Rand Paul to Obama: "Prioritize" Passage of Trans-Pacific Partnership

[Republicanguy]

Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8

What happened to those tribes. Yeah...Rand is just doing what he has to do. I see this guy as a moderate to get elected. His Dad was zealous.

 

[presence]

Okay, try this, New Zealand has basically no tariffs on anything. Whats in it for us? From what I have seen NZ ends up becoming a Vassal state of the US.
Rather than the US giving up sovereignty, on balance it will basically steal it from the other signatories.
Its Imperialism without bullets.

Doubtless that New Zealand is a vassal state. The thing that most people miss: The US is a vassal state as well.



Contract by contract... each binding under "International Law", we're all bowing to this flag:

 

[Brett85]

Some of you guys must really love NAFTA, CAFTA,,and FTAA.

TPP is yet another really bad idea.

I don't know. I'm undecided, but I think there's a libertarian case to be made for supporting these "free trade agreements" because they lower or eliminate tariffs between the countries involved.

 

[presence]

I don't know. I'm undecided, but I think

there's a libertarian case to be made for supporting these "free trade agreements" because they lower or eliminate tariffs

Similarly...

there's a right-to-life case to be made for a global ban on abortion where violators will face a United Nations military tribunal

 

[NorfolkPCSolutions]

The bottom line with these supposed "Free Trade Deals" are that arbitration is done by the World Bank and the United Nations. Their decisions are BINDING.


ONLY CONGRESS HAS THE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE TRADE.


Fuck the World Bank
Fuck the UN

and Fuck any politician, including Rand, if he supports this bullshit.

presence said it better than I could, so...

To contribute: Hey, you folks that work with Rand Paul and lurk here, keeping a pulse on the roots (I hope you're here, I hope you lurk) - are you listening?

 

[Natural Citizen]

presence said it better than I could, so...

To contribute: Hey, you folks that work with Rand Paul and lurk here, keeping a pulse on the roots (I hope you're here, I hope you lurk) - are you listening?

Well. If they are then best to give them a show that they'll not soon forget. Is how change is done. Of course, it may be safe to assume that many in the business of elections themselves can't/don't particularly have a general grasp of the depth of much of the things that are discussed here. As well, many are open enough to even say that they have no desire to bother because political power itself is their goal. Is the difference between just trying to hurry up and get elected and working toward changing the course of history itself I suppose.

But then again you never know who you'll run into. I once started discussing political issues in a rather long line at the store around Christmas time with someone based solely upon a magazine cover there in the way and they blew my mind. Well informed feller, he was. Was a pleasant delay.

 

[presence]

the difference between just trying to hurry up and get elected

and working toward changing the course of history itself

 

[GunnyFreedom]

TPP has really horrible problems, and a lot of liberty AND Tea will bolt over it if Rand comes out wrong on it. So far we have one vague statement indicting Obama. For all we know it could just be a jab at the man and the TPP was just a handy flagrum. Bottom line is the TPP is more dangerous than someone might expect, and Senator Paul needs to get right on this or face some real erosion of his base.

 

[presence]

[h=1]So-Called Free Trade Costs Sovereignty[/h] Posted: May 2, 2014 | Author: insidejbs | Filed under: Uncategorized |Leave a comment

So-Called Free Trade Costs Sovereignty

by JBS President John F. McManus



A friend who favors free trade agreements (such as those now being negotiated by U.S. officials and their European and Pacific Rim counterparts) insists that these “partnerships” pose no threat to our nation’s sovereignty. He likens the proposed agreements to the beneficial free trade arrangement existing among our 50 states. But, without him realizing it, my friend’s argument actually made the case for my real concerns about such agreements.




In 1955, Dow Chemical executive Lewis Lloyd wrote a book calling for protectionism. Formerly a solid cheerleader for free trade, he found through experience that, if free trade among nations is actually conducted — such as what exists among our 50 states — eight conditions must be present. And the final of his eight conditions was the need for

“world government” and a loss of sovereignty.


In his Tariffs: The Case For Protection, Dr. Lloyd stated that there must be comparable taxes, a single monetary system, uniform business laws, similar business ethics, freedom of movement by workers from place to place, freedom from the threat of war, and an overseeing world government.


All of what Lloyd saw as necessary can be found in the state-to-state relationships within the United States — except a world government. Here, unencumbered trade is regulated by the federal government under the U.S. Constitution, and there’s no loss of national sovereignty. Should free trade be established nation-to-nation, claimed Dr. Lloyd, there would be a need for an overall governing body with a superior constitution superseding the government structure established in each nation. In other words, there would be a need for a world government superior to each national government and it would function just as our own federal government does vis-à-vis the states. But the national sovereignty of the nations involved in this free trade would have been canceled.


Consider the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), two pacts that U.S. leaders are now hammering out with equivalent foreign officials. Approval of the TTIP would tie the U.S. with the EU that was sold to Europe’s mostly unsuspecting national leaders as a pact designed merely to enhance trade. But it has become dominant over its 28 formerly independent nations. Consider: In 2003, Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus warned that the EU was leading to “no more sovereign states in Europe.” In 2004, EU leaders proposed an overall constitution which claimed that it “shall have primacy over the law of member states.” In 2004, a leader of Britain’s United Kingdom Independence Party stated that the EU “has turned into a political union which is changing our basic laws and traditions.” And in 2007, former German President Roman Herzog lamented that “84 percent of the legal acts in Germany stemmed from Brussels.” The EU has become a super government dominating Europe’s once-sovereign nations.
Should Senate ratification of the TTIP be accomplished, the U.S. will have duplicated Europe’s catastrophic blunder and essentially joined the EU, losing its national sovereignty in the process. Ratification of the TPP would likewise be a huge mistake, and lead to a corresponding loss of U.S. national sovereignty. But the interesting point here is that the beneficial state-to-state relationships within our nation do not support my friend’s claim that nation-to-nation free trade agreements will be similarly beneficial. They would instead constitute a severe dilution of national sovereignty, as the EU has accomplished in Europe. The relationships generated by so-called “free trade agreements” prove that sovereignty will be lost. Americans should let their representatives and senators know that free trade partnerships must be rejected, along with rejecting Trade Promotion Authority that would facilitate congressional passage of any such free trade partnerships.

http://insidejbs.org/2014/05/02/so-called-free-trade-costs-sovereignty/

 

[presence]

This diary is detailed and technical. It's intended to provide an illustration of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a feature of the TPP and TTIP free-trade agreements.


[]


the most important lesson to be learned from the case is this:

The tribunal didn’t issue the initial ruling on the matter. It's decision came after the decision of Ecuador’s Supreme Court. The tribunal knew that a decision had already been made by the sovereign court of Ecuador and it inserted itself into the decision and overruled it. By doing so, it pushed the boundaries of the ISDS process beyond the established definition.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...e-trade-agreements-could-threaten-sovereignty

 

[juleswin]

I really don't know what TPP is all about and that is why hurrying up to pass it worries me. If he was asking for it to be debated and parts of it passed instead of the whole thing as a package? then I think I will be OK with it. Right now, this feels like a bad dream that I really want to wake up from

 

[Natural Citizen]

TPP has really horrible problems, and a lot of liberty AND Tea will bolt over it if Rand comes out wrong on it. So far we have one vague statement indicting Obama. For all we know it could just be a jab at the man and the TPP was just a handy flagrum. Bottom line is the TPP is more dangerous than someone might expect, and Senator Paul needs to get right on this or face some real erosion of his base.

Is possible that he's just daring Obama and these elites to show their cards. He is the son of the statesman after all. I wonder if that is the case, though, considering his position on sanctioning Russia after that coup d'etat in Ukraine. One almost wants to excuse that based upon the notion that he doesn't know the history of these nations. And it's not just him. It's most of them which leads me to wonder who is advising him (Rand) at the moment. Those economic hitmen who we hear scribbled up that thing in the Ukraine are basically the same factions who are interested in this so called trade deal and there is a recorded time line back to when that thing broke open. I don't know that the TPP has a leg to stand on at the moment given the way the world feels about these western monopolies and by forcing someone to say so or demonstrate so would be slick. All one has to do is look at what these nations are doing at the moment. They aren't hiding anything. At all. They're just doing what they are doing.

 

[presence]

Oregon Legislators Warn of Trade Deal’s Threat to State Sovereignty

Posted on August 31, 2010 by CTC



For Immediate Release

Tuesday, August 31, 2010


Bipartisan Group of Legislators Ask Sen. Wyden to Defend Oregon Laws from Attack in International Tribunals

The Korea Free Trade Agreement Poses Serious Threat to State Sovereignty



Salem, Ore. — A bipartisan group of Oregon State Legislators sent U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) a letter today urging him to use his position as chair of the Senate Subcommittee on International Trade to strip provisions from a pending trade agreement that threaten to expose Oregon laws to attack in international tribunals.


According to the letter, the pending Korea Free Trade Agreement “includes


investor-to-state enforcement mechanisms


that enable foreign corporations to directly challenge American laws, regulations and even court decisions as trade violations through international tribunals that completely circumvent the U.S. judicial system.”

http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/or...n-of-trade-deals-threat-to-state-sovereignty/

 

[presence]

[h=1]‘Free’ Trade and the Sovereignty Squeeze[/h]Mercantilism in trade agreement rules-setting makes weaker economies slaves to the interests of economic hegemons.

By Ji Xianbai
October 28, 2014

The U.S.–Peru FTA (PTPA) marks the very first success of Washington’s attempts to subordinate other countries’ sovereignty to its own national interest by squeezing non-trade-related provisions into a bilateral trade liberalization agreement and overriding foreign national laws. To provide a level playing field for American companies, the PTPA lays out detailed measures that Peru is obliged to take to govern its forest sector. The Forest Annex of the PTPA requires Peru to set up an independent forestry oversight body and even enact new Forestry and Wildlife Laws to legalize key provisions of PTPA. The U.S.–Colombia FTA (CTPA)’s labor provisions represent an “even more blatant assault on another country’s sovereignty.” Meanwhile, Colombia was forced to agree to establish a dedicated labor ministry; endorse legislations outlawing interference in the exercise of labor rights; double the size of its labor inspectorate; and set up a phone hotline and an internet-based system to deal with labor complaints. Examples of similar provisions abound: Don’t forget that the U.S.-Panama FTA has “helped” revamp Panama’s tax policy on behalf of Panamanians.


In a similarly coercive fashion, the EU has never been shy of imposing its own will on other countries in trade. Last week, a November 2011 diplomatic cable between Ecuador’s then-ambassador in Brussels, Fernando Yepez Lasso, and the Ecuadorian vice minister for Foreign Relations, Kintto Lucas Lopez, was leaked. The confidential communication suggests that Ecuador was “bullied into a EU trade agreement.” Denouncing it as “biased,” Ecuador was convinced the agenda was set to prioritize the trade liberalization component of the agreement that was able to accrue immediate gains to the EU over two other pillars of the EU-Andean Association Agreement, namely, an economic cooperation agreement and a forum for political dialogue, which were of more long-term significance to Andean states. So Ecuador pulled out of the talks in 2009. To compel Ecuador to return to the negotiating table, the EU resorted to stark threats of economic isolation as the Ambassador admitted in the cable that “[t]he proposal of the European Commission, which includes criteria that could exclude Ecuador from the preferences framework [...], is an element of pressure on Ecuador to join the free trade agreement.” Afraid of being left out and sustaining a $1.2 billion loss to its economy if trade ties with EU was disconnected, the Ecuador government crumbled and finally inked the agreement on July 17. This painful experience has taught Ecuador a lesson that what governs trade negotiations is the law of the jungle and prompted Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to comment in an interview after signing the FTA that free trade “is the most anti-historical thing that exists; almost no developed country used it.”

http://thediplomat.com/2014/10/free-trade-and-the-sovereignty-squeeze/

 

[presence]

Friday, 15 June 2012

TPP Secret Trade Agreement Puts International Tribunal Above U.S. Law

Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

Wednesday morning a document was leaked that reveals President Obama’s plans to surrender American sovereignty to international tribunals. This is one of several frightening provisions of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (also known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP) being negotiated in secret by American trade representatives.

In the now-public document, as part of its membership in the TPP, the

United States
would agree to exempt
foreign corporations
from our laws and regulations,


placing the resolution of any disputes as to the applicability of those matters to foreign business in the hands of an international arbitration tribunal overseen by the Secretary General of the United Nations.

The leaked information confirms the fears of many who have opposed this trade agreement from the beginning. Several groups from the Left and the Right have decried the shroud of secrecy covering the TPP negotiations and are now vindicated by Wednesday’s revelations.

One of these valiant organizations defending the sovereignty of the United States is Americans for Limited Government (ALG). On Thursday, ALG released a statement drawing attention to the leaked TPP agreement, as well as ably pointing out some of the most noxious aspects of it.

These new trade agreements
will place domestic U.S. firms
that do not do business overseas at a
competitive disadvantage.

Based on these leaked documents, foreign firms under this trade pact could conceivably appeal federal regulatory and court rulings against them to an international tribunal with the apparent authority to overrule our sovereignty. If foreign companies want to do business in America, they should have to follow the same rules as everyone else. No special favors.

It is telling that the only apparent way these Pacific nations will enter a free trade agreement with the U.S. is if they are exempt from our onerous environmental and financial regulations that make it cost-ineffective to do business here. Instead of making these foreign firms exempt from these burdensome rules, they should just repeal the regulations and make it cheaper to do business here.

This poses an even wider problem, though. Obama is negotiating a trade pact that would constitute a judicial authority higher than even the U.S. Supreme Court that could overrule federal court rulings applying U.S. law to foreign companies. That is unconstitutional. The U.S. cannot be allowed to enter a treaty that would abrogate our Constitution.

It is telling that the only apparent way these Pacific nations will enter a free trade agreement with the U.S. is if they are exempt from our onerous environmental and financial regulations that make it cost-ineffective to do business here. Instead of making these foreign firms exempt from these burdensome rules, they should just repeal the regulations and make it cheaper to do business here.

This poses an even wider problem, though. Obama is negotiating a trade pact that would constitute a judicial authority higher than even the U.S. Supreme Court that could overrule federal court rulings applying U.S. law to foreign companies. That is unconstitutional. The U.S. cannot be allowed to enter a treaty that would abrogate our Constitution.

This tribunal needs to be removed from this agreement, and no foreign company doing business on our soil should have a competitive advantage, created by some dumb agreement, over American companies. What is Obama thinking? He is placing international organizations above the interests of our own country. [Emphases in original.]

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...ment-puts-international-tribunal-above-us-law


Less regulations if you're a big corporation based in some other country... but you and I? Spring water in our own back yard gets regulated by the EPA.

 

[Brett85]

presence said it better than I could, so...

To contribute: Hey, you folks that work with Rand Paul and lurk here, keeping a pulse on the roots (I hope you're here, I hope you lurk) - are you listening?

I don't work for him. I'm just a supporter. But I don't see why you and others don't just call his office and voice your opposition to his position on this, and ask why he supports it. Maybe if he got enough push back from members of the liberty movement on this he would be open to changing his position.

 

[phill4paul]

Stand with Rand! He's our man!! Yay, Rand!

 

[Natural Citizen]

Mercantilism in trade agreement rules...

There you go. That's the word we're looking for here. We tend to confuse mercantilism with a free market. Or simply never knew what mercantilism was and just reffered to it's function as a free market system. It is not. What Mercantilism does is that it protects these folks from the free market. And we are beginning to see these monopolies pen legislation and try to enforce it by way of our very own representatives that they're lobbying at the domestic level.

Alas, I must spread some rep around, presence. Sorry...

 

[Brett85]

I've contacted his office before when he's said something that I didn't agree with, when he gave an interview on CNN where he sounded pretty soft on the abortion issue. A day after I called, Rand's office put out a statement clarifying what Rand said in the CNN interview and his position on abortion.

 

[Natural Citizen]

I've contacted his office before when he's said something that I didn't agree with, when he gave an interview on CNN where he sounded pretty soft on the abortion issue. A day after I called, Rand's office put out a statement clarifying what Rand said in the CNN interview and his position on abortion.

Yeah, this isn't cookie cutter stuff where we can just tell you what you want to hear and send you on yer way, tc. This is big boy stuff. Global consequences. Domestic too but you get the idea.