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Article

23 Nov 2016

Author:
Michelle Chen, In These Times (USA)

Trump disavows intl. trade deals but he will bolster corporate power through deregulation & tax breaks, says journalist

"Trump Vows to Disrupt Trade—Progressives Need to Push Him in the Right Direction", 22 Nov 2016

The one election issue tying together populist voices on the right and left was trade—or so it seemed...A group of human rights organizations, including the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), has framed a human rights-based trade agenda...Core provisions would include the right to a safe and healthy environment, fair access to medicines and respect for labor and indigenous rights...One of Trump's first policy announcements was that he would immediately kill the already-stalled TPP negotiations and, instead, seek to negotiate bilateral trade agreements supposedly more beneficial to the United States. But progressive internationalists, who note that the TPP was likely moribund anyway due to widespread public backlash, warn that Trump’s rhetoric is equally short-sighted...In a broadly-worded memorandum on a 200-day trade agenda, Trump's camp has laid out a program of deregulation and corporate tax breaks as a way to preserve domestic manufacturing jobs...Despite its populist spin, Trump’s plan centers on growing multinational monopolies, and by extension, aggravating global inequality,...Even if he scraps the TPP and similar deals, his whole business persona embodies the predatory multinational investment that underlies free-trade market liberalism...

Part of the following timelines

"Human rights must be integrated into international investment agreements" - Joint statement by NGOs, experts

Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP): Background, commentaries & media coverage on human rights concerns