End The Secret Negotiations Of The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) FTA

If you would like to mail this letter to your House and/or Senate Representative, you can download it here as an MSWord 2003 document. Fill in or change the lines/spaces in square brackets [ ].

My name is Lacey Kohlmoos and I am the Sr. Field Organizer for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. Did you know that the worst threat to American jobs and Buy America policies is a so-called free trade agreement that is being decided right now by trade negotiators and corporations behind closed doors, shutting out civil society, citizens, the press, and even Members of Congress!

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement is about to enter its 16th major round of negotiations on March 4th and the American people still know close to nothing about what the US negotiators are promising in our names. Closed-door talks are going on between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam (considered the cheaper labor alternative to China) – with countries like Japan and China potentially joining later. 600 corporate advisors have access to the text, while the public, Members of Congress, journalists, and civil society are excluded.

Based on all we’ve been able to discover about the TPP, what's in there is very scary! U.S. negotiators are pushing proposals that not only replicate the worst of past damaging trade deals, but have championed outrageous new corporate-favored terms that would:
• Offshore millions of American jobs,
• Ban Buy America policies needed to create green jobs and rebuild our economy,
• Decrease access to medicine,
• Flood the US with unsafe products and goods,
• Curtail internet freedom a la SOPA,
• Create a "race to the bottom" and undermine human rights in developing countries,
• Free the banksters from oversight, and
• Empower corporations to attack environmental and health safeguards.

We need to make sure that the TPP prioritizes human rights, safeguards environmental reforms, preserves access to affordable medicine, protects food sovereignty, allows for robust financial regulations, respects local development goals, safeguards against currency manipulation, lifts consumer safety standards on food, and does not elevate corporations to equal terms with governments. For more information about the TPP, see the attached documents or visit our website at www.citizen.org/tpp.

Please join Public Citizen, Citizen Trade Campaign, Jobs with Justice/American Rights at Work, the Communication Workers of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, It's Our Economy, and others.

We also ask that you help us spread the word and forward this letter on to your affiliates, partners, and friends. It is imperative that Members of Congress know that only through robust oversight and public participation will the TPP become a trade policy that works for all. We cannot afford another job-killing, unsafe-import-flooding, democracy-crushing NAFTA-style trade deal.