These are exciting times for the global justice movement. A mass campaign is building against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the corporate trade deal being negotiated in secret between the EU and US. And if official concern is anything to go by, we are winning.
The negotiations were launched in 2013, and officials still hope to conclude a deal before the end of the Obama presidency next year. TTIP is not a traditional trade agreement aimed at reducing border tariffs, already at minimal levels. Instead, it focuses on dismantling the remaining ‘barriers’ to corporate profit that exist, namely the social standards, labour rights and environmental regulations that we hold most dear.
