LEFT OUT: The Trans Pacific Partnership

This episode takes a critical look at the The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal involving 12 countries, encompassing nearly 40% of the global economy. Though lauded by the U.S. government as a deal  “ that will help increase Made-in-America exports, grow the American economy, support well-paying American jobs, and strengthen the American middle class”, a closer look demonstrates otherwise. Exploring the thousands of pages of text with economists, policy experts, and union leaders, we delve into investor state dispute settlements, the relationship between the TPP and regressive distribution of wealth, monopoly creation through patent protection and what this all means for the working class. Guests for this episode include Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, Melinda St. Louis of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Wayne Ranick of the United Steelworkers Union and David Rosnick of the Center for Economic Policy and Research. You can link some of their work below. The Economic Policy Institute's Robert E. Scott maintains a blog full of technical information on the TPP and other trade deals. For a review of trade relations with China since 2001 read Robert E. Scott’s The China Toll . He also has a more recent position paper written to the United States International Trade Commision dealing with the TPP in particular Public Citizen has a great webpage of resources particular to the TPP theirinitial analysis of the TPP is eye opening The United Steelworkers covered the effects of the TPP on working families in a recent blog post David Rosnick of the Center for Economic and Policy Research published a report demonstrating how the median wage earner would lose income while top wage earners would gain from the TPP