Momentum Against TTIP

Jonathan Lindsell writes:

Lord Livingston, trade minister, has attempted todiffuse criticism of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), the planned deal between the EU and USA.

The former BT chief executive belittled opposition, labelling the protest movement misguided and driven by ‘anti-American sentiment’.

Next the minister claimed the deal could bring up to £400 to each household. Of course, this is the upper estimate, and only for 2027.

If this was a cost-free boon nobody would be complaining. Plenty of people are complaining that TTIP threatens education, the NHS, environment and labour rights.

There are three dangers, firstly that TTIP is harmonising regulations to one ‘very high standard’ (Livingston) without democratic input or means for reform.

Open competition on an uneven playing field is the second, and third is the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism (ISDS) which lets foreign investors sue governments that pass laws which threaten profits in secret courts.

Being sued itself isn’t the worry – the fear is that US multinationals will use the threat of ISDS to dissuade parliament from passing publicly-supported laws, e.g. on fracking. Livingston didn’t mention Philip Morris, the American ‘Big Tobacco’ company that’s already menacing Britain with an £11bn lawsuit over plain cigarette packaging plans.

Philip Morris earlier used ISDS against Australia in similar circumstances. Australia won but, along with South Africa, no longer agrees to trade agreements with ISDS clauses.

Britain has nearly 90 ISDS treaties and we’ve never lost a case, Livingston argued.

What he omitted is that none of those treaties are with economies approaching America’s size, and that Britain has only fought two cases.

America has form – look at lawsuits between Canada and America after NAFTA.

Currently there are 19 cases pending under NAFTA seeking a total of $38bn, most about health, finance, and the environment. Globally there were 50 ISDS cases in 2000, but 550 this year (UN).

The government won’t listen to popular concerns and resist the ISDS provision, as Germany is considering. 

Ken Clarke, TTIP’s champion, admitted ISDS mechanisms were created to protect investors from states with unstable legal systems – not from Britain or France.

The TTIP investment chapter won’t provide Britain with any real boost. America already invests huge amounts here; companies trust the British environment. Extra protection is unnecessary.

Even if Britain gets its £400/year and is never sued, this is no economic silver bullet.

The whole free trade mentality accepts that simplifying tariffs and regulations increases competition.

America subsidises its car and agricultural industries, plus energy, while having much lower labour protection than Britain.

It follows that some UK firms would be outcompeted and sink, some workers would lose their jobs.

This is why campaigners fear TTIP will erode European working standards, not because of an actual treaty provision abolishing the minimum wage but because of direct competition with a less regulated system.

Of course, deregulated employment is precisely what the Conservatives want, as we the Beecroft report and working time laws criticism demonstrate.

Livingston insisted TTIP wouldn’t impact labour, an assurance difficult to trust while his party is pushing for a 50 per cent turnout threshold for union action.

The British left hasn’t awoken to this, while French and Belgians have been protesting regularly.

The Government claims small businesses, not multinationals, will be the real winners. But inflexible top-down rule changes are exactly what the Federation of Small Businesses already complains about.

Multinationals have lawyers, compliances teams and finances to changes practices. It’s SMEs that fall foul of new rules, unable to afford them or simply unaware of changes.

As Tony Benn often argued, when the EU produces rules Britons dislike, parliament can’t block or improve them.

A new regulation regime negotiated by that same EU and America, in secret, is not a promising replacement. 

If the regime threatens Britain’s health service, labour laws and its very sovereignty, that’s even worse.

Tony Burke adds:

Progress on the path to the US-EU Free Trade Deal, known as TTIP, was hit with another blow this week, when 550 US organizations* sent a letter to US Senate finance chairman Ron Wyden firmly rejecting the fast-track trade promotion authority and calling for a new system for negotiating and implementing trade agreements.

‘Fast track’ is the US system previously used to push through trade agreements on an ‘up and down vote’ with no line by line scrutiny.

The US Congress has regularly created new trade authority mechanisms as international trade has evolved. 

‘Fast track’ first went into effect under Richard Nixon in the 1970s and was last granted during the George W. Bush administration; but that law expired on June 30, 2007.

In the letter, the diverse coalition stated that fast track, an outdated mechanism that would limit Congressional and public oversight over trade negotiations, is ‘simply not appropriate’ given the broad subjects covered by today’s trade pacts, such as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP):

“A new model of trade authority is the only way to ensure that workers and communities have a voice in these trade decisions. We want to determine what kind of economy we have, not simply accept super-power status for multinational corporations and a snails’ pace for the enforcement issues raised by the rest of us.

“Only with new trade negotiating authority can we secure new trade rules that can help hard working Americans build a sustainable economy and promote broadly shared prosperity,” said president Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO union.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, also called fast track the “wrong track for Americans who care about the health of our families and access to clean air, clean water, and land”.

“We need a new model of trade — one that protects communities and the environment while keeping the public engaged in the policy-making process,” he added.

In January of this year, senator Max Baucus and Congressman Dave Camp introduced a fast-track bill, the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities Act of 2014, which would strip Congress of its ability to amend or sufficiently debate trade pacts. Senator Ron Wyden, the current Senate finance chairman, is now drafting a new trade authority bill.

“There is no ‘acceptable’ version of fast track,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.

“Fast-track must be replaced so Congress can steer international trade in a new direction and create agreements that actually work for most Americans.”

Instead of fast track, the letter calls for a new model of trade authority that includes a Congressional role in selecting trade partners, a set of mandatory negotiating objectives, enhanced transparency, Congressional certification that negotiating objectives have been met before trade negotiations can conclude, and more.

“We need 21st-century trade authority that allows Congress to do its job and represent the interests of U.S. workers, consumers and communities. By any name, the flawed ‘fast track’ approach still would enable negotiators to bypass Congress and put in place new and binding agreements that have real consequences for all of us,” said Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America.

Momentum against TTIP in the USA and TTIP – CETA (the Canadian – EU Trade Deal) is building on both sides of the Atlantic, with this weeks TUC voting to totally oppose TTIP and CETA.

*The labour union federation the AFL-CIO, the Communications Workers of America, the environmental organization the Sierra Club, the Citizens Trade Campaign, and Public Citizen campaigning group