A mass mobilization in Washington, DC from November 14 to 18 has been announced to begin the next stage of the campaign to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP was made public 10 days from the actions.
The protest, co-sponsored by 59 organizations, is being spearheaded by Popular Resistance and Flush The TPP and includes environmental, human rights, labor, climate change and good government groups. They have been organizing this mobilization for months knowing that the TPP would be made public around this time.
“At its root, the TPP is about modern colonialism. It is the way that Western governments and their transnational corporations, including Wall Street banks, can dominate the economies of developing nations,” said Margaret Flowers, co-director of Popular Resistance. She continued “The reality is that without trade justice there cannot be climate justice, food justice; there cannot be health justice or wage justice. That is why people are mobilizing to stop the TPP.”
Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins, organizer for Flush The TPP, said: “The TPP impacts every issue we care about as a result, a unified movement of movements to stop the TPP has developed. People who care about corporate power versus democracy and our sovereignty or about jobs and workers, the environment and climate change, health care, food and water, energy regulation of banks are mobilizing to make stopping the TPP their top priority.”
On November 16 through 18 the groups will begin their protests on Monday morning at the US Trade Representative building on 17th Street with the message that the TPP betrays the people, planet and democracy. This will be followed that evening by a protest that begins at the US Chamber of Commerce and White House then marches along K Street and ends at the Reagan International Trade Center. The next day the groups will have an international focus protesting at multiple sites along Embassy Row to stand in solidarity with people around the world who are fighting to stop the TPP. On the final day the groups will focus on Congress.