We defeated the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), we prevented the World Trade Organization (WTO) from being further extended, but the struggle continues.  Now we are facing new threats, a new wave of mega free trade agreements (FTAs). The Transpacific Partnership (TPP) includes, at the moment, only five countries of the Americas: Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru and Chile.  Nevertheless, if it achieves ratification in the respective parliamentary bodies and if the geopolitical strategy of which it is a part is successful, it will affect the whole world.  Global Capital has learned from its setbacks, it has been recuperating and today, reinforced, it is once again taking the global initiative.  As we will see, this treaty aims to advance at the global level in its attempt to create a worldwide constitution of the rights of capital and recover from the defeat of the FTAA and the blockage in the WTO.

Why does a treaty that includes only 12 countries have the potential to influence the whole world?

The strategy of global capital, driven especially by the United States, is to break the institutional and formal system of trade negotiations (the WTO) and substitute it with bilateral or multilateral negotiations based on a great asymmetry of power.  The WTO promotes the free trade that we oppose, but it is at least an institutional space in which every country has a vote and this has enabled the alliances of countries of the global South to prevent the WTO from extending its mandate and the developed countries from imposing agreements.  In practice, the WTO negotiations remain stagnant.

A report for the US Senate [1] recognizes that the WTO is not moving forward and that the TPP could be a way to liberalize trade and world investment.  It notes that the WTO cannot advance because it includes the participation of those who are not willing to leave everything to the market, that is to say the law of the strongest.  Therefore, the TPP has invited only the free trade fanatics and thus it is possible "to achieve the most ambitious free trade agreement that has ever been dreamed of".  The zone covered by the TPP represents almost 40% of the world economy and if we add to this the United States-Europe agreement, the great majority of the global economy will be ruled by the logic of free trade.  Faced with this situation, the countries that have resisted and refused to sign free trade agreements will be isolated and obliged to join up (without even negotiating, only adhering to what was negotiated by the free trade fanatics). In the words of Obama, the TPP will mean that we can impose the rules of trade rather than China.

Why, if only three Latin American countries are in the TPP at the present time, should we all struggle to prevent its legislative ratification?

In the first place, even before it comes into force, the list of countries that are planning to join the TPP is increasing daily.

In second place, because for Latin America, the TPP represents another phase of the strategy followed by the United States following the defeat of the FTAA [2]. On failing to achieve the FTAA, they pursued the same objectives through bilateral or regional negotiations and this resulted in a polarization of America. All those who live on the Pacific Coast: North America, Central America, Chile, Peru and Colombia have Free Trade Agreements with the United States (as well as with Europe) [3]. The US thus consolidated their zone of influence while isolating and putting pressure on the zone in resistance to this model, grouped in Mercosur and the member-countries of ALBA [4].

Unfortunately, this has had some impact. Ecuador has signed and seeks to ratify an FTA with Europe and has frozen the process of denouncing their investment agreements (BITs); Brazil has begun a process of negotiation and signing Investment Protection Agreements (IPAs) and is again presenting ambiguous postures over whether to join the negotiations for a Trade Agreement between Mercosur and Europe [5]. The fall in commodities prices and especially that of petroleum has put an end to the period of bonanza in almost all of Latin America, creating more favorable conditions for US pressures to gain acceptance of the free trade model and for their attempts at destabilization in countries that resist their hegemony [6].

Latin America today is quite distinct from the memorable moments of the defeat of the FTAA, in which the almost total dominion of the US over its "back yard" beyond the Río Grand was broken, and some countries took on projects to recover their sovereignty and seek their own routes outside of the so-called Washington Consensus.  Latin America was polarized between resistance and the advance of the free trade model; at the same time, it ceased to be an area under the almost exclusive dominion of the United States to become an area in dispute between the United States, Europe and recently China.  It cannot be denied that the multiform strategy of global capital has been gaining ground.  The pole of governments that resist or had resisted the free trade model and social movements in general, are not, to say the least, in their best moment.  It is in this new context that we must face the new decade of mega FTAs such as that between Europe and the United States, Europe-Canada, the treaty on services (TISA) and the TPP.

What is new in the TPP?

       1. An advance in the liberalization of services, including those related to human rights.

       2. Under the guise of intellectual and commercial property rules, lies the hidden interest of exercising political and social control in the use of the internet. It contains measures for removal of content on the internet under the pretext of protecting copyright, contains prohibitions for final users to modify digital code or technological products, for their own ends and needs, under the threat of penal sanctions. In addition, the TPP will allow telecommunication service providers to fragment the internet, creating segments available only for some parties; the protection of users’ personal data is threatened and privacy of communications will be affected in several ways.

       3. It strengthens monopolies of medicines by increasing the number of years of patent protection and test data. This puts at risk and threatens the lives of millions of dispossessed people through higher prices for medicines and medical equipment and impedes the autonomous development of the supply of medicines and medical devices.

       4. It is a flagrant attack on the Rights of Peoples recognized by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, since it aims to legalize the appropriation, patenting, and commercialization of bio-diversity and bio-culture, as well as the knowledge, know-how and customary rights of original peoples, since it obliges governments to subscribe to agreements of pillage and profit -- such as the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV 91), in benefit of transnational corporations, and makes reference to other mechanisms of spoilage such as the Protocol of Nagoya.

       5. It allows for a broader interpretation of investments, furthering and extending the rights of investors and strengthening the mechanisms for their enforcement via lawsuits in international arbitration tribunals. Moreover, the subject obliged to force the compliance of these abusive rights of investors is not only the national government, but all levels of government (states, provinces, municipalities) [7].

        6.  It fine-tunes the mechanisms and discipline to which States must submit and thus limits, even more than other TLCs, their capacity to promote a sovereign economic policy or project.

        7. It limits the capacity to legislate, since this sovereign faculty is subject to "not contravening" the treaty’s provisions.

It has been signed by the executives of the 12 countries, but has not yet been ratified by any parliament. It is possible to defeat this as we did the FTAA.

The affirmation that it is possible to defeat the TPP is not mere wishful thinking, there are real opportunities to achieve this, as long as we put together national and international coordination mechanisms and are able to take advantage of the weaknesses and obstacles that global capital faces to achieve their objectives.

      1 .Today, 22 years of negative effects of these FTAs are visible, and now the kind of one-track thinking that we encountered at the beginning of the struggle against the FTAA no longer exists.

      2. International bodies that were then promoters of free trade and investment are now critical (UNCCTAD [8] , CEPAL [9]); there are even growing official voices in the international human rights system that affirm that these treaties violate international law by placing commercial rights above human rights.

      3. According to the TPP itself, to enter into force, it must be ratified by at least six countries that combined represent 85% of the integrated GDP of the 12 countries that negotiated it. This is only possible if both the United States and Japan ratify it, and in both countries the opposition, both social and parliamentary, makes us think that it is perfectly possible that its ratification may not be achieved [11].

It is true that the governments that allied with social movements for the defeat of the FTAA are in trouble; and the social movements no longer have the strength and unity that we had then. But this is not the moment to weep over losses, but to further alternative projects and reorganize to defeat TPP and TISA and the whole new wave of FTAs they are trying to impose on us. The International Meeting of Social Organizations in Opposition to the Transpacific Partnership, that took place in Mexico City on January 27 - 29 2016, was an important step in this convergence and in drawing up an action plan [12].

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)

Alberto Arroyo Picard is a researcher with UNAM and RMALC.

Article first published in Spanish in the March 2016 edition (No 511) of ALAI’s magazine América Latina en Movimiento, titled "América Latina en la coyuntura mundial" (Latin America in the global context).

[1] Congressional Research Service. Report of September 5, 2012. Unofficial translation made by RMALC.  http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42694.pdf

[2] For Latin America, the TPP is a move to advance in various terrains and scenarios: 1) Consolidation of the dominance of the United States over the Latin American countries already completely subordinated to the Free Trade model; 2) Consolidate the squeeze and pressure on the focal points of resistance in the South of the continent. 3) Establish an advantage over Europe and China in their influence in the region. It must be recalled that, beyond the competition among powers for the resources and the markets of Latin America, in reality the process to create a global constitution of the rights of capital is a project of global capital independent of its base in a country or a power.

[3] Ecuador, that has a Pacific coast, does not have an FTA with the United States, but has already signed one with Europe.

[4] The strategy against those who resist signing FTAs is multiple and is complemented by attempted coups d'état (Venezuela, Honduras and Paraguay) and recently with elements of the so-called soft power: making heavy investments and credits, and on the political plane, supporting internal oligarchs so as to force "democratic" change from inside.

[5] Brazil had no FTAs nor BITs. Today they have 4. The BITs that Brazil has negotiated are distinct from the classical treaties of protection and investments, but they are still far from those proposed by the international networks of social organizations. An analysis of the BIT between Brazil with Mexico can be seen in: Alberto Arroyo "Acuerdos de cooperación y Facilitación de Inversiones Brasileños frente a las alternativas surgidas de las redes y organizaciones sociales internacionales", published in Revista Internacional electrónica Alternitiv@s, by RMALC December 9, 2015. See http://www.malc.org/wp content/uploads/2015/alternativas99pdf. Also published in Portuguese in a book edited by EQUIT and REBRIP. Río-- de Janeiro, Brazil 2015.

[6] Nevertheless, we should avoid simplifications. The political crises of countries with progressive or leftist governments are not all the same. In every country there are diverse factors. One cannot deny external intervention, but there are also internal factors and a serious process of self-criticism is urgent. We cannot put in the same sack the oligarchical opposition encouraged from outside with the struggles of leftist sectors that look to deepen changes and that cannot just be disqualified by saying that they are playing into the hands of the right-wing.

[7] "Los derechos de los inversionistas en el Tratado Transpacific" in the electronic review Alternitiv@s number 102, pages 11 and 12 in http://www.rmalc/org/category/boletin-alternativas/  Also in http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/175235.

[8] UNCTAD (2013) "Towards a new generation of International Investment Policies. UNCTAD's Fresh Approach to Multilateral Investment Policy Making", IIA issue notes nº 5 (United Nations. New York and Geneva) UNCTAD (2014) "Reform of the IIA regime: four paths and a way forward" IIA Issue Notes, nº 3 (United Nations: New York and Geneva).

[9] Reports on FDI in Latin America in 2012 and 2013.

[10] A report of July 2015 of the UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, states that treaties such as the TPP are incompatible with international public order and may be contrary to the dispositions of the Vienna Convention on Treaty Law and null, to the extent that they are contrary to good morals.

[11] See a brief review of the opposition to the TPP and above all the sources cited in “Panorama de la oposición al TTP in Revista Electrónica Alternativ@s no. 102, pages 7 to 10 in: http://www.rmalc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/alternativas102.pdf.  Also in http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/175235.

[12] Declarations of the international meeting of social organisations opposed to the Transpacific Partnership http://www.rmalc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/FINAL-PARA-CIRCULAR-Declaracion-de-los-movimientos-sociales.pdf; also in http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/175236