-2012/Editorial.htm)/sawyer

http://www.ptj.com.pk/Web-2012/04-2012/Editorial.htm)/sawyer



http://www.asianewsnet.net/news-39237.html)/sawyer



Names such as Lakshmi for the spinning industry, Kuster Calico for the finishing industry andBajaj for the ginning industry can offer to Pakistan‘s textile industry the highest technology atreasonable price and short delivery times. Pakistan due to its extremely restrictive trade withIndia could not benefit from Indian machines until two years ago when a large part of spinningmachines were officially allowed except the ring frames. Now complete range of textile machinescan be imported except for a few parts and accessories which are being made in Pakistan and

therefore are given protection. Mr. G.T. Dembla, ex Chairman of Textile MachineryManufacturers Association of India, who has visited Pakistan several times spoke to the editor

PTJ and said that this liberalization of trade will go a long way in improving the

relations between two neighbors India and Pakistan . He said over the years his various

meetings with the government functionaries including ex Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, he

always stressed the importance of trade between India and Pakistan . He is an active

member of ITME India Society the organizers of the textile machinery exhibition ITME heldevery four years. He believes that this year in December, many visitors from Pakistan who visitITME India 2012 will be able to witness first hand the level of high technology for the textileindustry India. Mr. Venkat Reddy, Managing Director of Kuster Calico, was part of a delegationto Pakistan in 2001, fondly remembered his last visit and said that it is an important moment in

history which will bode well for good relations between India and Pakistan. Pakistan also has alot to offer to India and together they can be a formidable force. Mr. Amir Madhani whosecompany, Madhani Associates has been representing Lakshmi Group since 2010, is delighted

with the new developments. According to him finally a complete range of state of theart spinning machines including ring frames will be available for Pakistan‘s textileindustry . Furthermore it will generate a healthy competitive environment which will benefitthe industry by and large. Mr. Amjad Taj Khan, who represents Bajaj, Lakshmi Card Clothingand a number of other Indian textile machinery brands says that it is a very positivedevelopment. Pakistan can now benefit from the R & D of companies, like Bajaj who havedeveloped double roller ginning machines most suitable for the subcontinental cotton. Thistechnology which has replaced obsolete saw gin technology is already proving its worth andIndia is striding ahead in clean and high quality cotton production needed for high value added

textiles.

Relations and trade are key to prevent IndoPak warCSIS 12 – Center for Strategic International Studies, (―Thaw in South Asia: Can Free TradePrevent War?‖, September 26, 2012, http://cogitasia.com/thaw-in-south-asia-can-free-trade-prevent-war/)//sawyer

A cursory Google search using keywords ―free trade,‖ ―prevent,‖ and ―war,‖ reveals a body ofliterature rich on academic studies and scholars attempting to understand the relationship

between the level of economic integration between two countries and the likelihood that saidcountries will engage in armed conflict. Robert Cobden, a 19th century British liberal thinker,

postulated that the ―gains from trade‖ combined with the uncertainty involved with the costs ofarmed conflict incentivizes nations to uphold the peace. Simply put: trade pays more than war.

While the jury is still out on the merits of this argument, those who follow India-Pakistanrelations have reason to root for Mr. Cobden. A recent spate of high-level meetings

between Pakistan and India has produced an impressive array of progress on the economicfront, signaling a step forward in economic interaction between the South Asian neighbors. OnSeptember 7, India‘s Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna met with his Pakistani counterpart, HinaRabbani Khar. While security, terrorism, and border disputes were discussed, the real chatterrevolved around a landmark visa agreement signed by both countries making it easier for

http://cogitasia.com/thaw-in-south-asia-can-free-trade-prevent-war/)/sawyer









in Islamabad.‖ The new push seems, as ever, to be a response to two developments next door. Pakistan was badly spooked by India's deal on civil nuclear power with America, completed in2008. This not only binds America and India closely; it also lets India buy uranium oninternational markets, and probably means it will soon build many more reactors. By onepanicky Pakistani estimate, India could eventually be making 280 nuclear weapons a year. Theother change is over doctrine and delivery. India has long held a position of ―no first use‖ of

nukes. Pakistan, by contrast, with weaker conventional forces, refuses to rule out the option ofstarting a nuclear war against India, and is now taking steps that could make such first use morelikely. Last month it test-fired a new missile, the Hatf IX, with a range of just 60km andspecifically designed for war-fighting. Two missiles are carried in tubes on a transporter and can

be fired, accurately, at short notice. The warheads are small, low-yielding devices for destroyinglarge tank formations with relatively little explosive damage or radiation beyond the battlefield.Pakistan's generals say their new tactical weapons will meet a threat from India's Cold Startdoctrine, adopted in 2004, that calls for rapid, punitive, though conventional thrusts againstPakistan. But by rolling out tactical nuclear weapons, Pakistan is stirring fears of instability.Previous efforts to reassure observers that terrorists or rogue army officers could not get hold ofnukes rested on the fact that warheads and delivery systems were stored separately and weredifficult to fire—and that final authority to launch a strike requires ―consensus‖ within the

National Command Authority, which includes various ministers and the heads of all threeservices, and is chaired by the prime minister. But tactical nuclear weapons deployed close tothe battlefield pose new risks. Command-and-control protocols are likely to be looser and moredelegated. If field officers retreating in the face of a conventional attack by India were forced todecide between using or losing their nuclear weapons, a border incursion could swiftly escalateinto something very much bigger and more lethal.



warming da

The TPP will uniquely accelerate the speed of warming

Vincent 13 – David Vincent University of San Diego School of Law, 2012; B.A., University ofCalifornia, San Diego, 2009, (―THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP: ENVIRONMENTALSAVIOR OR CORPORATE CARTE BLANCHE?‖, July 3, 2013,http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290333)//sawyer

While any increase in trade and production has potential environmental impacts, there areseveral specific environmental areas to which the TPP would particularly effectdue to the current state of affairs of its potential members. Climate change is perhapsthe most serious environmental concern in the 21st century and for TPP members. A November2012 World Bank report predicts that the world temperature will increase by as much as 4ºC by2100 if GHGs continue to rise at current rates.157 This past century has already seen a .8ºCincrease, and while governments have vowed to make efforts to limit the increase to only 2ºC,the report does not believe the proposed global efforts, if enacted, will be effective enough tomeet their goal.158 The current members of NAFTA, Mexico, Canada, and the United States,represent some of the worst offenders for GHG emissions. The three North American countriesare among the top 15 largest emitters of GHGs, and in 2009 the United States alone accountedfor 18.9% of the world‘s emissions.159 The past 20 years has seen emissions increase at analarming rate as GHGs have increased by 17, 26, and 37% in the United States, Canada, andMexico respectively from 1990-2005.160 While the emissions from Asian countries, excludingChina and India, are not nearly as large as the North American countries, their emergingeconomies are expected to produce a very large increase in GHGs over the next couple

decades.161 Climate change is an environmental concern of the TPP because of the

increases of GHGs that are the result of trade liberalization . FTAs usually result in

the increase of exports, which requires increases in production and transportation. According to

one study, trade liberalization leads to an expected increase in exports of 3.36 percent per year, which coincides with an increase of transport emissions and output related emissions

of 3.4 and 4.3 percent per year respectively.162 Considering the TPP covers members that

are separated by the Pacific Ocean, the increase in transport related emissions

could be especially significant as 37 percent of trade-related emissions come from

international transport.163





NAIF CP



NAIF CP – 1nc

The United States federal government should enter into negotiations with Canada and Mexico, seeking

the following:

a North American Plan for Infrastructure and Transportation

the elimination of rules of origin and the establishment of a common external tariff

the establishment of a North American Commission on Regulatory Convergence

the establishment of a fund for North American research centers

The CP solves the aff better and will capture every benefit of the TPP – but sequencing

matters. The CP creates a stronger North American negotiating position for future

trade deals


(Robert A, “North America or Asia? The 21st Century Choice for the United States,” 1/23/12,

http://www.canambusco.org/resources/UofMiamiPerspectives-Pastor-NA_or_Asia-FINAL.pdf)//SJF

Introduction

While the debate on the costs and benefits of globalization continues, the world economy seems

increasingly divided into three regions - a dynamic East Asia, a crisisprone Euro-Zone, and an uninspired

North America. Each region faces formidable challenges, but only North America seems unaware that, at

this time, its future competitiveness depends more on addressing its continental problems than in

relating to the other markets.

At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Hawaii in November 2011, President Barack

Obama sought to hitch the stalled U.S. economy to a growing East Asia. His vehicle is the Trans-Pacific

Partnership (TPP), a free trade proposal with eight small Asian countries. If his purpose is to balance

China or prevent it from dominating Asia economically - both sensible goals - then he's purchased the

wrong car. The TPP won't take us there. Nor will it create American jobs.

If the President Obama wants to double exports and give a positive jolt to the U.S. economy, he should

give priority to forging a seamless market with Canada and Mexico. Though he may be tempted to think

he can do TPP and North America at the same time, he should reflect on the fact that it took eight years

to accomplish a simpler task – free-trade agreements with Panama and Colombia. If, instead, he

embarked on a concerted strategy to deepen integration with Canada and Mexico, he would not only

stimulate the U.S. economy, he would strengthen our region's bargaining power with Asia.

The United States needs to think strategically and sequentially . In a world of three competing regions,

he should draw from the region of our greatest strength - North America - to help the economy, open

Asia and reassume global leadership.

A World of Competing Regions

Together, East Asia, Europe and North America constitute about 80 percent of the world's product and

trade, and most trade occurs within each region rather than between them. Even in an age of

globalization, proximity matters.

During the past 15 years, the regions have performed somewhat differently than most people think.

Parts of East Asia have achieved the highest growth rates, but as a whole, the region's share of world

product declined from 25 percent to 22 percent. The European Union's share increased from 26 percent

to 28 percent. Most surprising, the gross product of the three countries of North America soared from



30 percent of the world in 1994, as NAFTA was implemented, to 36 percent in 2001. Since then, it has

declined to 29 percent, but it remains the largest economic bloc of the three.

Faced with the most urgent crisis, the European Union has taken the boldest, most long-term approach.

Instead of fragmenting or retreating to unilateralism, the region is forging a fiscal union that will

discipline its members' budgets while investing in the region's future. When faced with a financial crisis

in 1997, Asia assembled a stabilization fund and began negotiating free-trade agreements within the

region.

In contrast to Europe and Asia, the leaders of North America took a few timid steps toward constructing

an edifice on a NAFTA base, and then they retreated. In 2005, President Bush and his Mexican and

Canadian counterparts proposed a "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP). The SPP contained a

broad set of goals to harmonize regulations, improve border efficiency and deepen integration using

dozens of interbureaucratic working groups. When the SPP was criticized by the right for undermining

U.S. sovereignty, and by the left for being too solicitous of business at the expense of workers, Bush lost

interest in it. In 2008, with SPP languishing, the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks stalled and Asia

negotiating regional agreements, Bush's Trade Negotiator Susan Schwab joined representatives of four

small open economies that were negotiating the TPP. Neither the TPP nor the SPP flourished, and when

President Obama was inaugurated, he discarded the SPP, put the TPP in limbo, and placed trade policy

in the deep freeze.After the Republicans won the House of Representatives in 2010, Obama rediscovered the need for a

trade policy and negotiated a compromise with Congress to approve the Panama, Colombia and South

Korean free-trade agreements with a trade adjustment assistance package. Then, as host of the APEC

Summit, the president decided to retrieve the TPP and feature it as the meeting's crowning

achievement.

Unfortunately, the policy seems to be driven more by headlines – the rise of China and the fall in jobs –

than by a systematic assessment as to which strategy – TPP or economic integration in North America –

was more likely to help the American economy. There is no evidence that the Administration ever did

such an analysis. If it had, it would have learned that it over-estimated the TPP and under-estimated

North America.

Four of the eight TPP countries – Singapore, Australia, Peru and Chile – already have free tradeagreements with the United States. The other four – Brunei, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Vietnam –

have very small economies. All eight countries have a combined gross product of about one-seventh of

Canada and Mexico.

What is the TPP? Michael Froman, the deputy national security advisor for economic affairs, who was

formerly with Citigroup and has played a leading role in the Obama Administration in giving priority to

Asia and the TPP over North and Latin America, called the TPP "among the most important and historic

developments in international trade in recent years."1 He described the TPP's "unique" qualities as

being "comprehensive," meaning it would eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers; address cross-cutting

issues, like regulations and the digital economy; and encourage competitiveness, development, and

small business. Of course, these qualities are not unique to TPP; they are part of NAFTA and other free-

trade agreements. The TPP would be the first U.S. trade agreement with Asian-Pacific countries, and it

would be unique if it eliminated all trade barriers without exceptions, but that is a dubious proposition.

On the eve of the November 2011 APEC Summit in Hawaii, Japan said it wanted to consult about

participating in the negotiations on TPP, and Mexico and Canada followed with a similar announcement.

Japan is probably trying to keep one foot on both sides of the Pacific, and Canada and Mexico are trying

to defend what they had gained from NAFTA. Including these countries will undoubtedly slow down the

negotiating process and could preclude an agreement. Japan and Canada would have to dismantle very

high barriers on agriculture, as would the United States, but it is doubtful that any of them could

overcome the pressures of their farm lobbies, particularly if Europe shows no interest in reciprocating.



If the TPP’s purpose is to put pressure on China to open its market, that won’t work for four reasons.

Some of the TPP provisions pressed by the United States, e.g., on government procurement and

neutralizing state-owned enterprises, are aimed at China, which will not accommodate Washington.

Second, the United States is already open to Chinese goods, and so why would China change these

policies in exchange for what it already has? Third, the other eight countries are very small and also

open to China.

And fourth, one week after the APEC Summit, China joined Japan and South Korea to announce steps to

expedite a free-trade agreement among themselves and with the ASEAN countries. In brief, China

already trumped the United States.

The North American Option

In trying to explain to his fellow Americans the importance of APEC, Obama noted that 61 percent of all

U.S. exports are sent to these twenty-one countries. He neglected, however, to mention that more than

half of that goes to just two countries – Canada and Mexico. Few Americans realize that the two largest

markets for U.S. goods are not China and Japan, but Canada and Mexico.

Moreover, the expansion of trade with our neighbors has a more favorable impact on the U.S. economy

because a much larger portion of our imports from them are actually composed of our exports to them.

Both Mexico and Canada have become very open economies. As they grow – and both have grown

faster than the United States in the last two years – our exports grow. In 2010, the United Statesexported almost three times as much to Canada as to China and almost two times as much to Mexico as

to China.

Our total trade with our two neighbors in 2010 exceeded $1 trillion – 30 percent more than with China

and Japan. More importantly, the best markets to expand U.S. exports are not in Asia but with our

neighbors. For every additional dollar that our neighbors buy from abroad, about 80 cents are spent on

U.S. exports, and for every additional dollar that we import from our neighbors, a large proportion –

over 40 percent – is actually our exports to them. We no longer just trade products; we make them

together.

Unawareness of our neighbors’ importance may explain why the Obama administration chose the TPP

over North America, and it may also explain why President Obama proposed a “Buy American” provision

in his jobs bill in 2009. That was a violation of NAFTA, and after negotiating for more than a year with

Canada to change the provision, the president repeated the same mistake in the summer of 2011 with

his second jobs bill. If the president understood the importance of Canada and Mexico, he would have

proposed a “Buy North American” provision, and instead of a U.S. Infrastructure Fund, he would have

suggested a “North American Infrastructure Fund.” Both of those provisions would do more to stimulate

the U.S. economy and create jobs than TPP.

North America was a formidable region by 2001, just seven years after NAFTA. By then, trade tripled

among the three countries, the number of U.S. jobs expanded at historic rates, and the region’s share of

the world product increased from 30 percent to 36 percent. However, rather than move forward on a

new, more complex agenda, the three governments turned their attention elsewhere. By 2009, the

growth in trade and investment among the three countries of North America declined by more than

half, and North America’s share of the world product dropped. In retrospect, North America peaked in 2001 because of new security-related barriersinstalled at the

border because of 9/11, Chinese commercial power and a lack of investment in infrastructure. But the

main reason is the lack of imagination and leadership of the three leaders of the United States, Canada

and Mexico. Rather than negotiating a common approach to the North American agenda, the three

governments reverted to unequal and ineffective dual-bilateralism, with the United States negotiating

the same issues separately with Canada and Mexico.



The United States and Canada issued "Action Plans" on the border and on regulatory convergence on

December 8, 2011. A week later, the United States and Mexico issued a similar plan on the border, and

they will issue a similar plan on regulations in a month. The truth is that the plans are actually "Inaction

Plans," or rather, they set terms of reference for numerous studies on the two subjects to be completed

at the end of 2012. Secondly, the plans with Canada are quite similar to those with Mexico, except that

Mexico's plan includes some specific decisions on expansion of border crossings and facilities, and the

Canadian plan omits any reference to the most important and longest-lasting border problem, the need

for a second bridge between Windsor and Detroit. Instead of duplicating their work, U.S. officials would

have used their time more efficiently if they had forged a continental approach to similar or shared

problems. To make the U.S. more competitive with Asia, we need to change the conventional paradigm

of "North America." We need to think "North American" rather than "Buy American." Instead of altering

our tax policies to encourage investment in the United States, we should promote investments in the

continent. If we shift "our mind's eye," as Albert Einstein once put it, new opportunities in North

America will open, but there are also a few steps that we could take that would put us on the right road:

• The three transport ministers of Canada, the United States and Mexico should negotiate a North

American Plan for Infrastructure and Transportation – to create new trade corridors that would extend

from Canada to the south of Mexico, building roads and communications that would strengthen the

region's economies and commerce. This would be the centerpiece of a true continental market.• The three leaders should eliminate costly "rules of origin" – an inefficient tax estimated at over $500

million per year – and establish a common external tariff. The common revenues should then be used to

establish a "North American Investment Fund," whose principal goal would be to fund, with

supplements from the three governments, the North American Plan for Infrastructure and

Transportation.

• The three governments should establish several lean institutions, including a North American

Commission on Regulatory Convergence; a North American Advisory Group that would do research and

provide options for the three governments to improve competitiveness and security in North America;

and a North American Inter-Parliamentary Committee (combining the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican

Parliamentary Committees) to ensure that the elected representatives of the three countries are

consulted at every stage of the process.• The three leaders should provide scholarships for students to study in each others’ countries and a

small, annual fund of $10 million to support North American research centers. These Centers could

provide ideas and education to counter fears and erroneous information and to build interest in a North

American community.



AT: Permutation

Doing both consumes diplomatic capital and is functionally impossible – the

negotiations will collapse if the US pursues too much

Pastor 8 – professor and director of the Center for North American Studies at American University(Robert A, “North America or Asia? The 21st Century Choice for the United States,” 1/23/12,


The three leaders have shown little imagination or even interest in dealing with a continental agenda

that would regain the growth we lost. The duplicative committees that they have set up measure

progress in the amount of travel and the number of meetings that they hold rather than in results.

Some might argue that the United States should pursue both the TPP and a North American initiative at

the same time, but the fact that it took eight years for the United States to ratify free-trade agreements

with Colombia and Panama suggests there is a limit of political capital and administration attention . It

would be ideal to do both, but the politics preclude it. The decision to pursue the TPP will divert scarce

political capital and attention from North America, and to do anything significant on North America

will also require a major political effort by all three countries. So the leaders need to choose . If the

question is which strategy will generate the most jobs in the United States and make the U.S. and its

neighbors more competitive, North America should be the option.

Sequencing is vital – doing the TPP first diverts focus from North American integration

and means the CP’s negotiations will fail

Barry 5/2 – directs the TransBorder Project at CIP, the author of numerous books on U.S.-Latin

America relations (Tom, “Changing Perspectives on U.S.-Mexico Relations,” TransBorder Project Policy

Report, 5/2/13, https://nacla.org/news/2013/5/2/changing-perspectives-us-mexico-relations)//SJF

Economic Integration

Both presidents will likely commit their governments to facilitating cross-border commerce and

improving the infrastructure necessary for vibrant, profitable trade and investment. That’s important,

but Obama and Peña Nieto will be remiss if they do not first situate their discussion about economic

integration within the context of the entire region.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994 fell far short of delivering the broadly

shared economic development and employment gains promised by its promoters. It was little more than

a trade and investment agreement, whose labor and environmental side accords and associated

institutions had little enforcement power and limited reach. Even before NAFTA, the economies of

Canada, United States, and Mexico were increasing their structural integration not just in trade but also

in such now highly integrated sectors as energy resources, electricity, agriculture, and manufacturing

(including highly integrated automotive and aviation production). Since 1994 regional trade has tripled

and foreign investment increased six times. Mexico is the second largest importer of U.S. goods,

following Canada; moreover, the United States is by far the leading market for Mexican exports.

Both Mexico and the United States are currently engaged in another economic liberalization initiative

called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), involving more than a dozen other nations, mostly Asian but

also including Chile and Canada. Many of the concerns and criticisms about the corporate-driven

character of NAFTA are also highly relevant to the TPP negotiations. However, the main problem of the





2nc CP solves top level

The CP establishes a North American negotiating bloc that makes subsequent trade

deals negotiable on more favorable economic terms – solves every aff advantagebetter than the TPP

Pastor 13 – Professor and Founding Director of the Center for North American Studies, American

University (Robert A, “Shortcut to U.S. Economic Competitiveness: A Seamless North American Market,”

Policy Innovation Memorandum No. 29, http://www.cfr.org/north-america/shortcut-us-economic-

competitiveness-seamless-north-american-market/p30132)//SJF

In looking abroad to promote economic growth, the United States need go no further than its two

closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico. But the three governments have failed to pursue collaborative

efforts to address a new generation of issues that were not anticipated by the 1994 North American

Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Instead of tackling new transnational problems such as regulatory

harmonization together, the United States and its neighbors reverted to old habits of bilateral, ad hocnegotiations. Instead of forging a unified competitiveness strategy toward the European Union and East

Asia, each government has negotiated on its own. The three North American governments should create

a seamless market, one in which it is as easy and cheap for a Chicago merchant to sell products in

Monterrey as in San Francisco. This requires negotiating a common external tariff, eliminating

restrictions on transportation and services, funding new continental infrastructure, and fostering a

sense of community among the publics of the three countries that will also enhance the region's

influence in negotiations with Asia and Europe. One estimate suggests that the benefits to the three

countries would exceed $400 billion.

The Case For a North American Market

With rising competitive pressures from overseas and weak growth at home, the quickest external route

to economic recovery and enhanced competitiveness is to stretch the U.S. market to include 113 million

Mexicans and 34 million Canadians. The Obama administration has made it a priority to complete the

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with Asia and has announced its intention to launch a new U.S.-European

Union Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. But the administration has neglected its two

neighbors despite the fact that their combined product is more than six times that of other TPP

countries and that U.S. exports to them exceed those to the EU. Mexico and Canada are already the

United States' two largest export markets, its two largest sources of energy imports, and in the case of

Mexico, the largest source of immigrants. The three countries also make products together. Unlike U.S.

trade with most other countries, roughly 25 to 40 percent of the value of U.S. imports from Canada and

Mexico comes from components made in the United States, and then assembled into finished goods in

one of the two countries. Closer integration would translate into a more efficient supply chain and

improved competitiveness. With labor costs in China rising to those in Mexico, and the cost of

transportation across the Pacific increasing, a North American supply chain is not only more efficientthan an Asian route, but it could also become a strong export platform to Asia. Moreover, if the United

States seeks a unified approach to trade negotiations with Mexico and Canada, Asia and Europe will

recognize that Washington has other options, and prospects for concluding transpacific and

transatlantic trade deals would likely improve . For example, in the 1990s, world trade talks were

stalemated until NAFTA was signed.



The NAIF will expand trade with Asia and get China on board – it provides a better

model for global trade than the plan


(Robert A, “North America or Asia? The 21st Century Choice for the United States,” 1/23/12,


A North American Strategy to Asia

The best path to freer trade in China and Asia is, paradoxically, for the United States to start in North

America and create jobs and double exports by collaborating on transportation, education and

infrastructure.

A reinvigorated North America is more likely to get China’s attention, just as NAFTA in the 1990s

persuaded Europe and Japan to complete world trade talks. Moreover, if the three governments of the

United States, Canada and Mexico, representing three levels of power and development in the world,

decide to approach China together on issues related to currency, unfair trade practices and climate

change, North America has a far better chance of success than if each nation pursues each issue on its

own.

The United States was able to play the role of world leader in the Second World War because PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt had spent the previous eight years repairing U.S. relations with Latin America with

his "Good Neighbor Policy." By the time he dispatched U.S. Armed Forces to Europe and Asia, the United

States was not just secure in its hemisphere, but Mexico and Brazil decided to fight alongside our troops.

The world is different today. We are not fighting over territory; we are seeking ways to compete for

markets using global rules. But one important thread of continuity is that our ability to project power

depends on the security that comes from having friendly and supportive neighbors. In the global

economic contest, we need a modern partnership with Canada and Mexico in order to achieve

economies of scale at the continental level.

America's choice in the 21st Century is not Asia or North America; it is a choice of strategy and

sequence. We should start in North America and build a Community that will benefit not just our three

countries but provide us leverage in Asia and a model for a better world.

It solves every advantage substantially better than TPP integration

Pastor 12 - professor and director of the Center for North American Studies at American University(Robert, “Beyond the Continental Divide”, The American Interest, July/August 2012, http://www.the-american-

interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1269)//WL

Asia or North America The global economy seems increasingly divided into three main regions: a dynamic East

Asian zone, a crisis-prone eurozone and a semi-conscious North America. Each region faces formidable challenges,

but only North America seems unaware that its future competitiveness depends more on addressing its

internal challenges than in gaining access to the others’ markets. Taken together, these three regions constitute 80

percent of the world’s product and trade, and more trade passes within each region than between them. A study of 348 of the largest

multinational corporations in the world found that 154 firms were North American, with 75 percent of their sales in North America; 127 wereEuropean, with 64 percent of their sales in Europe, and 67 firms were based in Asia, with 76 percent of their sales in that region.1

Globalization is not as important as regionalism. Just as the ability of the United States to project power

abroad depends in part on the security of its North American base, so too can U.S.-based multinationals

extend their reach into Asia and Europe backed by the power of the largest market in the world. The

United States is the single largest national market, but the combined gross national products of Canada

($1.6 trillion) and Mexico ($1 trillion) would rank them the fifth largest economy . Combined with the United States, in

2010 the three had a nominal GDP of $17.1 trillion—larger than the $16.2 trillion of the 27-nation European



Union.2 Over the past 15 years, the regions have performed somewhat differently than most people think. Parts of East Asia have achieved

the highest growth rates, but as a whole the region’s share of world product declined from 25 percent to 22 percent. The European Union’s

share improved from 26 percent to 28 percent. Most surprising, the gross product of the three countries of North America soared from 29.5

percent of the world in 1994, when NAFTA began, to 36 percent in 2001. Since then, it has declined to 29 percent, but it remains the largest of

the three. Faced with the most urgent crisis, the European Union has taken the boldest, most long-term approach. Instead of fragmenting or

retreating to unilateralism, the region is trying to forge a fiscal union that will discipline its members’ budgets while investing in the region’s

future. Whether the EU succeeds at this remains to be seen, but no one can gainsay the effort. When faced with a financial crisis in 1997, Asia

assembled a stabilization fund and is now negotiating a free-trade agreement among the ASEAN countries and the three principal economies ofChina, Japan and South Korea. By contrast, the three nations of North America took separate paths after the deep

recession of 2008. Each pursued its own infrastructure strategies and policies. The United States insisted on a “Buy

American” policy and an independent approach to the auto industry, though most cars in the United States are literally North American, being

assembled with parts from all three countries. Lily Tomlin, the Canadian comedienne, once quipped, “Together, we are in this

alone.” That applies to North America. Successive U.S. administrations have chosen to duplicate their

work by addressing the same issues with each neighbor separately rather than addressing them more

effectively together. At the same time, the United States has been chasing a phantom in East Asia . At the APEC

Summit in November 2011, the Obama Administration put its weight behind the “Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement” (TPP), a free-

trade agreement with eight countries whose combined gross product is a mere one-seventh that of

Canada and Mexico. Of course, the TPP is not a trade strategy , or at least not a serious one. Its real purpose is to

prevent China from unifying the Asian economy because it includes provisions—for example, on state-owned

operating enterprises—that China cannot accept. But that TPP strategy was pre-empted within a week of theAPEC Summit when China, Japan and South Korea joined the ASEAN countries in free-trade talks.

Whatever its actual purpose, a TPP is likely to take a long time to negotiate and yield comparatively little in

terms of additional trade. Moreover, like all trade agreements, the Administration would have to invest time and considerable

political capital to get it approved by Congress. That would be a waste of political capital compared to the North American alternative. Just

do the math: U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico in 2010 exceeded $1 trillion , 30 percent more than

trade with China and Japan. More importantly, the best markets to expand U.S. exports are not in Asia but

with our immediate neighbors. For every additional dollar that Canada and Mexico buy from abroad,

more than eighty cents are U.S. exports, and for every additional dollar we import from our neighbors, a

large proportion—about forty cents—is actually composed of our exports to them. In other words, the balance

of trade is less important with our neighbors than the overall volume, since our production and marketing arrangements are already so

intertwined. The opposite is true of our trade with Asia.

The best strategy to compete against China, double ourexports and invigorate our economy is to deepen economic integration with our neighbors and to do it

together rather than apart. Unfortunately, the latter approach has prevailed since NAFTA. The three leaders

mostly meet one-on-one in separate bilateral forums. The three North American leaders met as a group in Guadalajara in August 2009 and

pledged to meet annually, but they missed the next two years. On April 2, 2012, Obama hosted Harper and Calderon in Washington. Their

“Joint Statement” emphasized “deep economic, historical, cultural, environmental, and societal ties”, but their initiatives remained packaged in

two separate bilateral compartments.

The CP is a prerequisite to effective economic development and trade

Barry 5/7 – senior policy analyst at the Center for International Policy and director of CIP's

TransBorder Project (Tom, “Changing Perspectives on U.S.-Mexico Relations,” 5/7/13,

http://www.ciponline.org/research/entry/changing-perspectives-on-us-mexico-relations-article)//SJF

Economic Integration

Both presidents will likely commit their governments to facilitating cross-border commerce and

improving the infrastructure necessary for vibrant, profitable trade and investment. That’s important,

but Obama and Peña Nieto will be remiss if they do not first situate their discussion about economic

integration within the context of the entire region.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994 fell far short of delivering the broadly

shared economic development and employment gains promised by its promoters. It was little more than



a trade and investment agreement, whose labor and environmental side accords and associated

institutions had little enforcement power and limited reach. Even before NAFTA, the economies of

Canada, United States, and Mexico were increasing their structural integration not just in trade but also

in such now highly integrated sectors as energy resources, electricity, agriculture, and manufacturing

(including highly integrated automotive and aviation production). Since 1994 regional trade has tripled

and foreign investment increased six times. Mexico is the second largest importer of U.S. goods,

following Canada; moreover, the United States is by far the leading market for Mexican exports.

Both Mexico and the United States are currently engaged in another economic liberalization initiative

called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), involving more than a dozen other nations, mostly Asian but

also including Chile and Canada. Many of the concerns and criticisms about the corporate-driven

character of NAFTA are also highly relevant to the TPP negotiations. However, the main problem of the

new, Asia-oriented focus of U.S. and Mexican trade/investment initiatives is the failure to appreciate,

leverage, and improve the highly integrated North American economy. The Obama and Peña Nieto trade

teams should recognize the mutual benefits of including Canada in talks about smart borders, trade

infrastructure, educational visas, security perimeters, immigration, and further economic liberalization—

as should the Canadian government.

Presidents Obama and Peña Nieto should embrace the concept—and the reality—of a North American

community (a concept heralded by Robert Pastor and other scholars and visionary policy analysts)shaped by demographic trends and economic integration. Whether structured or not by new regulations

and institutions, the emergence of a North American community is evident in existence of some 30

million Mexican Americans in the United States.

The NAFTA institutions such as the North American Development Bank and the North American

Commission for Environmental Cooperation as well as such important bilateral initiatives as Border 2020

(which emerged from the 1983 La Paz environmental agreement) should not be left to wither away, but

seized upon as the building blocks of a more sustainable regional community that extends beyond

economic liberalization. Such institutions are among the first steps of recognizing and shaping the south-

north community. Focusing on Asia is looking away from our own region’s complementarity and

common future.

Both governments will surely point to fundamental importance of the two nations as trading partners.Yet the trade and investment numbers fall far short in defining the identity, advantages, and challenges

of the U.S.-Mexico relationship. More than economic partners, the United States and Mexico are next-

door neighbors and all that this proximity implies for the future welfare of both nations. Governance

measures on such issues as energy, environmental standards, immigration flows, weapons, illegal drugs,

and labor standards need to follow and shape economic integration. If there is to be a sustainable North

American community, the framework of economic integration must necessarily address the stark

regional imbalances in Mexico’s economic growth and development—with Mexico’s southern states left

further and further behind. Similarly, cheaper consumer goods made possible by liberalized trade and

investment do not compensate for stagnation of Mexican wages—averaging just over $2 an hour.

Not to be missed is the growing militancy of teachers, students, and agricultural workers in southern

Mexico, which was the defining theme of the May 1 marches in Mexico City and elsewhere. Casting a

long shadow over the summit will be the intensifying teacher-led protests over the federal reforms of

labor and education policy. Centered in Mexico’s poorest southern states, especially Guerrero, the anti-

government opposition is protesting the labor, energy, and education reforms of the Peña Nieto

government and the Pact for Mexico, which has brought together Mexico’s leading political parties over

a package of long-overdue reforms.



2nc – Mexico/Canada say yes

Mexico and Canada will say yes to the CP if Obama leads on it

Pastor 13 – Professor and Founding Director of the Center for North American Studies, AmericanUniversity (Robert A, “Shortcut to U.S. Economic Competitiveness: A Seamless North American Market,”

Policy Innovation Memorandum No. 29, http://www.cfr.org/north-america/shortcut-us-economic-

competitiveness-seamless-north-american-market/p30132)//SJF

Where NAFTA Went Astray

North America was on track to create a competitive market in the 1990s. The most rapid job expansion

in recent U.S. history occurred between 1993 and 2001. This coincided with the onset of NAFTA and the

end of most trade and investment barriers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Trade

tripled and foreign direct investment grew fivefold. But 2001 proved to be a turning point for North

America just as the outlines of a continental market were becoming visible. Growth in trade has since

declined by two-thirds and foreign investment by half.

There are multiple causes for the decline. China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) and

rapidly expanded its exports to all three countries in North America. Post-9/11 restrictions significantly

raised the cost of moving products back and forth across North American borders. There has been little

investment in common infrastructure, resulting in long wait times at borders and slower movement of

commercial goods. But the main cause was simply the failure of leaders in the three countries to build

on NAFTA's foundation and create a seamless market.

Deepening North American integration is more productive than widening it to add more free trade

agreements (FTAs), but it will require the United States to address numerous domestic issues with its

neighbors. Regulatory requirements should be meshed so as to eliminate trade protection while also

ensuring safety and environmental concerns. National infrastructure grids—roads, railroads, electricity,

and natural gas pipelines—should be built and connected. Repetitive and unnecessary border

inspections should be eliminated. Labor market needs should be addressed on a continental basis.Toward a Seamless North American Market

To invigorate the three economies and forge a higher level of competitiveness, the North American

governments should undertake the following measures:

Build public support for a shared vision. North American leaders should say clearly that economic

progress depends on closer collaboration. The three leaders should speak often of the common North

American vision and community and bring it to life with symbolic steps —such as a "Buy North American"

ad campaign, instead of "Buy American." There should be more educational exchanges and support for

North American research centers.

Negotiate a common external tariff. This would permit products to cross North American borders

without any customs forms, inspection, or duty. Current "rules of origin" requirements mandate that

goods must contain a certain level of North American content to qualify for NAFTA tariff preferences,which slows commerce and costs consumers billions of dollars.

Review and eliminate all restrictions in transportation and services. The U.S. government violated NAFTA

for more than fifteen years by prohibiting Mexican trucks from entering the United States. Although the

U.S. government finally relented last year after WTO rulings, Mexican shippers are reluctant to upgrade

their equipment without assurance that these barriers are gone for good. Other barriers include

cabotage, which prevents trucks from depositing and acquiring cargo at different points on long

journeys, and the Jones Act, which subsidizes American maritime transportation. In addition, while the





2nc – NAIF solves Latin America

The CP creates an effective model for expanding trade with Latin America


(Robert A, “North America or Asia? The 21st Century Choice for the United States,” 1/23/12,http://www.canambusco.org/resources/UofMiamiPerspectives-Pastor-NA_or_Asia-FINAL.pdf)//SJF

What about Latin or Central America or the Caribbean? The truth is that North America already

constitutes a coherent economic entity representing 90 percent of the hemisphere's economy and 87

percent of the trade. South America is fractured in terms of ideology and trade patterns. If the three

countries of North America can find a strategy that lifts Mexico to the first world economically, then

together, they should apply that same formula to Central America and the Caribbean as two units rather

than more than twenty countries. If that also succeeds, South America will be knocking on the door, and

the Free Trade of the Americas can be resurrected. If North America cannot succeed in Mexico, then the

model will not be attractive to the rest of the region.

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