Last year, the Guardian shed light on an uncomfortable — and unfortunate — truth about much of the shrimp sold in North America, Europe, Japan and elsewhere around the world. A six-month-long investigation revealed that torture, wage-theft, beatings and various other illegal practices were a reality in the production chain of the world’s largest supplier. [by Roberto A. Ferdman| December…
Last spring, President Barack Obama got downright crabby about people criticizing the mammoth Trans-Pacific Partnership he’s trying to sell to Congress and the public. [by Jim Hightower| December 29, 2015 |Other Words] More and more Americans are learning that the TPP would undermine America’s very sovereignty, giving multinational corporations direct access to secretive tribunals that…
In early October 2015, negotiators for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) reached an agreement that they submitted to their respective governments for approval. The countries involved in addition to the US are Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Peru, and Vietnam. The Office of the United States Trade Representative explains that the…
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) have delayed taking a formal position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) due to continuing objections from member companies over the agreement’s provisions on biologic drugs, financial services and tobacco, according to informed sources. December 24, 2015 | Inside U.S. Trade These companies are…
In mid-November, I had the pleasure of touring manufacturing plants in the Louisville, Kentucky region as the guest of the marketing consortium of the Greater Louisville Inc. Initiative. Well-known as the home of the Louisville Slugger baseball bat and the start of the “Bourbon Road” tours of bourbon and rye whiskey distilleries, Louisville has a…
It didn’t take long for the United States to lose almost 90 percent of its jobs making clothes. In 1990, there were 938,000 Americans manufacturing apparel, but their jobs started to be outsourced in earnest after NAFTA was signed in 1994, then more precipitously after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, followed…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 23, 2015 Contact: Paola Masman, Media Director 202-688-5145, [email protected] Washington~ Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that the third quarter growth rate (at 2% annualized) was significantly slower than second quarter growth rate (3.9% annualized) in large part because of the trade deficit. According to the report: “The deceleration in real…
President Obama expressed optimism at a Friday press conference that Congress can approve a sweeping Pacific Rim trade deal. Obama called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “a big deal” and acknowledged that opponents in both parties make for “an interesting situation.” [ by Vicki Needham | December 18, 2015 | The Hill ] He said…
The Republican Party has split anew on one of its core tenets—free trade—and the question is how long the war will last. [Reposted from the National Journal | December 15, 2015] While the GOP has largely supported free trade for over three decades, its top-tier presidential candidates are split on the recently-struck Pacific trade accord, the most…
Last week, in light of the completion of the negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), we examined the results of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and found that the cumulative balance of trade for all agriculture for the 1997-2014 period was -$9.6 billion. Though NAFTA was supposed to open up markets…
