This Call to Action comes from the Citizens Trade Campaign (CTC). CTC is a national coalition whose members include national regional, state, and city-based coalitions, organizations, and individual activists throughout the United States. Global Exchange is a member of CTC and a sponsor of this call to action.
In dozens of countries across the globe, groups are preparing for the April 18th Global Day of Action Against Unfair Trade. This particular call is for communities in the United States to join together in action that day to help derail Fast Track legislation that would enable the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and other corporate power grabs disguised as trade agreements to be rushed through Congress.
The latest rumor is that Fast Track legislation could be re-introduced the week of April 13th (something many are working hard to prevent!). If we don’t detail Fast Track, the TPP and other pending pacts would be rubber-stamped, with potentially devastating consequences for working people, family farmers, indigenous peoples, small businesses and the environment in the United States and around the globe. Stopping Fast Track is the single most important contribution those in the United States can make to ending corporate trade agreements that threaten to:
- Destroy livelihoods and accelerate the global race to the bottom in wages and working conditions
- Further commodify agriculture, trample food sovereignty, hurt small farmers and contribute to forced migration
- Enable new corporate attacks on democratically-enacted environmental and consumer protections
- Undermine global economic stability by prohibiting effective regulation of financial markets
- Reduce access to life-saving generic medications, increase the cost of prescriptions and restrict freedom on the Internet
The threats that existing “Fast Tracked” trade agreements have already cost our communities, and the additional threats that new pacts pose, must be both acknowledged and resisted. We also need to spread the word that when people have come together across issue areas and geographic borders, we have defeated similar corporate power grabs like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the Millennial Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and even past attempts at Fast Track — as recently as 2014.
By acting together, we will do so again now.
TAKE ACTION!
Please attend — or, ideally, organize — a demonstration, door-to-door canvass or educational event in your community on or around Saturday, April 18th calling on your Members of Congress to oppose Fast Track. Any action or event organized within a week of that date will be cross-promoted as part of this call.
Receive Updates on the Day of Action (and personally endorse the call to action if interested)
Promote an Action or Event You’ve Organized in Your Community (and be listed as a point of contact)
List Your Organization as Endorsing the Fast Track Day of Action (for organizational representatives only)