Washington, DC joined Manila and 10 other cities in protests on November 16 against the Pacific trade agreement that is expected to affect all aspects of ordinary life.
Crowds shut down traffic in the US capital and occupied various offices that are implicated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which is still to be voted on by legislatures of the 12 nations negotiating the deal.
The Pacific rim nations involved, which represent 40% of world GDP, are the US, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Chile, Brunei, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Vietnam and Japan.
The #FallRising National Mobilization featured more than 60 groups — from environmentalists to migrants to food justice activists. It also involved representatives from the Philippines, where actions are ongoing against the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, where the TPP is being finalised.
“The most beautiful thing is that people are starting to see the root causes of the many crises we see today,” Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins, organiser with Flush the TPP and Popular Resistance, told TeleSUR English. “The root is altogether impacting us in different ways, in our own communities, in our own struggles. There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we don't live single-issue lives.”
About 1000 protesters brought drums, banners and even an alpaca as they marched from the Chamber of Commerce to the offices of Morgan Stanley, Monsanto and the Reagan International Trade Centre, each of which they occupied for several minutes.
The 5700-page agreement, authored by the lawyers of multinationals, is predicted to affect every market, though only five of its 29 chapters deal with trade. After seven years of talks behind closed doors, the text was released at the beginning of the month, with clauses touching on internet access, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, labour, intellectual rights and environmental protections, among many other topics.
The Fall Rising website focuses its critique on three areas: deregulation, privatisation and the right of corporations to sue governments over expected future profits. Small businesses and poor and oppressed populations, it says, would be the hardest hit. Ten other US and Canadian cities joined in the “Urgent Call to Action” to “stop the global corporate coup”.
Because the US Congress has passed presidential “fast track” powers to sign off on the deal, the TPP and its twin trade agreements, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trade in Services Agreement — are expected to be signed by President Barack Obama and voted on by Congress soon.
[Abridged from TeleSUR English.]
Like the article? Subscribe to Green Left now! You can also like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.