Help Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement - NAFTA On Steroids

My name is Lacey Kohlmoos and I am the Sr. Field Organizer for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. Did you know that one of the worst threats to human rights and justice is a so-called free trade agreement that is being decided right now by trade negotiators and corporations behind closed doors, shutting out civil society, citizens, the press, and even Members of Congress!

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement is about to enter its 16th major round of negotiations on March 4th and the American people still know close to nothing about what the US negotiators are promising in our names. Closed-door talks are going on between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam – with countries like Japan and China potentially joining later. 600 corporate advisors have access to the text, while the public, Members of Congress, journalists, and civil society are excluded.

Based on all we’ve been able to discover about the TPP, what's in there is very scary! U.S. negotiators are pushing proposals that not only replicate the worst of past damaging trade deals, but have championed outrageous new corporate-favored terms that would:

• Offshore millions of American jobs,

• Ban Buy America policies needed to create green jobs and rebuild our economy,

• Decrease access to medicine,

• Flood the US with unsafe products and goods,

• Curtail internet freedom a la SOPA,

• Create a “race to the bottom” and undermine human rights in developing countries,

• Free the banksters from oversight, and

• Empower corporations to attack environmental and health safeguards.

We need to make sure that the TPP prioritizes human rights, safeguards

environmental reforms, preserves access to affordable medicine, protects food

sovereignty, allows for robust financial regulations, respects local

development goals, safeguards against currency manipulation, lifts consumer

safety standards on food, and does not elevate corporations to equal terms

with governments. For more information about the TPP, see the attached

documents or visit our website at www.citizen.org/tpp.

Please join Public Citizen, Citizen Trade Campaign, Peace Action, Americans

for Democratic Action, Peace House, Witness for Peace, and the Interfaith

Council for Peace and Justice, and over 130 other organizations in signing on

to the letter at

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CgI9_fpv1hhU3vz0R2v-_uwyx7wysWe9nJH_xq67dK0/viewform.

We also ask that you help us spread the word and forward this letter on to

your affiliates, partners, and friends. It is imperative that Members of

Congress know that only through robust oversight and public participation

will the TPP become a trade policy that works for all. We cannot afford

another job-killing, unsafe-import-flooding, democracy-crushing NAFTA-style

trade deal.

Best,

Lacey