The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

Good general explanation. Here is how this kind of fair trade deal played out in Mexico. They have these terrible definitions of what constitutes "restriction or restraint of trade." Any nation found in violation of restriction or restraint of trade can be fined millions of dollars a day. So governments must act quickly and with full force to remove what are considered barriers to trade. This meant, in Mexico, protests and strikes. That's right, protests and strikes became known as restraint of trade. So how did the government react when strikes and protests about basic human need came forward? They militarized their police and brought in militarized federal police. Violence became an immediate option. NAFTA also paved the way for the breaking of international law around things like food. All of the major ecumenical hunger organizations condemned the commodity dumping done by the United States (Church World Service, Bread for the World, Oxfam, even the U.N.). Problem was, who was going to enforce that nice little international provision? Nobody. And that commodity dumping was a major factor in creating our immigration crisis. It destroyed the lives of subsistence farmers. Capital comes into the poorest places to take advantage of the cheap labor. People are on the move to escape the death grip of poverty, injustice, and violence.

If this passes, this will add devastation upon devastation. Indigenous and local business will be destroyed in favor of multinational wealth. Climate change will spike what will certainly be a world wide immigration and refugee crisis. Immense suffering and death will result. We, as a country, will move ever closer to fascism as we seek answers to incredible and impossible immigration and refugee situations. We will have put it all in motion. We will never take responsibility for it. (See how we took responsibility for the immigration crisis created by NAFTA?) This just cannot pass. If it does, it will reflect an affluence that justifies the suffering and death of so many people in the world.