The TTIP is Alive?
The Canada and European Union (EU) Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is described by the media as "a high quality agreement that reinforces Canada's fundamental relationship with the European Union."
But there more than meets the eye.
The CETA agreement - presented to public opinion as an innocuous "bilateral" EU-Canada trade deal - constitutes a TTIP in disguise.
It includes the entire neoliberal policy gamut: commodity trade, trade in services, investment, intellectual property, financial services provisions, all of which are contained in the US sponsored TTIP agreement. It is a de facto "carbon copy" of the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the European Union and the United States, which has been temporarily "blocked" by both the European Parliament and the US Congress.
Global Trade is part of an Imperial Agenda
In turn the TTIP, CETA, TISA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are the building blocks of a global "imperial" trading structure. The NAFTA-Asia Pacific Trading Block hinges upon the adoption of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
"Regulatory convergence" is the talking point of global trade negotiations. It has nothing to do with free trade. Quite the opposite: it requires conformity and similarity in the formulation of national rules and provisions, on behalf of powerful multinational conglomerates: regulatory convergence implies "removal of impediments" to trade and investment coupled with homogenous and "friendly" provisions (e.g. austerity measures, curtailment of social programs, the toning down of labor laws, corporate friendly environmental clauses and consumer protection laws, "national treatment" for foreign investors, no subsidies to farmers, etc.)
Needless to say, national sovereignty is seen by Washington as an impediment to "regulatory convergence".
CETA and the TTIP
While the devastating economic and social consequences of the Transatlantic US-EU trade deals (TTIP and TISA) including the loss of national sovereignty of EU member states have been the object of persistent public protest, the CETA agreement (which has similar neoliberal underpinnings) is going ahead largely unopposed, without debate, minimal protest, no firm opposition at the political level.
The [EU] ministers themselves are expected now to convene an extraordinary meeting on October 18, allowing the [CETA] deal to be signed during the visit of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Brussels on October 27. It could enter force next year.
But as CETA came closer to approval, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Program (TTIP), a free-trade agreement with the US, suffered a new blow ahead of the meeting when Austrian Economy Minister Reinhold Mitterlehner urged his EU counterparts to end the talks.The US-EU TTIP is viewed by the protest movement as a mechanism of appropriation of Europe's economic landscape by corporate America.
.... "TTIP has become a metaphor for the exuberant dealings of big corporations. That has a negative connotation. We hope for a good deal, but it has to be approached differently," he added.
Mitterlehner echoed comments by French Trade Minister Matthias Fekl last month that he would request a halt to TTIP negotiations after German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel declared that talks were "de facto dead."
Fekl said the United States had demanded too much and not compromised enough.
"A crazy machine is moving here, the negotiations are a failure, nobody believes that they will come to a successful conclusion," he told the German business daily Handelsblatt.
TTIP would create the world's biggest free trade area with a market of 850 million consumers stretching from Hawaii to Helsinki.
But the deal, under negotiation since 2013, has become a hot potato as key elections approach in the United States, France and Germany. Washington and Brussels are officially committed to sealing the free trade deal before President Barack Obama leaves office in January.
There are deep-seated fears in Europe that the deal would undercut the 28-nation bloc's standards in key areas such as public health and welfare.
(Deutsche Welle, September 23, 2016)
Has the Atlantic TTIP Trade Deal Negotiated behind Closed Doors been Blocked?
In this regard, it would appear that EU politicians are playing a deceptive double game: "Urged to end the talks", they have reluctantly put the TTIP "on hold" in response to public pressure and the protest movement, while pushing ahead the CETA back-door deal with Canada, The adoption of CETA would in practice validate the eventual de facto implementation of the US sponsored TTIP (or its formal adoption at a later stage and/or under a different label, see below).
What analysts and politicians fail to acknowledge is that Canada is heavily integrated (politically and economically) into the US. The US-Canada corporate and financial establishment is also integrated. A trade agreement by a NAFTA member state, namely Canada with the European Union (EU) would inevitably lead to de facto integration of the EU into the trading structures of NAFTA which are controlled by Washington and Wall Street.
This US-Canada integration does not solely pertain to trade and investment under NAFTA, it also encompasses foreign policy, military affairs, law enforcement and Homeland Security, intelligence, oil and gas pipelines, road transportation, immigration and national borders, strategic waterways and maritime rights, etc.
CETA is Washington's Backdoor Mechanism
The TTIP would be imposed de facto rather than de jure "via Canada".
At the outset, instead of launching a single process of trade negotiations between NAFTA and the EU which would have been the object of widespread opposition, Canada and Mexico were called upon by Washington to launch parallel "bilateral" trade deals with the EU, which would eventually create conditions for the integration of NAFTA and the EU, constituting thereby the core of the US empire's Atlantic Trading block.
Trade and militarization go hand in hand. The proposed Atlantic Trading Block would also coincide with the structures of NATO and the Atlantic alliance (which in practice are also controlled by the US).
CETA is a "copy and paste": it was formulated during the Harper government, starting in 2009 in close consultation with Washington and Brussels. The Harper government was entrusted by Washington "to expedite resolution of the agreement [CETA] talks to avoid losing the European's focus to the TTIP, and to prevent delay due to increasing debate surrounding contentious elements."
While the US, Canada and Mexico are member states of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Washington's ultimate endgame is to create an integrated North American Union: i.e. the United States and Provinces of North America. The latter is in many regards already functional.
The CETA agreement is a back-door initiative which was developed in close coordination with the TTIP. It's adoption would trigger the de facto (rather than de jure) adoption of the broader TTIP agreement, leading to the eventual integration of the trading structures of the "North American Union" and the European Union. It would create a fait accompli which would contribute to furthering the TTIP negotiations most probably under a different label.
It is a corporate take-over, in both the EU and North America: it will serve to destroy and undermine the economy at the local level, destroy the family farm, precipitate small and medium sized enterprises into bankruptcy, undermine social programs, etc.
It is important that people in the US, Canada and the European Union, across the land firmly oppose the signing and ratification of The Canada and European Union (EU) Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
In Canada, Hon Paul Hellyer, former defense minister and deputy prime minister during the Pierre Trudeau government is taking the lead in the campaign against the signing of the CETA agreement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Reader Comments
CETA and any other trade agreement with Canada should be blocked and I am posting this everywhere I can because Ontario Canada is absolutely a terrible place to do business. As a US based company doing business with Canada under our NAFTA trade agreement, I have found Canada is a terrible country to do business with, particularly the largest province Ontario.
We have found they do not enforce their laws, we have experience with businesses in Ontario Canada receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods across border into US. Local police had been advised of this business activity by other businesses in Ontario area, but did nothing about it. So this Canadian criminal enterprise got emboldened by lack of law enforcement and expanded their operation into including wire fraud. Report fraud to RCMP, no response. Report fraud to Canadian Antifraud Division, no response (far as we are concerned Canada's "anti-fraud" agencies are themselves a fraud, doing absolutely nothing at all, don't even respond to complaints and reports of fraud, total joke.) Report theft and fraud to local police, they say to contact the regional anti-fraud. Contact regional anti-fraud, they say contact local police. Tell them local police say to contact them, they say the issue is a contract issue and to pursue in court. How absurd, of course there is a contract, the contract was made under false pretenses which is the basis of the fraud. Contact Ontario provincial government, office of Kathleen Wynne, no response. Sent certified mail to follow up, still no response.
Canadian authorities in our experience are dumb, ignorant, lazy, pro Canada-meaning they would rather support and enable Canadian criminal activity than enforce laws for outsiders. In general we find Canada is ripe for widespread fraudulent activity. We finally got one reply from local anti-fraud division after threatening to sue Canada under NAFTA trade agreement, they said it is at least 6 months before they can begin their investigation into fraud because they are so backed up with investigations. So it seems fraud is rampant in Canada and the laws most definitely are not being enforced.
DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH CANADA IF YOU ARE OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY. EVEN OUR CANADIAN ATTORNEY SAYS WHITE COLLAR CRIME LIKE FRAUD AND WIRE FRAUD ARE VERY UNLIKELY TO BE HANDLED. ONTARIO CANADA IS PARTICULARLY BAD. CANADA IS TERRIBLE TO DO BUSINESS WITH, FIND ANOTHER RELIABLE COUNTRY. SEEMS LIKE CANADA IS POISED TO BE THE NIGERIA OR CHINA FRAUD EQUIVALENT OF NORTH AMERICA. HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE GOVERNMENT ENABLING AND ENCOURAGING FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY WITH LITTLE RECOURSE FOR OUT OF COUNTRY BUSINESSES.