Citizens Trade Campaign is participating in the January 31st “Inter-Continental Day of Action against the TPP & Corporate Globalization.” We encourage supporters to take action that day to urge Members of Congress to oppose the Fast Track legislation recently introduced by Representative David Camp and Senator Max Baucus.
As the international call to action states:
January 2014 marks the twenty-year anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a pact that has had devastating consequences for working families, small farmers, indigenous peoples, small business and the environment in all three countries and beyond. The pending Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been described as “NAFTA on Steroids.” Four years into the TPP negotiations, this new corporate power grab threatens to:
- Destroy livelihoods and accelerate the global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions
- Further commodify agriculture, trample food sovereignty, hurt small farmers and contribute to forced migration
- Enable new corporate attacks on democratically-enacted environmental and consumer protections
- Undermine global economic stability by prohibiting effective regulation of financial markets
- Reduce access to life-saving generic medications, increase the costs of prescriptions, and restrict freedom on the Internet
The harm that NAFTA has already cost our communities, and the new threats that the TPP poses, must be both acknowledged and resisted. We also need to spread the word that since NAFTA, when people have come together across issue areas and across geographic borders, we have defeated similar corporate power grabs like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the Millennial Round of the World Trade Organization, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). We will do so again with the TPP.
Please check out this action calendar of events taking place throughout North America. You can also post your own action and sign up to receive more info. Updates are also being posted on Facebook.