Global Business Dialogue, a key corporatist lobbying group for so-called Free Trade agreements, is upping the pressure for passage of “Fast Track” Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which is generally recognized as a requisite prelude for passage of the Obama administration’s two mammoth trade proposals, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
In e-mails to its members, Global Business Dialogue (GBD) has announced that it will be holding a secret off-the-record meeting with top staff members of House and Senate committees this Friday, May 8, at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C. The congressional aides listed as speakers at the event include House Ways and Means staffers Angela Ellard (for the Majority, i.e., Republicans) and Jason Kearns (for the Minority, i.e., Democrats), as well as Everett Eissenstat of the Senate Finance Committee (for the Majority).
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The GBD announcement states:
Gavel Day, an GBD annual event, is the day when the chairman of the GBD Board of Advisers hands over the gavel to the incoming chairman. On May 8, our current chairman, Jay Eizenstat of Mars, will give the gavel to Yuri Unno of Toyota.
This is a critical period for American (and world) trade policy, with Trade Promotion Authority headed to the floor of both the House and Senate and a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement not far behind. We will look more closely at the dynamics of TPA with help from the experts:
Speakers
Angela Ellard
House Ways and Means
(Majority)
Jason Kearns
House Ways and Means
(Minority), and
Everett Eissenstat
Senate Finance Committee
(Majority)
Depending on the timing of further U.S. Senate consideration of Trade Promotion Authority, the line-up could change. Whatever the situation at the time, this event is bound to be as valuable as it is timely.
The GBD e-mail message then says: “Note to Press: The TPA discussion with Congressional staff will be off-the-record.”
This type of notification is known in official circles as the “Chatham House Rule,” a secrecy policy initiated by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA, also known as Chatham House), the British sister institute of the world-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) here in the United States. Secrecy, of course, has been the hallmark of the negotiation process for both the TPP and TTIP, as The New American has reported extensively for the past several years (see here, here, and here).
It is not surprising then that the Council on Foreign Relations has been providing the guiding hands behind the various high-powered lobbying groups, media organizations, and think tanks pushing the TPA, TPP, and TTIP. This is evident from the content of the CFR website, the articles in its journal Foreign Affairs, the speaker programs it has been sponsoring, its members who are holding key U.S. government posts, and its members who hold top executive positions in major corporations and business associations.
CFR member Dr. Michael A. Samuels serves as secretary of Global Business Dialogue, as well as one of its three directors. Dr. Samuels, a former Deputy U.S. trade representative and U.S. ambassador to the GATT in Geneva, also serves on the GBD’s board of advisors.
One of Global Business Dialogue’s main sponsoring organizations is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose president, Tom Donohue (CFR), is a tireless flack for the corporatist globalist agenda. The GBD’s corporate sponsor roster includes such CFR-aligned heavyweights as:
Walmart
UPS
Dow Chemical
Unilever USA
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd
Caterpillar Inc.
Chevron
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, PhRMA
United States Steel Corporation
DHL Express
U.S. Dairy Export Council
Fluor Corporation
Derailing “ObamaTrade Fast Track”
On April 16 Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, released their new Trade Promotion Authority bill (S.995) to provide President Obama with fast track authority for the TPP and TTIP. The GBD and other corporatist lobby groups that stand to benefit from the secret deals baked into the still undisclosed TPP and TTIP agreements are cranking up the pressure to pass the TPA in the next few weeks.
Passage of TPA would put the United States on the ObamaTrade Express for globalization — and the accelerated destruction of our national sovereignty. Now is the critical time for all patriots to contact their senators and representatives to derail the TPA.
Related articles:
TPP Power Grab: World Bank, Goldman Sachs, CFR
Using Phony Job and Export Claims to Push TPP Fast Track
Will GOP Use Kerry’s “We Didn’t Know” NAFTA Defense on TPP?
So I’m Told Trade Deficits Are Good
Trade Promotion Authority: Another Rush Job on Fast Track
Sen. Wyden Is Key Democrat in TPP-TPA Fast Track Trade Fight
