Lucas,
The deadline has been set.
President Obama wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations concluded by October.
But after more than three years of closed-door talks, the public knows what's in the TPP only from a few leaked texts that show the TPP would lead to offshoring of U.S. jobs, higher medicine prices, and floods of unsafe food and imports.
Even members of Congress are being kept in the dark.
We need members of Congress to grasp what's at stake in the TPP.
Unelected negotiators are rewriting wide swaths of domestic, non-trade policy, and our representatives aren't even allowed to see the text.
By writing your member of Congress and requesting a copy of the TPP texts, you can help make your representative realize he or she is being shut out.
Send an email to your representative today asking for a copy of the TPP texts.
While members of Congress, the public and the press are being shut out, 600 official corporate advisors — people from places like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Walmart and Big Pharma companies like Pfizer and Abbott Laboratories — can see what the negotiators have agreed to.
There's a good chance your member of Congress doesn't even know he or she doesn't have access to the secret text.
We've seen corporate powers try this before. Just over a decade ago, at this stage in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, not only could Congress see the text, but you and I could as well. After those texts were released, the public outcry stopped the FTAA in its tracks.
Once members of Congress know they can't even see the TPP text, there will be an uproar.
Email your representative right now and join us in shining a spotlight on the TPP's unprecedented secrecy.
The clock to October is ticking down. Let's make sure every single member of Congress realizes what's at stake.
Thank you for all you do,
Steve Knievel
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch