The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement under negotiation between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Leaked documents show the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is pressuring TPP countries to expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and trade away access to medicines. Public Citizen and our partners envision a very different Asia-Pacific region partnership--one that advances pharmaceutical access and innovation simultaneously. Through analysis, and advocacy, we are working to spotlight public health and the knowledge economy at the negotiations and helping countries push back against Big Pharma's corporate influence.

Big Pharma has a new tool to make turbo-charged profits and insulate itself from efforts to rein in skyrocketing health costs. Under the emerging Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement with the U.S. and 11 Pacific Rim nations, drug companies will be able to challenge any restraint on their ability to price-gouge, including laws that empower public programs like Medicare and Medicaid to use their purchasing power to obtain lower prices. In the lawless market envisioned by the trade deal, drug makers would charge whatever they want without any constraints. TPP negotiators are currently meeting in Salt Lake City for critical discussions about this agreement, which would be the largest economic trade treaty since the World Trade Organization was established in 1995.

The year's most controversial secret treaty just became very, very public. WikiLeaks has posted a full copy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership proposals from this August, revealing many provisions that have only been seen by a small group of lobbyists and heads of state. Nothing in the text has been definitively agreed to, but it offers a rare look into the state of a treaty that could lock in a broad range of rules about information access, patents, and consumer hardware.

From the EFF.

While tariffs were the focus of many early 20th century trade negotiations, today the big issues are the regulation of banks and financial services, intellectual property rights, health and safety standards, regulation of the environment, pricing of new drugs and medical devices, privacy of your personal data, and other topics about which many of us have strong opinions. But our opinions are devalued, largely because of the asymmetric secrecy surrounding the negotiation. The secrecy is asymmetric because it does not apply to everyone. Of course all of the governments involved have access to the negotiating text, and so do hundreds of “cleared advisers” from the private sector on White House trade advisory boards. Basically, big corporations have access to the details of the negotiation — but you don't. The secrecy is all about diminishing your power, your voice, and magnifying corporate power (as if that was needed).