TPP objectionable

Your Feb. 4 editorial endorsing the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP) pointedly neglects its most objectionable and odious provisions, such as abdication of American sovereignty to unknown strangers concerning any issue about which any corporation may allege a loss of profit.

For example: Cautionary labeling of food, medicine, tobacco and cosmetics. Environmental restrictions on products and practices that endanger clean water, and health and safety as a consequence. Restrictions on hard-won labor practices, conceivably returning to child labor and 16-hour work days. Tariffs that keep us from being overwhelmed by even more cheaply made goods.

How will this affect Spokane? Just two months ago, for example, we lost our right to know the origin of our meat under the same kind of rules (via the World Trade Organization) that exemplifies the TPP. Similar litigation is pending over fracking, drilling, wastewater disposal and a host of other environmental issues that affect corporate profits. None of these issues will be decided by American judges, thanks to the TPP.

No wonder this has been negotiated in secret, labeled “an agreement,” not a treaty requiring Senate approval, and that virtually all of our politicians have voted to fast track its passage.

Michael Poulin

Spokane