WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement will allow businesses to hold governments legally liable if the deal’s environmental regulations get in the way of profits, US advocacy group Friends of the Earth said in a release.
“The TPP investment chapter would allow firms to sue governments for billions in money damages if climate, environmental or public health regulations interfere with expected future profits,” the release stated on Thursday.
The TPP deal, the release continued, “is designed to protect ‘free trade’ in dirty energy products such as tar sands oil, coal from the Powder River Basin, and liquefied natural gas shipped out of West Coast ports.”
Earlier on Thursday, the government of New Zealand published the text of the secretive TPP free trade agreement for the first time after years of closed-door negotiations by officials.
Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica said President Barack Obama has sold US citizens a “false bill of goods” with the TPP free trade agreement.
“The Trans Pacific Partnership fails President Obama's pledge to make the TPP an environmentally sound trade agreement,” Pica asserted.
He also noted that such a development is not surprising.
“[T]he text of this Trans Pacific trade deal was negotiated in secret by Mike Froman, the US Trade Representative, a former Citibank executive and Obama fundraiser,” Pica added.
The agreement, Pica explained, came as a result of the US government and Wall Street working together to ignore environmental and climate policies.
“Froman took care of his friends on Wall Street and in corporate board rooms at the expense of sound environmental and climate policy,” Pica said. “Congress must reject the TPP deal.”
The parties to the TPP agreement are the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.
