“Free trade” agreements have become the antithesis of actual free trade, and the latest batch, one of which President Trump just trashed, sneak in all sorts of execrable provisions. From Paul Craig Roberts at paulcraigroberts.com:
On Trump’s third day Trump is one up on the Establishment. Can this last?
I am not a Trump booster. I am a scorekeeper.
On the third day of his presidency Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacificic Partnership (TPP). Based on this we must assume he will also deep-six the Trans-Atlantic Partnership.
Trump and his advisors regard the Pacific and Atlantic partnerships as trade deals like NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement that sent American jobs to Mexico at the expense of Americans.
However, the most strategic part of these agreements is that they make global corporations immune from the laws of the countries in which they do business if those laws adversely impact the profits of the global corporations.
Who decides the question? Not the courts of the countries or a world court.
The question is decided by a corporate tribunal staffed only by corporations.
In other words, the sovereign laws of sovereign countries, such as France’s laws against GMOs, are subject to damage suits decided by corporate tribunals, which means the end of the legal sovereignty of countries.
The so-called trade partnerships are weapons of American economic imperialism.
Whether Trump and his advisors are aware of this or not, Trump has on his third day dealt a lethal blow to a power lusted after by US global corporations.
How will this formidable force respond to this blow inflicted upon them by Trump?
That remains to be seen if the blows that Trump has promised against the interests of the elites continue.
To continue reading: Three days in and Trump has already kept one pledge
