Faith and International Development Organizations Urge Congress to Reject Fast Track and a Bad TPP Deal
By Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
As humanitarian, human rights and faith-based organizations, we believe that trade can be a mechanism to reduce poverty and promote development only if the rules of trade serve to address the needs of the most vulnerable. To this end, broad-based development should be a core objective of US trade policy. Yet the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) fails this test, and the recently introduced Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill would further perpetuate this problem.
We support trade that contributes to improving the livelihoods of people in poverty. Yet a number of the rules included in free trade agreements (FTAs) negotiated by the United States, and particularly those promoted by US negotiators in the TPP, will do just the opposite, undermining poverty reduction in developing countries.