Of course the global companies do not care if the US economy crashes and burns. They have already decided that Asia is the future. Read their public documents. It is not unlike the turn of the last century when global corporations abandoned the sinking British Empire and made the US the core economy. Now, China will be the core and the US will move into the semi-periphery, except that we do not have the democratic socialist safety nets created in Europe since the great revolutions of 1848, so there will be nothing to break our fall.
There is EVERY reason for US companies, who are no nationalists or patriots and have no loyalty to the US, to encourge the USG to write trade deal that in the interests of the companies but in the interest of US citizens. It is exactly the same reason the companies advocated for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the exact same reason they oppose raising taxes to pay for our crumbling infrastructure, and why they do not care at all that millennials find themselves 10s of 1000s in student debt with no foreseeable way to pay it off. It is called the profit motive. That's all they care about. So they will ask for bad laws that help them and hurt the rest of us. And pro-business Democrats will buy it on the theory that is what is good for business is good for the rest of us. But that theory has proven to be expired . . .
And I am so sick and tired of people saying that we have no idea what is in the TPP. That is just hog wash. We know plenty, both through leaks and through official government statements. If you want to live in the dark, you can pretend "we don't know," or you can use your brain and your fingers and look up plenty on the interwebs.
The compete IP chapter was just leaked today: https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip3/
The Canadian government admitted that cars and parts traded under the TPP need only be made of 45% TPP content. In a worst case scenario, if every part in the 45% TPP car was only 45% TPP, that means nearly 80% of the car could be Chinese. This will most assuredly send jobs overseas.
ISDS: The USG has admitted ISDS will be in the TPP. That is a fact. Look it up on the WH and USTR websites if you want to see all the defenses to providing a private legal forum solely to foreign investors that is not available to a country's own citizens. That is neither equitable, nor democratic, nor pro-development. If you doubt that ISDS is a problem, see this UN Conference on Trade and Development report, which describes a number of egregious legal ruling that CANNOT be appealed no matter how ridiculous they are: http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/webdiaepcb2015d2_en.pdf See also this: http://www.thenation.com/article/right-and-us-trade-law-invalidating-20th-century#
Buy American: Again, we know that Buy American will be weakened because USTR tells us so. Now they also tell us that wil be good for us, but I assume we are all smart enough to determine for ourselves whether it is good to prevent governments from being able to choose whether they want to prefer their own suppliers or they do not depending upon the circumstances of the purchase and the unemployment rate at the time.
The TPP is not a mystery. It is an offshoring agreement that will benefit economic elites. And it is set in stone. That was the point of the Fast Track fight. Congress cannot change it now because it voted to tie its own hands.
= new reply since forum marked as read