8 Scary Facts About The Trans-Pacific Partnership

The TPP would encourage companies to outsource millions of good-paying American jobs to low-wage foreign countries, resulting in a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions at home.

In the wake of the devastating 2008 financial crisis, we took steps to rein in Wall Street in an effort to prevent another economic meltdown. But the TPP would provide Big Banks a backdoor to roll back these regulations and "export internationally, the model of extreme financial service deregulation that most analysts consider a prime cause of the global financial crisis."

Ding, dong the witch ... isn't dead. Thought SOPA and PIPA were bad? Many of the same special interests that pushed for those failed bills are now trying to use this international treaty to write stringent copyright laws that would "adversely affect that ability of creators to create content, the ability of technology companies to make innovative products, and that ability of users to use content in new ways."

Corporations like Exxon Mobil and Dow Chemical have already used similar free trade agreements to attack common-sense environmental laws and regulations, such as protecting communities and the environment from harmful chemicals. In addition, the TPP would increase dirty fracking.

The TPP would subject our food standards, labeling programs and specific-pesticide regulations to challenge by foreign governments. At the same time, poor food safety regulations overseas would put Americans at risk.

Access to life saving drugs would become scarce, while the profits of big pharmaceutical companies soar. Corporations are working hard to insure that the TPP extends their patent based monopolies. This would expand their profits, keep drug prices artificially high and leave millions of people without access to life saving drugs.

The TPP will include an expansion of corporate rights that will make it safer to invest offshore and will relax service sector rules in order to guarantee access to multi-national corporations for cross border services. That means we can expect US corporations to ship even more call center jobs overseas.

The TPP is not really about trade, but a mechanism to make the world “safe” for corporate investment and mobility. Once the TPP is signed, unlike domestic laws, it would have no expiration date and could only be altered by a consensus of all signatories — locking in failed, extreme policies. Also, the TPP is intended as a “docking agreement,” allowing other Pacific Rim countries to join over time if accepted by the signatory countries. Canada and Mexico joined last year. And Japan joined shortly thereafter.