TPP Threatens US Sovereignty and National Security
December 22, 2015 in News by RBN Staff
Freedom Outpost | |
With all the hoo hah over ISIS, the Muslim invasion force in Europe, the importation of Muslims into the United States – perpetrated by Obama and paid for by the taxpayers, and the three-ring circus that the 2016 presidential campaigns have created, it is easy to forget about other issues still plaguing this nation that will devastate US sovereignty. If you recall, the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP trade fast track authority or TPA slid through Congress with plenty of controversy and adversaries of the deal. Neither Congress nor the public know all the details surrounding the TPP; and, for all anyone knows, Obama could be giving away the farm.
According to an article at Breitbart, Obama may have opened the door to a “farm give-a-way” where the infrastructure of our nation is concerned. The text the Obama administration placed in the TPP, a trade agreement between the US and 11 other nations, reversed policies the US had included in every agreement of this type that would prevent “foreign takeover of the nation’s infrastructure,” claims Curtis Ellis, adding the deal threatens US national security.
As Ellis elaborated to Breitbart:
Previous U.S. trade pacts stated in no uncertain terms that the national security interests of the United States are determined solely by the U.S. government and supersede any provisions of the pacts. The U.S. government had unfettered power to protect our national security interests as it deemed necessary – even if its actions might violate the terms of a trade agreement.
But the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement reverses this precedent. As a result, other countries could claim our national security interests violate the T.P.P. agreement and force the U.S. to pay billions of dollars in damages.
Ellis adds that Chapter 11 in the more than 5,000 page document provides an avenue for foreign investors to acquire “US land, businesses, natural resources and investments.
How they would do that is contained in the TPP. Chapter 28 and 29 allow foreign investors to bypass Congress, sue the US through an international panel, “known as an investor-state dispute tribunal, if they feel America violates their ‘rights'” under the trade agreement, Ellis explains.
Ellis outlined the details for further clarification.
Currently, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) reviews pending foreign investments in the U.S. to determine if they pose a threat to national security and can recommend the president shut down investments deemed a threat. Under previous trade agreements, foreign investors would have no recourse.
But under the T.P.P., the Sultan of Brunei, the billionaire autocrat who rules his T.P.P. country under Sharia law, could sue for billions of dollars if CFIUS denied his bid to buy a company providing security to U.S. ports and airports.
He would bring his case before a foreign tribunal that could force taxpayers to award him compensation for “lost profits.” The tribunal, staffed by three unelected lawyers hailing from anywhere in the world, would have the power to second-guess the U.S. government on what constitutes a threat to our national security.
The Sultan of Brunei recently outlawed Christmas in his land and threatens violators with prison. Brunei is one of the 11 countries party to Emperor Hussein’s trade deal.
Ellis goes on to highlight an event that occurred in 2006 to support the concerns he has with TPP.
According to Ellis, Dubai Ports World (DPW), an enterprise of the United Arab Emirates, sought to purchase a company in 2006, which operated six U.S. ports. During that time, Ellis says, “Congress intervened to block the sale after Coast Guard officials raised the possibility of significant security risks,” but he argues that the 2006 “controversy came in the midst of congressional debate over the U.S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement.”
Ellis’s concerns with TPP is that the TPP, like the Oman pact, gives foreign investors special rights to own and operate U.S. businesses and an option to sue if they feel their rights are violated. He adds that the public outcry in 2006 blocked the sale.
Following the Dubai Ports World controversy, language was added in a footnote to all U.S. trade agreements to shut down any second-guessing of U.S. security interests by trade tribunals. The footnote makes clear the U.S. has sole discretion in determining its essential national security interests.
The critical footnote to the “Security Exception” Article 22.2 of the Peru Free Trade Agreement, Article 21.2 of the Panama FT, Article 22.2 of the Colombia FTA and Article 23.2 of the Korea-US FT reads: “For greater certainty, if a Party invokes [the “Security Exception] Article in an arbitral proceeding initiated under [Investment] Chapter or [Dispute Settlement] Chapter, the tribunal or panel hearing the matter shall find that the exception applies.”
In other words, if the US invokes national security, no foreign entity such as a foreign trade tribunal could overrule it. It was done as the US determines what undermines or threatens its national security. But, Obama left out this critical stipulation, an important one, that would leave our sovereignty intact and without question. All that would have been needed was a stipulation in Article 29.2 basically stating no TPP tribunal dispute can substitute its judgment for that of the US with regard to what the US determines is its essential security.
The result is concerning. Any company that operates in any of the TPP nations could potentially drag the United States into an “extrajudicial foreign tribunal and demand taxpayer compensation if our government prevented it from buying a crucial American asset based on national security grounds,” Ellis explained.
Another nice surprise exists in the TPP that threatens the US. “The TPP also includes an Annex 9-H which states that a government’s decision on whether to approve a given foreign investment in its territory is not subject to challenges before an investor-state dispute tribunal,” he stressed.
It seems member nations of Australia, Canada, Mexico and New Zealand added their own foreign investment review laws while Obama, keeping his eye on the agenda, failed to protect US interests leaving the nation open for raping by foreign investment firms and corporations. With the Senate violating the Constitution on Obama’s “say so” that he did not need “advice and consent of the Senate” to negotiate treaties, this nation is now left open to ruin, financially and economically, through foreign investment tribunals if any foreign corporation challenges the US determination of its essential national security.
If memory serves correctly, one of the Alinsky principles is to financially and economically devastate a nation to implement tyranny and oppression. It’s exactly what Obama has negotiated.
The travesty that is the TPP can be squarely laid at the feet of Congress, both chambers, and the emperor Hussein. The House should have drafted articles of impeachment against this usurper traitor so the Senate could try it. Granted, the Senate may not have convicted, but it would be following the law, which both chambers fail to do. The Senate members should know the Constitution instead of listening to a community organizer who probably didn’t take the bar exam in order to practice law.
Instead, the Senate, whose members cannot stand on ignorance, are complicit in helping Obama destroy this nation since all treaties are negotiated by the president, “with the advice and consent of the Senate.” By relinquishing their duty, the entire Senate committed a betrayal of the people and treason against this nation. For, the Sultan of Brunei, who outlawed Christmas in his nation, could procure vast swaths of US territory, buy up plenty of natural resources, and implement Sharia law. And, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
The US is up for grabs to the highest bidder, which is a scenario envisioned by many, with this treaty under Obama and a complicit Congress.
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