The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a free trade agreement between the U.S. and 11 Asian and Pacific countries that few people have heard of. If enacted, the TPP would encompass nearly 40 percent of the global economy ($27.5 trillion) and affect the lives of 800 million people. The stated goal of the partnership is to eliminate tariffs, and increase the flow of investment capital between signatories. Concealed within this naked move by the global One Percent to squeeze as much profit as possible from the planet is the mechanism for multinational corporations to subvert democracy and legal process through the implementation of secret tribunals.

Last Thursday, CWA president Larry Cohen agreed with MSNBC's Ed Schultz's assessment that regarding the TPP, "the president [Obama] clearly is on the wrong side of the issue." Not only would the trade deal result in the loss of jobs and diminish the power of U.S. workers to collectively bargain it would also grant special powers to multinational corporations. Cohen spoke passionately about the TPP's broad side attack on democracy: "If any of these nations improve standards for workers, if they improve environmental standards, or safety standards that cut corporate profits the TPP allows these corporations to try to stop those moves by suing for billions of dollars."

Candice Johnson, communications director for the Communications Workers of America, explains, "The Trans-Pacific Partnership will give special rights to corporations. It will allow them to challenge any laws that could impact expected future profits." Citing the recent example of a fracking ban passed by the people of Denton, Texas, under the TPP Denton "could be sued for the amount of profit [the corporation] expected." The suit would be filed, not in any U.S. court, but in a "secret tribunal" run by multinational corporations.

Just today Johnson learned that under the articles of the trade deal, "U.S. companies can set up overseas dummy corporations for the sole purpose of suing the United States" for losses of expected profit. In other words, any regulation or limitation of corporate profitability would result in that profit being extracted directly from the citizenry without their consent, or even awareness.

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