TPP Imposes EU-Style “Commission” on America (Video)

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will impose a European Union-style “commission” on the region with broad powers over the 12 nations ensnared in the “free trade” regime, including the United States, the text of the treaty explains. And the Obama administration-backed agreement is bad news for a number of other reasons, too, threatening U.S. sovereignty, the economy, and the Constitution. As such, it must be stopped, according to a recent four-part video series examining different elements of the regional agreement by researcher and analyst Christian Gomez, who has studied the treaty, and William F. Jasper, senior editor of The New American magazine.

In the third part of the video series, Jasper, who has written extensively on the threat to America posed by the TPP treaty, highlights the executive “commission” created under the scheme. Calling the entity a “creature” and noting that it has not received much public attention thus far, Jasper said the name and function of the TPP “commission” appeared to parallel the so-called European Commission. “It is the commission in the EU which functions as the executive, which calls all the shots, and really has the political control in the EU scheme of things,” he explained, adding that, when the Trans-Pacific “trade” scheme was being put together, its architects openly admitted modeling it after the EU.

Among the critics who have pointed out what is happening is U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, Gomez explained. In a statement about the TPP agreement, the senator said: “This new structure is known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission — a Pacific Union — which meets, appoints unelected bureaucrats, adopts rules, and changes the agreement after adoption.” Senator Sessions has been a fierce critic of other elements of the TPP deal as well, saying it empowers unaccountable international bureaucrats in “global governance” who are not accountable to the American people, while diminishing the role the America’s elected representatives in Congress.

Separately, Gomez goes through some of the text of the agreement in the video, highlighting in particular Chapter 27, which will create the commission if the deal is approved by a majority of U.S. lawmakers. One of the tasks assigned to the commission is to “consider any proposal to amend or modify this agreement.” In other words, the powerful commission will make decisions on its own future powers. The body is also empowered in the text to create international tribunals with the purported power to overrule the American people’s decisions as expressed through their elected representatives.

“This is a huge grant of executive power,” noted Jasper, speaking of the text’s imposition of a “commission” with powers over the 12 nations subject to TPP. “But also mentioned in there is another very important part which we’ve touched on, and that is the arbitral tribunals. The tribunals are judicial institutions. And under NAFTA and the WTO, they are arbitral tribunals, but as we have seen, they claim the jurisdiction to overrule our court rulings and our laws. And they have done so, in fact just in the last few months.”

Right in the preamble of the treaty, Gomez explained, is a recognition by the 12 TPP governments and dictatorships of the authority of globalist agreements and institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the agreements that underpin it. Already, the WTO has brazenly undermined U.S. national sovereignty and self-government. Among the most recent examples was a ruling by a WTO tribunal purporting to overrule U.S. legal requirements for country-of-origin labeling on meat imported into the United States from abroad. Thanks to the WTO ruling, Americans will no longer know if their meat is coming from Communist China or anywhere else.

“This is a big danger we’re going to be facing under the TPP as well,” said Jasper, referring to the assault on self-government and sovereignty.

And under TPP, the transfer of jurisdiction to international “tribunals” and kangaroo courts beyond the reach of American voters will only accelerate, Gomez said. Jasper, who has written extensively on the subject, noted that a similar phenomenon has already occurred under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Like WTO and TPP, that sovereignty-surrendering deal established supranational courts with the purported power to overrule decisions by Americans, Mexicans, and Canadians acting through their elected representatives. And those courts have already done so.

The TPP, though, goes even further than the pseudo-free trade regimes established in earlier decades. Instead of a “mere” so-called free trade area, the TPP would establish what is known as a “partnership” with ambitions for integration that extend well beyond just trade, business, and the economies of the member governments. Environmental policy, labor policy, and more are already in the crosshairs. And unlike the U.S. Constitution, the TPP allows the ruling entities to “evolve” over time, under its guidance and supervision. It also allows the TPP to add new member governments. “That means we don’t really know what we’re buying into, because it will change down the road,” added Jasper, with Gomez pointing out that much of the writing was ambiguous, too.

Other “integration” schemes involving even more Asia-Pacific governments, including the Communist Chinese dictatorship and the Kremlin, are also currently in the works, Jasper and Gomez noted, citing APEC and FTAAP. Globalists, though, have been openly discussing the use of the TPP as a stepping stone into broader integration schemes with even more member governments, potentially as many as two dozen or more members. If and when that were to happen, the voice of the American people within the supranational entity would be further diluted, Gomez explained. Indeed, under the guise of “integration,” a term used throughout the document, nations, including America, will literally be giving up their national economic sovereignty.

It has also happened mostly in the shadows. “This has been a secret document for a number of years,” said Jasper, noting that the 5,544 page text was only released in November. Before that, he added, only “privileged” people — lobbyists representing well-connected Big Business cronies, for example — were able to see it. Now, thanks to Congress voting to surrender its authority to Obama, the massive document is on the “Fast Track,” Jasper noted. He also suggested that forcing it through Congress amid important debates on everything from the budget to immigration and banking is “part of the strategy, I believe.” The establishment hopes Fast Track will allow it to be rubber-stamped before the public understands what is inside.

“It’s funny how we hear President Obama talk a lot about transparency — you know, ‘this is a transparent process,’” said Gomez. “However, if it were truly a transparent process it would have been better to release each part of it to the public as they were finished. Then we could have read it and digested it as it was coming along.” Instead, the mammoth treaty demanding far-reaching changes to American policy was dropped on the public late last year, “and we have to read through this 5,000-plus page document, which no one could possibly go through the entire thing,” shortly ahead of the expected congressional vote, Gomez said.

“We have to pass it first to see what’s inside of it,” Gomez joked, ridiculing “beloved” former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her outlandish comments about passing ObamaCare to find out what was in it. The numerous similarities between the TPP process and the deeply controversial Democrat healthcare takeover is one of the reasons that critics are referring to the TPP as “ObamaTrade,” Jasper added.

There is a lot more in the video — information that can be used by activists and concerned citizens to educate elected officials and opinion molders. Jasper concluded the fourth video segment by noting that The New American has written extensively on the TPP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to “integrate” the United States and the EU, and other pseudo-free trade schemes that threaten America. To read some of those, check out the “related articles” below.

Watch the whole four-part video series here:

With TPP Signed, Opposition Explodes Across Political Spectrum

White House: GOP Congress Must Approve TPP “Obamatrade” Soon

TPP’s State-owned Enterprises: Unleashing the Big Foreign Gorillas on Mom & Pop

Senator Blasts TPP as “Global Governance,” Says Stop Fast-Track

10 Reasons Why You Should Oppose TPP and TTIP

Undeniable: TPP Is Foundation for FTAAP

Obama Turns to CFR Globalists To Help Obtain Approval of TPP