USA uses TPP-like trade-court to kill massive Indian solar project

[villager]

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was on track to deliver deploy 20,000 MW of grid connected solar power by 2022 ("more than the current solar capacity of the world’s top five solar-producing countries combined&quot but because India specified that the solar panels for it were to be domestically sourced, the USA sued it in WTO trade court and killed it.

The USA has its own domestic solar initiatives that generally have "buy local" rules, but those are permissible under the WTO. The WTO court ruled that India's buy-local rules were not, and ordered the initiative's cessation despite its role in helping India to meet its obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The Trans Pacific Partnership, a secretly negotiated trade agreement, expands the sorts of powers the WTO creates to allow multinationals to sue governments to repeal policies that undermine their profitability. Expect lots more of this in the future if the TPP passes.

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https://boingboing.net/2016/03/13/usa-uses-tpp-like-trade-court.html

[LittleBlue]

1. Rightfully so. The idea of fair trade means

that our companies have a shot at selling their products to India in exchange for the same consideration on our side. Whether that project is a noble objective or not is irrelevant.

Plus, most importantly, taxpayers often get screwed buying local. Let them select the best product for the taxpayers using competitive bidding.

[Peace Patriot]

2. "Whether that project is a noble objective or not is irrelevant." !!!

That is exactly what is wrong with so-called "FREE Trade." You wrongly describe this as "fair trade." It is NOT. TPP is "free trade for the rich," which means "free trade" for transglobal corporations and billionaire investors who are beholden to no one but their goddamned god, Profit.

Local ELECTED governments should have COMPLETE control over what they purchase and what they permit to be imported. NO ONE but the sovereign people of a country, who ELECT their office holders, should have this power--and certainly not secret, transglobal corporate-run tribunals.

Furthermore, THIS is why our planetary environment is in upheaval. Earth is going to become uninhabitable, within decades! We do not have 100 years to solve this problem. There is going to be chaos over resources and migrations from areas rendered uninhabitable. This is already in progress. So, ESPECIALLY when a project to switch off fossil fuels or to mitigate environmental damage is the issue, local governments, accountable to their people, MUST have that control--or we are all lost.

Your narrow--and, can I say STUPID--focus on buying and selling, on market talk, is irrelevant!

Try to expand your mind a bit, please!

[Enthusiast]

5. +1 a huge bunch!

[Javaman]

11. +1000!! nt

[Dragonfli]

3. these neoliberal free trade deals are poison to the people and the earth.

This project now has to be scrapped due to the pure greed of companies that would prefer a Pyrrhic victory such as this as punishment for net getting to take in cash.

You and they are pathologically sociopaths that cause great harm to everyone not wealthy stockholders, That they shut this down vindictively to profit from the suit is all I need to know about the vampire nature of this mindset and those that hold it..

[Enthusiast]

6. PLUS ONE, a huge bunch!

[Enthusiast]

8. They are not "our companies". They® could care less if we draw another breath.

They don't care where their employees reside as long as they are paid as little as possible. They don't care where products are manufactured as long as they can disregard the environment and pollute at will.

[KG]

9. I lulz'd

[Javaman]

12. ...

[Lorien]

4. Horrific. On the same day that NASA and other organizations announce that climate change

is rapidly spinning out of control .If we don't cut the planet's fossil fuel dependency ASAP, we'll be at each others throats for scraps of resources (food and water) within 14 years. This is NO time to be putting profits before sanity!!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/14/february-breaks-global-temperature-records-by-shocking-amount?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Version+CB+header&utm_term=161806&subid=18164759&CMP=ema_565

[Enthusiast]

7. The very last thing we need are more of these "trade deals" written by and for corporations.

[monicaangela]

10. Globalization..

Globalization is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture. Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the telegraph and its development the Internet, are major factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities.

After reading the definition of Globalization and then breaking it down to what would happen under a system such as the TPP would bring, one would only have to think of the Gilded Age in this nation to gain understanding as to why the Oligarchs would be in favor of such an agreement:

From the ashes of the American Civil War sprung an economic powerhouse.

The factories built by the Union to defeat the Confederacy were not shut down at the war's end. Now that the fighting was done, these factories were converted to peacetime purposes. Although industry had existed prior to the war, agriculture had represented the most significant portion of the American economy.

After the war, beginning with the railroads, small businesses grew larger and larger. By the century's end, the nation's economy was dominated by a few, very powerful individuals. In 1850, most Americans worked for themselves. By 1900, most Americans worked for an employer.

The growth was astounding. From the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to the disastrous Panic of 1893, the American economy nearly doubled in size. New technologies and new ways of organizing business led a few individuals to the top. The competition was ruthless. Those who could not provide the best product at the cheapest price were simply driven into bankruptcy or were bought up by hungry, successful industrialists.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/36.asp

The same greed that fired the Gilded Age in this nation now has its sights on the world. Oligarchy is not new, and the TPP in my opinion is just another tool that will be used to increase the number of needy at the hands of the greedy.

[randome]

13. And yet India signed this agreement willingly.

This ruling does not 'kill' anything. It simply means India has to admit competitors. Competition in general is good.

May the best solar panel provider win! -I'm not understanding why that should be a bad thing.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[pampango]

14. Exactly. If India or Trump want to set their trade rules don't join

a trading group that has rules that members agree to follow. If your country is already a member of such a group, withdraw from it so we can go back to the 1920's when each country did whatever it wanted to do. That sounds like the trading world that Donald wants to go back to.