INTERNATIONAL ‘free trade’ agreements represent the attempt by the vast multi-national capitalist corporations to completely dominate the globe.
The domination they seek is over everything from the right of nations to improve wages, introduce laws regarding health and safety, down to insisting that all state-owned industries and services are put up for privatisation. Anything done which in the opinion of these companies harms their profits will be ruled ‘illegal’ under the terms of these agreements and render governments held responsible liable to massive fines and compensation claims.
For instance, if a healthcare company claimed that the NHS had an ‘unfair’ advantage when it came to health provision in Britain, the UK government would face such a fine and so force through complete privatisation of the NHS. At present, two such agreements are in the final stages of negotiations. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is between the US and eleven of its allies in the South East Asia region – including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, Vietnam amongst others and excluding China.
The second is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and Europe.
The common feature between TPP and TTIP is that they have been negotiated under conditions of absolute secrecy by the heads of governments – not even the various parliaments are aware of the terms and conditions that are being agreed upon. The full terms will not be published until a final agreement has been reached and with no possibility of amendment.
So desperate is the Obama administration to drive through these agreements, that he has been pushing the US Senate and House of Representatives to pass a ‘fast track’ procedure enabling the president to conclude the agreements without any debate. Opposition to this has come from the US trade union movement which has seen previous ‘free trade agreements’ result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of US jobs relocated to lower wage economies.
The threat by US unions to cut off financial support from Democrats supporting these agreements without including provision to compensate US workers who lose their jobs as a result of them has meant that Obama was only able to win a narrow vote in the House last Thursday. This allowed him to fast-track the TTP agreement in alliance with his supposed mortal enemies, the Republican Party – it now goes to the Senate next week where it is expected to pass, without the protection demanded by the unions.
Obama isn’t the only capitalist leader desperate to push through these agreements. Last Thursday, German chancellor, Angela Merkel, stated that she was aiming at an agreement on TTIP by the end of the year. In Britain, Cameron has long been a fervent supporter of TTIP and is equally determined to push it through with as much speed as possible.
Both Merkel, Cameron and the rest claim that these agreements will bring untold wealth into their countries in terms of trade and jobs. What they can’t say is where all these jobs are going to come from, given that the world capitalist economy is bust, that all these giant corporations are themselves in hock up to the eyeballs to the banks and their share prices have been kept in the stratosphere, not by any expansion of production, but courtesy of cheap or free money handed to the banks through QE and near zero interest rates.
The sole intention behind these agreements is the complete domination of these giant capitalist corporations over the working class of Europe and Asia and to create conditions where any democratically elected government is completely subservient to their drive for profit.
Small wonder that negotiations have been carried out in strict secrecy – the little that has emerged has already caused uproar amongst workers and trade unions across the world as the implications become clear, with the US unions threatening a split with the Democrats and huge demonstrations across Europe against TTIP.
The only way to defeat these agreements is to smash the capitalist system that today, in its historic crisis, can only survive by destroying every right that workers have ever won.
