Corporate interests
Behind every free trade and investment agreement lies a set of corporate interests. Just as they have greatly influenced the shape, scope and contents of World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements, so too are transnational corporations (TNCs), sectoral industry coalitions and lobby groups mobilizing around specific bilateral trade and investment negotiations, to push even further than they were able to get at the WTO.
“Bilateral and regional FTAs …are formalized manifestations of where our respective private sectors have taken us…it is really business and government moving in tandem,” explained Susan Schwab, former US Trade Representative in 2006.
TNCs, whether acting individually or as part of industry coalitions such as the US Council on International Business (USCIB), the Emergency Committee for International Trade, the Coalition of Service Industries (US), BusinessEurope, the European Services Forum (EU) or Nippon Keidanren (Japan), are organized, aggressive and influential in their demands for specific FTAs. The comprehensiveness of most free trade and investment agreements means that there are many cross-cutting issues as well as separate chapters and provisions in these agreements which serve to shape policy regimes in the interests of TNCs.
last update: May 2012
Articles
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13-Aug-2012 PR Newswire Almost 50 executives from the top US companies to take part in the 2012 Uzbekistan-US Annual Business Forum in Tashkent
The American-Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce has been arguing strongly to bring the US-Uzbek bilateral investment treaty into force. The Uzbeks have signed it, but the US has not yet ratified it. -
12-Jul-2012 USCSI - Business Community TPP Services Letter to USTR
We are writing to express our strong support for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that includes major commitments aimed at further liberalizing cross-border trade and investment in services. -
11-Jul-2012 Bureau of Investigative Journalism How City lobby supported controversial Indian trade deal
A secret deal that saw Brussels blamed for ‘forcing’ Britain to take in 12,000 Indian workers – despite high unemployment – was supported by a lobbying push from British financial services companies. -
28-Jun-2012 Shopfloor Ecuador must live up to its obligations under trade and investment agreements - NAM
The US National Association of Manufacturers is asking the Obama administration to give Ecuador three months to meet the requirements and standards under the US-Ecuador bilateral investment treaty or be removed from the Andean Trade Preference Act. -
22-Apr-2012 Cargill lobbyist’s quest is open markets
Devry Boughner sits under a portrait of Ho Chi Minh in the home of Vietnam’s ambassador to the United States and pitches the virtues of open markets to a communist diplomat. -
22-Mar-2012 Poultry Site Coalition calls for comprehensive US-EU FTA
An ad hoc coalition of 40 food and agricultural organizations led by the National Pork Producers Council in a letter sent yesterday to the Obama administration and Congress expressed concern that a proposed free trade agreement between the United States and the European Union might fall short of long-established US objectives for trade pacts. -
2-Mar-2012 Matangi Tonga International civil society groups slam corporate influence on Trans-Pacific free trade talks
The 11th round of Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement negotiations between Australia, the US, New Zealand, Malaysia and four other countries starts in Melbourne on March 1. Civil society groups from those countries are in Melbourne to contest corporate influence and debate the issues. -
28-Feb-2012 Tax News APEC business leaders push Asia-Pac FTA
The Business Advisory Council of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is focused on taking further steps towards realizing the goal of an integrated Asia Pacific economy, and on liberalizing and facilitating trade and investment, leading ultimately to a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). -
15-Jan-2012 Conglomerates poaching experienced trade negotiators
Following former trade minister Kim Hyun-jong, another former diplomat who played a key role in negotiations over the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) has gone to work for Samsung. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) stated on Sunday that 45-year-old Kim Won-gyeong, an economic adviser at the Korean Embassy to the United States, had submitted his resignation ahead of the regular February reshuffle. Though it has been reported that Kim will go to work as a director for Samsung Electronics America, a Samsung Electronics official said that talks were still in progress and nothing had been confirmed. -
14-Jan-2012 Bloomberg Obama’s agency revamp may diminish US Trade Representative
A proposal by President Barack Obama to reorganize US trade agencies would force together departments that have different missions, something industry groups say may diminish effectiveness. -
14-Jan-2012 China Daily Group calls for investment treaty with China
"We need to negotiate more bilateral investment treaties. … India and China should be high on that list," said Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce -
23-Dec-2011 Bloomberg Fair trade proving anything but in $6B market
Fair trade is increasingly becoming a marketing strategy where the farmers’ poverty is a necessary ingredient to make consumers feel good about themselves -
23-Nov-2011 Reuters Business leaders urge US, EU consider trade pact
The private sector Transatlantic Business Dialogue wants Obama and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to agree when the two leaders meet on Monday to explore the idea of negotiating a "TransAtlantic Economic and Trade Pact." -
7-Nov-2011 Mondialisation.ca Libre-échange, l’étape supérieure du néolibéralisme
Le 12 août dernier (exactement 2 mois avant le dénouement de la ratification des Accords de Promotion Commerciale – précédemment dénommés TLCs -avec la Colombie, le Panama et la Corée du Sud au Congrès des États-Unis !), C. Fred Bergsten, directeur du Peterson Institute for International Economics, a fait une intervention intitulée : « Les États-Unis dans l’Économie Mondiale ». -
7-Nov-2011 Bulletin Corporations occupy fair trade
Corporations move in to further occupy the fair trade network -
6-Nov-2011 Top U.S. companies urge new Internet trade rules
Google, Microsoft , Citigroup , IBM , GE and other top-tier American companies on Thursday urged the United States to fight for trade rules that protect the free flow of information over the Internet. -
7-Oct-2011 Trade agreements make lobbyists millions
US Justice Department records show that Panama’s, Korea’s and Colombia’s Washington embassies, foreign ministries, and trade agencies forked over at least $15 million for lobbying, legal, and PR expenses since the beginning of 2006 to help push for the agreements, The Hill reports. -
25-Sep-2011 Macon Kia closely watching free-trade debate
Kia spent $150,000 in the first quarter of this year to lobby members of the US House and Senate on matters that included the Korea-US free-trade agreement, according to federal lobbying records. -
26-Aug-2011 Voxy Alcohol lobbyists expose FTA pitfalls
Lobbyists for the alcohol industry are threatening to use New Zealand’s free trade agreements against government proposals to restrict products targetting young drinkers -
12-Aug-2011 Manufacturing News Anti-free trade lobby is completely ignored by US Senators; Overseas producers and their interests control America’s economic policy
An aggressive lobbying and PR campaign aimed at defeating the proposed US free trade agreement with Korea, and costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, has amounted to nothing.
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Eurochambres
Eurochambres, a European business lobby group, webpage on FTAs -
IFAC
The Industry Functional Advisory Committees (IFACs) for Trade Policy Matters have a direct and important structural role in steering US trade policy. There are four IFACs guiding US trade deals on customs, standards, intellectual property rights and electronic commerce. -
SOMO
SOMO links the negotiations and rules on international trade and investment with the actual conduct of corporations within these rules and agreements. -
USCIB on Regionalism vs Multilateralism
US Council for International Business, April 2004
