BUY AMERICAN

Special to Denver Direct by Dave Felice

In an extremely rare display of bipartisanship and unanimity, all seven members of Colorado’s house delegation have signed a congressional letter supporting “Buy American” provisions in foreign trade treaties.
The letter – signed by Democrats Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, and Ed Perlmutter, by Republicans Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner, Doug Lamborn, and Mike Coffman – urges President Barack Obama to reconsider provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty that would severely hamper long-standing domestic purchasing policies.
According to the letter’s authors, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) and Walter B. Jones (R-NC), the current TPP provisions would have a disastrous impact on American workers, jobs, and manufacturers, and would result in sending of billions of U.S. tax dollars overseas.
The full text of the letter can be found here.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a massive trade treaty currently being secretively negotiated among the U.S. and ten Pacific Rim nations, including Japan, Australia, and Vietnam.
The treaty contains highly controversial provisions which would encourage corporations to send jobs overseas, flood U.S. markets with imported food products of questionable quality, undermine Internet freedom, and empower corporations to attack environmental and health safeguards.
Pointing to the failures of the 20-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), critics term the TPP “NAFTA on steroids.” Opponents of the TPP say corporate interests are using a “Trojan horse” strategy of branding negotiations as “trade talks” to impose many non-trade policies that would undermine basic needs and rights of Americans.
Both Republicans and Democrats – in a broad spectrum of public interests from agriculture to religion – are opposing the TPP.