<div dir="ltr">A huge thank you to people in Missoula and throughout Montana who took action over the past few years to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the largest corporate 'free trade' pact in world history covering 40% of the global economy.<br><br>The TPP would have negatively impacted every aspect of our daily lives including our jobs, wages, health care, food safety, internet freedom, financial regulations, human rights, climate change and many other issues.<br><br>Thanks again to those who spoke out and took action to stop the TPP. <br><br>- Matthew Koehler<div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Lori Wallach</b> <br>Date: Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 3:50 PM<br>Subject: Burial of the Zombie TPP: Lori Wallach Statement<br><div lang="EN-US"><div class="gmail-m_-5790197317343707788WordSection1"><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif">For Immediate Release</span></u><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif">: <u>Contact</u>:
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif">Nov. 22, 2016 <wbr> Matt Groch <a href="tel:%28202%29%20454-5111" value="+12024545111" target="_blank">(202) 454-5111</a>,
</span><a href="mailto:mgroch@citizen.org" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif;color:windowtext">mgroch@citizen.org</span></a><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span style="font-size:16pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif">The Burial of the Zombie TPP<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><i><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif">Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch on President-Elect Trump’s Statement on Withdrawing
the U.S. From Being a TPP Signatory <u></u><u></u></span></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">The unrelenting push by the Obama administration for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) right through
this election helped to elect Donald Trump, but Trump himself did not derail the TPP – people power united across borders accomplished that first by delaying the TPP’s completion beyond its 2012 deadline and then by ensuring that a majority in Congress could
never be built to implement the deal since it was signed 10 months ago. <br><br><u></u><u></u></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">By declaring he will formally bury the zombie TPP, the president-elect is merely acknowledging the obvious:
The deal died under the weight of its own terms and could not achieve sufficient support in Congress. Well before Trump’s election, t<font color="#000000">he presidential primary campaign and the halls of Congress resounded with the American public’s rejection
of trade proposals that not only failed to live up to the proponents’ promises over the past 20 years, but threatened further damage to working people and the environment.<u><br></u></font></font><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large"><font color="#000000"><u><br></u></font>The majority of people in the TPP countries will be better off without the deal, which had little to do with free trade but rather concentrated on awarding special new powers to multinational corporations. This included the right to sue governments before
panels of three corporate lawyers for unlimited cash compensation from taxpayers over policies deemed to undermine the vast new rights the TPP would have granted them. <br></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large"><br>The false notions that the TPP’s </span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:windowtext">
demise helps China or, </span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large">undermines U.S. international leadership are merely the echoes of the desperate foreign policy arguments that the Obama administration made to try to pass the deal after its economic case failed to convince the American public
or Congress.<br></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large"><br><font color="#000000">Managing the U.S. relationship with a rising China is a real challenge, but the TPP was not the answer. Implementation of the TPP would have allowed duty free access to U.S. markets for products made with a
majority of Chinese content as long as final assembly was done in low-wage TPP nations Vietnam and Malaysia without any reciprocal obligations on China. It also would have allowed access for the many Chinese state-owned enterprises in Vietnam on equal terms
to U.S. firms for all U.S. government procurement contracts. And the priority focus by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his meeting with Trump on defense matters – the Seventh Fleet and U.S. troops in Asia providing defense for U.S. allies – reinforces
that the U.S. role in the region</font><font color="rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)"> </font></span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:large">will remain vital.</span></p>
<p><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">The notion that somehow the demise of the TPP is the end of U.S. trade with the TPP countries is ridiculous given that we already have tariff-zeroing free trade agreements with the six TPP countries that account for 80 percent of the TPP bloc’s combined
GDP. In addition, all of the TPP countries are in the World Trade Organization, meaning that tariffs among the TPP nations were already low.
<u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="gmail-m_-5790197317343707788Default"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif">Trying to paint the TPP as a way for America to write the rules in Asia
<i>so that China does not</i> was absurd. The TPP was never about establishing “American” rules in Asia, a fact reinforced by opposition to the deal by the environmental, human rights and labor organizations that promote protections for working people and the
planet. The TPP was about imposing rules that would hurt most Americans but are favored by the 500 official U.S. corporate trade advisers who called the shots on the TPP.<u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif"><span style="color:black">The only way forward is to create
</span><a href="http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/The-New-Rules-of-the-Road.pdf" target="_blank">new rules of the road</a><span style="color:black">
for globalization that put people and the planet first while harvesting the benefits of expanded trade. And we must
</span>roll back the existing corporate-captured “trade” deals and extreme investor-state dispute settlement regime that have caused people and the planet so much damage.
<span style="color:black">The coalition that stopped the TPP is powerful and united and will fight forward to deliver that change.</span> And, we will be ready to take on any attempt to revive the TPP or advance other crony-corporate trade pacts based on the
same failed and outdated model of trade.<br><br><u></u><u></u></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4" face="verdana, sans-serif"><span lang="EN">For a review of the six-year international campaign against the TPP, please read
</span><a href="https://medium.com/@citizenstrade/no-trump-didnt-kill-the-tpp-progressives-did-884b534542d#.175otqc1j" target="_blank"><span lang="EN">https://medium.com/@<wbr>citizenstrade/no-trump-didnt-<wbr>kill-the-tpp-progressives-did-<wbr>884b534542d#.175otqc1j</span></a></font><span style="font-size:13pt;font-family:"times new roman",serif;color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)">Lori Wallach<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)">Director, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
<br>
215 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003 USA<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><a href="tel:%281%29%20202-454-5107" value="+12024545107" target="_blank">(1) 202-454-5107</a> fax <a href="tel:%281%29202-547-7392" value="+12025477392" target="_blank">(1)202-547-7392</a>
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)">Skype lori_wallach<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)">++ Check out our blog:
<a href="http://www.eyesontrade.org/" target="_blank">www.EyesOnTrade.org</a> ++<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(31,73,125)">Global Trade Watch’s website is:
<a href="http://www.tradewatch.org/" target="_blank">www.tradewatch.org</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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