Tag: Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

Cancer Patient Disrupts TPP Negotiations

Posted by | Oct 1, 2015 | |

Press Release – Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Today in Atlanta, cancer patient Zahara Heckscher was arrested after disrupting the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in a protest aimed at maintaining access to affordable cancer medicines in the 12 countries affected by the trade treaty.Cancer Patient Disrupts TPP Negotiations Arrested from Hotel Demanding to See the Secret “Death Sentence Clause” Today in Atlanta, cancer patient Zahara Heckscher was arrested after disrupting the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in a protest aimed at maintaining access to affordable cancer medicines in the 12 countries affected by the trade treaty. Heckscher, in a t-shirt reading “I HAVE CANCER. I CAN’T WAIT 8 YEARS”, and holding an IV pole that read “TPP: Don’ t Cut My IV,” refused to leave the Westin Hotel, the site of the negotiations between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and the other TPP trade ministers. She demanded that they show her the secret TPP text to verify for herself and other people living with cancer around the globe that TPP would not include a “death sentence clause,” the text of the U.S. proposal to extend de facto monopolies on biological medicines by up to 8 years. Heckscher, a seven-year breast cancer survivor, calls herself a cancer thriver. She has been treated by biologicals including trastuzumab (Hercepin) and pertuzumab (Perjeta). She is currently undergoing chemotherapy as part...

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Yet Another ‘Final’ TPP Ministerial and Again No Deal

Posted by | Aug 1, 2015 | , , , , , |

Press Release – Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Todays fourth final TPP ministerial without a deal means the clock has run on possible U.S. congressional votes in 2015. No deal means the TPP is thrown into the political maelstrom of the U.S. presidential cycle and with opposition building …For Immediate Release: Yet Another ‘Final’ TPP Ministerial and Again No Deal; Not Surprising Given Growing Controversy Over TPP Threats Here and in Other Nations Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Today’s fourth “final” TPP ministerial without a deal means the clock has run on possible U.S. congressional votes in 2015. No deal means the TPP is thrown into the political maelstrom of the U.S. presidential cycle and with opposition building in many countries there are reduced chances that a deal will ever be reached on a pact that U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman declared to be in its “end game” in 2013 but that has become ever more controversial since. It’s good news for people and the planet that no deal was done at this final do-or-die meeting given the TPP’s threats to jobs, wages, safe food, affordable medicines and more. Only the beleaguered negotiators and most of the 600 official U.S. trade advisors representing corporate interests wanted this deal, which recent polling shows is unpopular in most of the countries involved. This ministerial was viewed...

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Washington: Hundreds Gather to Protest TPP

Posted by | Dec 11, 2014 | , |

Press Release – Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Outside Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations in Washington, D.C., Hundreds Gather to Protest TPP, Toast the Demise of Fast Track AuthorityOutside Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations in Washington, D.C., Hundreds Gather to Protest TPP, Toast the Demise of Fast Track Authority WASHINGTON, D.C. – An hour of loud chanting and noisemakers ensured that the chief negotiators from the 12 nations involved in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks today were aware of growing U.S. public opposition to the TPP and the extremely dim prospects that President Barack Obama will ever obtain Fast Track trade authority, Public Citizen said. Hundreds of activists from labor, environmental, consumer, human rights, public health, Internet freedom, faith and family farm groups protested outside the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), where negotiators were meeting. “U.S. public opposition is focused on TPP non-trade terms being pushed by U.S. officials on behalf of corporate interests that would raise medicine prices, undermine Internet freedom and provide foreign firms operating here special privileges relative to their domestic competitors,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “President Obama will not get Fast Track authority for the TPP because congressional Democrats and Republicans alike oppose such ‘diplomatic legislating’ and are irate about the actual trade terms, such as disciplines against currency manipulation, that the administration has refused to raise in TPP talks.” “The...

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Obama Downplays Trade Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership

Posted by | Jan 29, 2014 | , |

Press Release – Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Obama Downplays Trade Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fleeting Mention Doesnt Even Reference Recently Introduced Camp-Baucus Fast Track BillObama Downplays Trade Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership: Fleeting Mention Doesn’t Even Reference Recently Introduced Camp-Baucus Fast Track Bill Statement of Lori Wallach, Director Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch “Corporate interests were fiercely lobbying for President Obama to dedicate serious time in his annual State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress address to push Fast Track and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in order to try to overcome broad congressional and public opposition to both, but instead he made only a passing reference that largely repeated his past statements. With almost no House Democratic support for Fast Track, a bloc of Republican “no” votes and public opposition making congressional phones ring off the hook, high-profile treatment of the issue was considered necessary to revive any prospect that Fast Track could be passed in this Congress. That President Obama gave only such a fleeting mention to Fast Track and TPP suggests that he recognize that Congress will not provide him with Fast Track and that there is no upside to raising public attention to the increasingly unpopular TPP. It is not surprising that President Obama shied away from using this high profile platform to spotlight Fast Track or demonstrate his personal commitment to obtaining it, as...

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TPP Deadline Passes Without Deal, More Talks in 2014

Posted by | Dec 11, 2013 | , , |

Press Release – Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Obama Administration Bullies Other Nations into Accepting Terms Demanded By Big Pharma, Rolls Back Bush-Era Access to Medicine Reforms; Congressionally-Demanded Labor and Environmental Standards Not Agreed, Currency Manipulation Rules Not DiscussedVaunted 2013 Deadline for Trans-Pacific Partnership Passes as Singapore TPP Ministerial Ends Without a Deal, More Talks Slated for 2014 Obama Administration Bullies Other Nations into Accepting Terms Demanded By Big Pharma, Rolls Back Bush-Era Access to Medicine Reforms; Congressionally-Demanded Labor and Environmental Standards Not Agreed, Currency Manipulation Rules Not Discussed WASHINGTON– Thankfully, the do-or-die trade ministers meeting designed to seal a deal on the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership by the Obama administration’s much-touted 2013 deadline ended without a deal, said Public Citizen. Ominously, trade Ministers agreed to meet again in January, but no new deadline for completing the deal was set.  However, many countries have caved to relentless U.S. demands that they alter their domestic patent and medicine pricing laws to meet the desires of large pharmaceutical firms. “At this meeting, the negotiators’ political imperative to ‘make a deal’ – any deal – resulted in a raft of dangerous decisions that would severely threaten consumers’ access to affordable medicines, undermine Internet freedom  and empower corporations to attack our domestic laws,” said Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “At the meeting, there was an altogether new desperation to lock in...

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