Fast Track is not just a path to TPP … it’s evil all on its own. There’s now another leaked “trade” deal, called TISA, and Fast Track will “fast-track” that one too. Want your municipal water service privatized? How about your government postal service? Read on.

Most of the coverage of the Fast Track bill (formally called “Trade Promotion Authority” or TPA) moving through Congress is about how it will “grease the skids” for passage of TPP, the “next NAFTA” trade deal with 11 other Pacific rim countries. But as we pointed out here, TPA will grease the skids for anything the President sends to Congress as a “trade” bill — anything.

One of the “trade” deals being negotiated now, which only the wonks have heard about, is called TISA, or Trade In Services Agreement. Fast Track legislation, if approved, will grease the TISA skids as well.

Why do you care? Because (a) TISA is also being negotiated in secret, like TPP; (b) TISA chapters have been recently leaked by Wikileaks; and (c) what’s revealed in those chapters should have Congress shutting the door on Fast Track faster and tighter than you’d shut the door on an invading army of rats headed for your apartment.

Congress won’t shut that door on its own — the rats in this metaphor have bought most of its members — but it should. So it falls to us to force them. Stop Fast Track and you stop all these “trade” deals. (Joseph Stiglitz will explain below why I keep putting “trade” in quotes.)

What’s TISA? It’s worse than TPP. As you read the following, keep the word “services” in mind. TISA protects the right of big money players to make a profit from “services,” any and all of them.

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TISA Will Make It Almost Impossible for Governments to Regulate Services

The problem with TISA? One is that it will make regulation of service activity — including financial services — almost impossible. Michael McAuliff at Huffington Post:

Wikileaks Drops Another Damning Trove Of Secret Trade Deal Documents

The latest trove of secret trade documents released by Wikileaks is offering opponents of the massive deals currently being crafted by the Obama administration more fodder to show that such agreements can impact United States laws and regulations.

The latest leak purports to include 17 documents from negotiations on the Trade In Services Agreement, a blandly named trade deal that would cover the United States, the European Union and more than 20 other countries. More than 80 percent of the United States economy is in service sectors.

According to the Wikileaks release, TISA, as the deal is known, would take a major step towards deregulating financial industries, and could affect everything from local maritime and air traffic rules to domestic regulations on almost anything if an internationally traded service is involved.

Leaked TISA documents include chapters on:

Air transport services
Competitive delivery services
Domestic regulations
Electronic commerce
International maritime transport services
Movement of natural persons
Professional services
Telecommunications services
Financial services
Transparency

and I’m not sure that’s the complete set. It’s just what we have in this release.


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On the Wrong Side of Globalization

… In general, trade deals today are markedly different from those made in the decades following World War II, when negotiations focused on lowering tariffs. As tariffs came down on all sides, trade expanded, and each country could develop the sectors in which it had strengths and as a result, standards of living would rise. Some jobs would be lost, but new jobs would be created.

Today, the purpose of trade agreements is different. Tariffs around the world are already low. The focus has shifted to “nontariff barriers,” and the most important of these — for the corporate interests pushing agreements — are regulations. Huge multinational corporations complain that inconsistent regulations make business costly. But most of the regulations, even if
they are imperfect, are there for a reason: to protect workers, consumers, the economy and the environment.

What’s more, those regulations were often put in place by governments responding to the democratic demands of their citizens. Trade agreements’ new boosters euphemistically claim that they are simply after regulatory harmonization, a clean-sounding phrase that implies an innocent plan to promote efficiency. One could, of course, get regulatory harmonization by strengthening regulations to the highest standards everywhere. But when corporations call for harmonization, what they really mean is a race to the bottom.

A race to the bottom of what? The least regulation — governmental interference in profit-seeking — that they can get away with. These deals really are just about the money.



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International agreements like TISA are important tools in an expanded power grab by the hyper-wealthy people who buy and benefit from our elections, and government negotiators are their agents. The only disagreements at the negotiating table involve which country’s predator (Nestlé, say) gets to eat which other country’s prey (water rights in Oregon, for example). “Trade” agreements empower the predators under color of law.

Fast Track Is Evil All On Its Own

Your bottom line — if Fast Track passes, anything that any President can present to Congress as a “trade deal,” for the next three to six years, will almost certainly pass. Fast Track forces the legislative calendar (no delays), forbids filibusters and amendments, and allows just up-or-down votes.

TPP, TTIP (a trans-Atlantic agreement also called TAFTA) and TISA all fall under the “Fast Track” umbrella. But I guarantee, if Fast Track passes, there will be more deals like these. Fast Track is a golden opportunity, and those who love gold, or serve those who do — that’s you, Nancy Pelosi — will put it to very good use.

Pentagon Chief Backs TPP, Warns 'Time's Running Out'
_{4 jun 2015}

Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter on Monday urged Congress to give President Barack Obama the authority to complete the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, warning that “time’s running out”.

Despite the wide-ranging effects on the global population, the TPP is currently being negotiated in total secrecy by 12 countries. Few people, even within the negotiating countries' governments, have access to the full text of the draft agreement and the public, who it will affect most, none at all. Large corporations, however, are able to see portions of the text, generating a powerful lobby to effect changes on behalf of these groups and bringing developing country members reduced force, while the public at large gets no say.


Today, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, which covers 50 countries and 68.2%1 of world trade in services. The US and the EU are the main proponents of the agreement, and the authors of most joint changes, which also covers cross-border data flow. In a significant anti-transparency manoeuvre by the parties, the draft has been classified to keep it secret not just during the negotiations but for five years after the TISA enters into force.

Despite the failures in financial regulation evident during the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis and calls for improvement of relevant regulatory structures2, proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets. The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt – into other nations by preventing regulatory barriers. The leaked draft also shows that the US is particularly keen on boosting cross-border data flow, which would allow uninhibited exchange of personal and financial data.

Citaat:

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door morte-vivante (Bericht 7683617) het is godverdomme schandalig dat wikileaks deze documenten moet vrijgeven, ipv de overheid die zijn burgers informeert, en feedback vraagt aan zijn burgers, want de overheid vertegenwoordigt toch zijn burgers, right? TISA-onderhandelingen: voor alle duidelijkheid, dit staat onafhankelijk van TTIP en TTP. TISA onderhandelingen gaan over services (itt TTIP, die gaat over goederen), en zeer belangrijk, het gaat ook het internet globaal reguleren. Deze onderhandelingen zijn zelfs nog belangrijker voor ons als burger, aangezien onze economie geëvolueerd is naar een diensteneconomie, en de impact van deze deal gigantisch gaat zijn. Wikileaks releases ‘largest’ trove of docs exposing secret TiSA trade deal TISA: Yet Another Leaked Treaty You've Never Heard Of Makes Secret Rules for the Internet WikiLeaks releases secret TISA docs: The more evil sibling of TTIP and TPP spread the word!