Text of TPP released

http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Treaties-and-International-Law/01-Treaties-for-which-NZ-is-Depositary/0-Trans-Pacific-Partnership-Text.php

If the TPP is approved by Congress, this awful deal would offshore good-paying American jobs and drive down wages in the jobs that are left, increasing inequality by forcing Americans into competition with workers abroad paid less than 65 cents an hour. The pact is so poorly written, it would also enable products assembled from parts made in "third party" countries that aren't subject to any TPP obligations to enter the U.S. duty free. It also includes language that effectively bans "Buy American" and "Buy Local" preferences in many types of government purchasing.

The TPP would hand corporate polluters new tools for attacking future climate policies, including controversial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions that enable them to challenge U.S. laws, regulations and court decisions as "regulatory takings" in international tribunals that circumvent the U.S. and any other country's judicial system.

The TPP would also increase health care prices and reduce access to medicine through language designed to delay the introduction of low-cost generic medications and that enables pharmaceutical companies to challenge Medicare, Medicaid and other public health programs' cost-saving mechanisms. The TPP actually rolls back some of the hard-fought protections for access to medicine in trade agreements that were secured during the George W. Bush administration.

Unfortunately, this is the all-too-predictable result of negotiating a trade deal in secret with notorious human rights abusers like Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei through a rigged process in which hundreds of corporate lobbyists had privileged access to the texts, while the American people were forbidden from even reviewing what negotiators were proposing in our names.

The bottom line is that, while the TPP is sure to benefit some Wall Street executives and other corporate elites, it would be a disaster for working families in the United States and throughout the world.

The only good news about the TPP is that we can still stop it. The timing on this beast is actually in our favor. A Congressional vote on the TPP can't be scheduled until next year — at which point we'll be in the heart of election season. With your help, we can make sure a majority of elected officials listen to constituents rather than the corporate lobbyists on this issue.