The Trans-Pacific Partnership is an international mega-trade agreement under development among the U.S. and a number of key nations of the Americas and Asia, negotiated entirely in secret and proposed to bypass close Congressional scrutiny in a “Fast Track” approach. Leaks of certain draft versions suggest that all party states would see their domestic law controlled by TPP commitments and constraints in such disparate areas (apart from trade regulation) as “food safety, internet freedom, medicine costs, financial regulation, and the environment,” as listed on Public Citizen’s opposition website. The site also notes that the terms have been worked out through “a secret trade negotiation that has included over 600 official corporate ‘trade advisors’ while hiding the text from Members of Congress, governors, state legislators, the press, civil society, and the public.” TPP’s current status worries a Forbes contributor because even the Fast Track process may not lead to Congressional buy-in before 2015—an election year when play-it-safe political instincts will rule, while TPP’s threats to American public interests are spelled out by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, which provides a quick form for opposition statements to be sent to California’s Senators and Members of Congress.
