On Tuesday, the Senate narrowly advanced a bill giving President Barack Obama—and the next president—”Fast Track” or Trade Promotion Authority to ram through the Trans Pacific Partnership with almost no democratic oversight. The vote is a major victory for multinational corporations and the global one percent. While hundreds of unelected, unaccountable corporate big-wigs literally wrote the rules that will shape our global economy in coming years, our democratically-elected leaders will only be allowed an up-or-down vote on the final agreement. Congress, in essence, has just written the corporate elite a giant blank check.
This piece originally appeared in Common Dreams in June 2015.