The Oregon Progressive Party has endorsed

   ROCK AGAINST THE TPP   

 
Rock Against the TPP is Coming to Oregon!

The biggest challenge we’re facing in the fight to stop the anti-democratic Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is that too many people still don’t know what it is.

That’s a real problem. And corporate lobbyists are hoping to exploit it to quietly rush the TPP through Congress this Fall.Fortunately, we’ve got a secret weapon to help sound the alarm: the Rock Against the TPP roadshow.

On Saturday, August 20, thousands of Oregonians will come together to demonstrate their unified opposition to the largest free trade agreement ever: the TPP. Join us for an afternoon teach-in at Portland State University covering the environmental consequences of the TPP, then march with us to a free concert and rally at Director's Park in downtown Portland from 5 - 10pm.

2:00 - 3:30pm: Teach In at PSU
4:00 - 4:45pm: March/Bike Ride (S. Park Blocks)
5:00 - 10:00pm: Concert and Rally Against the TPP (815 SW Park Ave)

Rock Against the TPP is a nationwide uprising and concert tour meant to raise awareness about the threats of the TPP and the likely vote in Congress right after the election. This massive event is sponsored by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, the Sierra Club, Fight for the Future, Firebrand Records, and many others. For more information and to get your free tickets CLICK HERE.

Featuring: Anti-Flag(acoustic), Golden Globe nominated actress Evangeline Lilly, Downtown Boys, Bell's Roar, Evan Greer, Taina Asili, and more

If you want to help before or during the show, please fill out the volunteer form here.
Join us for this family-friendly concert with food carts, a beer garden, trade-themed carnival games, and more! Get your free tickets today!

The following letter written by OR Progressive Party State Council member, David Delk, was published in the Oregonian January 1, 2016, and calls for the rejection of the Trans Pacific Partnership corporate trade agreement.

Trans-Pacific Partnership:

The Oregonian editorial board thinks "it's tricky to estimate how many jobs are directly tied to trade, much less how many would be created if the (Trans-Pacific Partnership) is signed." Tricky, indeed, when you only account for part of the jobs equation. Missing from this equation is how many jobs will be destroyed as a result of this agreement.

The U.S.-South Korea trade agreement was the last to go into effect. President Obama said that because of increased export opportunities, 70,000 new jobs would be created and that our trade balance with South Korea would improve. Yet since then, our trade deficit with South Korea has grown, meaning that those new jobs never materialized. In fact, during the agreement's first three years, the trade deficit increased by $11.8 billion, meaning the loss of 75,000 good-paying American jobs.

So it is important to ask the right questions. Since the agreement will encourage off-shoring of investments and jobs and will do nothing to stop currency manipulation, the likelihood of a favorable result from the TPP corporate trade agreement is slim. The TPP should be rejected.

OPP calls for end to negotiations of more NAFTA-style trade agreements and no Fast Track Authority for the President

So, when the President and his largely Republican and corporate-friendly Democratic party allies in Congress now talk about making passage of Fast Track Authority and the Trans Pacific Partnership the number one area of cooperation in the new Congress, we must demand that the President stop negotiating these new agreements and that Congress not grant him Fast Track Authority.

Rally before Sen Wyden's Portland Town Hall Meeting

Saturday, January 3, 2:00 PM, (Town Hall meeting starts at 2:30 PM)
Portland Community College, SE Campus
SE 82nd and Division

Sen Wyden is having a series of town hall meetings and, at this one in Portland, we will rally to let Sen Wyden know that we do not support the same old Fast Track Authority (FTA) which he has opposed in the past. FTA has been used in the past to speed corporate trade agreements (like NAFTA, CAFTA and the most recent US So Korea Agreement) through Congress without the usual democratic process - FTA allows limited debate and no amendments. More information on other town halls meeting is available on the Economic Justice Action Group of 1st Unitarian Church website at http://www.ejag.org/events.html

Sen. Wyden has indicated that he is working with Republican Senator Hatch, new chair of the Senate Finance Committee, to present a modified Fast Track Authority bill for approval as one of the most pressing pieces of business for the new session of Congress.  But if that modified FTA does not allow Congress to fully debate the agreements presented and allow amendments to the agreements to be presented, debated and voted on, then it will still be the same old Fast Track Authority.

We need to tell the Senator that we don't want to speed job destroying environmentally harmful,corporate trade agreement which attack the soverienity of the nations through Congress.  We expect, we demand full debates and then rejection of such agreements.

If you can't be at the rally, then please email and call his office with the messge that you are paying attention and that you expect him to represent you, not the corporate interests which drive the writing of agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership, the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreements and the Trade in Services Agreement.

The Oregon Progressive Party's monthly membership meeting approved this statement of opposition to fast tracking of the the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, because it sets "binding policy on Congress and state legislatures relating to patents and copyright, food safety, government procurement, financial regulation, immigration, healthcare, energy, the environment, labor rights and more."

NAFTA is 20.
20 years ago on January 1, 1994, President Clinton signed NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area). Agreement proponents had declared that 170,000 American jobs would be created, exports of American farm products would increase, food prices would decrease, the American balance of trade would be improved. the Mexican economy would be uplifted to be a first class level of prosperity and more.

Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch's new report, NAFTA at 20, points to quite different results. Instead of job creation, we see one million US jobs lost; the lost jobs caused a downward pressure on American wages, thereby increasing inequality within the United States; food prices went up; the US balance of trade with both Mexico and Canada moved from small surplus' to deficits; American manufacturers moved their production south of the border (and later out of Mexico to China and now the new low wage nation of Vietnam); and many environmental and health laws have been challenged in private trade tribunals. The United States has become less food sustainable. Mexican immigration into the US doubled. Read the report yourself here. Listen to or watch Democracy Now! interview with Lori Wallach of Public Citizen on January 3rd, 2014 here. Click here for a list of investor suits challenging laws and regulations under various of these so-called "Free trade Agreements."

NAFTA to become the Trans Pacific Partnership