PRESS RELEASE
Imperial Trade Deals Being Rejected
Aug. 29, 2016 (EIRNS)—After 14 rounds of negotiations spanning three years, the latest in July, Germany’s Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Sunday that talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) had essentially failed. Appearing on Germany’s ZDF channel, Gabriel told the host, "In my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it."
Matthias Fekl, France’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Tourism, and French Nationals Abroad, quickly seconded Gabriel’s comments on CNBC today: "We completely agree with Gabriel." He added that France is prepared to stop negotiating in September. In May, French President Francois Hollande had stated that France would "never accept" the deal in its present form.
Since the United States has adopted a "take it or leave it" (no changes allowed) attitude to the negotiations, and the Europeans are refusing to buckle under, the deal may well be doomed. As Gabriel reportedly told the German Tagespiegel,
"The negotiations with the U.S.A. have de facto failed because we Europeans did not want to subject ourselves to American demands,"
adding, "Things are not moving on that front."
In the United States, the TPP (TTIP’s cousin, the Trans Pacific Partnership) is also facing a dim future, with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell telling an audience of farmers in Kentucky last week that there were "serious flaws" in the deal, and that he would leave it to "the next administration" to deal with, since "the politics of trade have become rather toxic." McConnell had already announced, there would be no vote before the election.
Desperate to have something besides war and destruction in his "legacy," Obama is refusing to admit defeat. An Aug. 22 New York Times article says that Obama is sending out his "heavy hitters"—Secretary of State John Kerry, and military proponents such as Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter; retired Adm. Michael Mullen, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., and U.S. Sen. William Cohen, who also served as former President Clinton’s Defense Secretary on a nationwide tour, beginning in September, to sell the snake oil to the public.
By his choice of last-ditch hucksters for the TTP, Obama is tacitly but clearly admitting this "trade agreement" is a military tool—against China.
