Their secret… no longer a secret! TPP 350 org

Dear friends,

When someone publicly insists on pushing a bad idea, we try to make them stop. But when that bad idea is a secret, free trade agreement that could affect millions of people around the world, this becomes an urgent matter that all of us need to make public and then stop.

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is one of those bad ideas. A really bad, secretive one, that threatens people’s sovereignty and environmental protections. Although negotiators are meeting right now in Honolulu to lock in an agreement on this disastrous deal, it’s all been kept secret — you can’t find much coverage in the news about what delegates are discussing because they are keeping quiet about it. So we thought we’d help put TPP in the media spotlight and send a message to delegates that people everywhere know what the TPP is and are standing against it:

Together with our partners in the movement, we’re helping to run a full page advertisement in the largest newspaper in Hawaii, right where TPP negotiators are meeting. Check it out:

Can you share this advertisement on Facebook and ask your friends to do the same?

TPP is being negotiated by 12 countries and would enable fossil fuel companies to sue governments over laws and policies that they allege reduce their profits. So if an international oil giant thinks a local law designed to protect communities from fossil fuel exploration is hurting their profits, they won’t think twice before taking nations to court.

But climate and environment is just one component of the deal. Thanks to leaked texts from Wikileaks, we know now that issues like online privacy, food standards and access to medicine would all become subject to corporate attacks. No wonder it’s all so secretive — this deal is only good for a few people, namely, the ones negotiating it.

It’s time to show negotiators in Hawaii that the people know what’s going on behind the walls — and are not happy about it. When they check the newspaper before heading to the meeting room, they will see our messages. And they will know that there’s strong opposition to their “free” trade agreement.

Can you tell your friends that civil society is against this massive corporate grab, and ask them to share the ad too?

Let’s put TPP in the news for good, and send a global message to negotiators —  a secret deal at the expense of the people and democracy is a no deal.

Onwards,

Charlie

*  Countries participating in negotiations on TPP: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.