The Most Brazen Corporate Power Grab in American History
By Chris Hedges
The release Thursday of the 5,544-page text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a
trade and investment agreement involving 12 countries comprising nearly
40 percent of global output—confirms what even its most apocalyptic
critics feared.
“The TPP, along with the WTO [World Trade Organization] and NAFTA
[North American Free Trade Agreement], is the most brazen corporate
power grab in American history,” Ralph Nader told me when I reached him
by phone in Washington, D.C. “It allows corporations to bypass our three
branches of government to impose enforceable sanctions by secret
tribunals. These tribunals can declare our labor, consumer and
environmental protections [to be] unlawful, non-tariff barriers subject
to fines for noncompliance. The TPP establishes a transnational,
autocratic system of enforceable governance in defiance of our domestic
laws.”
A 2014 rally against the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in Tokyo. (Shizuo Kambayashi / AP)
