May, 23 2022, 03:21pm EDT
IPEF Launch Suggests Departure From TPP But Also Raises Red Flags
During President Biden's trip to Japan today, the White House announced the launch of Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) talks between the United States, Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Other countries may join later.
WASHINGTON
During President Biden's trip to Japan today, the White House announced the launch of Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) talks between the United States, Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Other countries may join later. Thus far, there have been few details about IPEF, though there appear to be conflicting goals both inside and outside the administration.
Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch Director at Public Citizen issued the following statement:
"Now that IPEF has officially launched, it's time to learn the details. How will President Biden guarantee a transparent process with meaningful participation and oversight from the public and Congress to ensure that this exercise does not turn into another corporate-dominated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? Will strong labor and environmental standards be at IPEF's core? Or will countries commit to extreme Big Tech-friendly digital trade terms at the expense of workers' rights and consumer privacy?
"While we are encouraged by the comments by Ambassador Katherine Tai and Jake Sullivan1 that the administration has learned the lessons from the TPP and intends for IPEF to depart from the past approach of traditional free trade agreements, we will need to watch this process closely, as the participating countries announced today give significant reason for concern. Singapore and Australia have inked the most extreme version of damaging "digital trade" rules that favor Big Tech power over consumer privacy and rights. A number of the countries, including Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, have ongoing and pervasive labor rights abuses that would need to be thoroughly addressed if the Biden administration is serious about pursuing "worker-centric" trade policy.
"Public Citizen is eager to see and help design the "worker-centric" trade policy needed to promote equality, sustainability, and prosperity in the global economy, alongside civil society partners in the countries announced today."
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- USTR Ambassador Katherine Tai: "The four-pillar structure is designed to be less fragile than the traditional architecture of free trade agreements... [The U.S.' withdrawal from TPP proved that the agreement] as it was envisioned ultimately was something that was quite fragile and that the United States was not able to deliver on... And that informs very much our thinking about bringing the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework as it's designed here to the region, which is that trade is an important component of this but not the only component so that we are bringing in more robust and comprehensive approach to our partners in this region."
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: "We believe that we need a new model that we can move on quickly to in fact take these challenges head-on... The fact that this is not a traditional free trade agreement is a feature of IPEF, not a bug."
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Israeli Settlers, Soldiers 'Wiping Palestinian Communities Off the Map' in the West Bank
"While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel's allies, are soaring."
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Israeli soldiers have either passively watched or participated in the uprooting of at least seven communities in the West Bank since October of last year, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday in a new report documenting surging settler violence in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The rights group interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses and examined video footage showing harassment and other abuse of Palestinians in the West Bank "by men in Israeli military uniforms carrying M16 assault rifles."
Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel, the Israeli military drafted more than 5,000 settlers into "regional defense" units in the West Bank, Haaretzreported earlier this year. The Israeli newspaper noted that "alongside this large-scale mobilization, the [Israel Defense Forces] has distributed some 7,000 weapons to the battalions as well as to settlers who were not recruited into the army but received them as civilians whom the army considers eligible to carry military arms."
HRW's investigation found that "armed settlers, with the active participation of army units, repeatedly cut off road access and raided Palestinian communities, detained, assaulted, and tortured residents, chased them out of their homes and off their lands at gunpoint or coerced them to leave with death threats, and blocked them from taking their belongings."
"Israeli settlers and soldiers are literally wiping Palestinian communities off the map," said Omar Shakir, HRW's Israel and Palestine director.
"While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel’s allies, are soaring."
The new report comes days after Israeli settlers—escorted by IDF soldiers—went on their latest destructive and deadly rampage in the West Bank, killing at least two Palestinians, injuring dozens, and setting homes and vehicles ablaze. At least 20 households were displaced after Israeli settlers burned down their homes.
The wave of settler violence came after a missing 14-year-old Israeli boy was found dead in the area around the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Israeli military said the boy was killed in a "terrorist attack."
Since October 7, according to the United Nations, Israeli settlers have launched more than 720 attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, displacing at least 206 households comprised of 1,244 people—including 603 children. Israeli soldiers in uniform have been present at many of the attacks.
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HRW's new report examines five West Bank communities that have come under attack by Israeli settlers, including one in which uniformed Israeli men armed with assault rifles entered tents and destroyed or stole people's belongings, abused residents, and threatened to kill them if they didn't leave the area.
"One man in uniform kicked me in the back of my neck," a Palestinian mother told HRW. "They said, 'Go to the valley, and if you come back, we will kill you.'"
None of the families forcibly evicted from the five communities examined in the HRW report have been allowed to return home.
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Following the latest wave of settler violence in the West Bank this past weekend, a coalition of human rights organizations said in a joint statement Wednesday that "the international community must swiftly and decisively pressure the government of Israel to halt these attacks and urgently de-escalate the situation."
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The measure in question would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years and massively expand the federal government's warrantless surveillance power by requiring a wide range of businesses and individuals to cooperate with spying efforts.
"If you have access to any communications, the government can force you to help it spy," said Wyden (Ore.), referring to an amendment that was tacked on to the legislation by the U.S. House last week with bipartisan support. "That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a Wi-Fi router, a phone, or a computer. So think for a moment about the millions of Americans who work in buildings and offices in which communications are stored or pass through."
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Wyden's remarks came after the Senate narrowly approved a motion Tuesday to proceed to the FISA reauthorization bill ahead of Section 702's expiration at the end of the week. The Oregon senator, an outspoken privacy advocate, was among the seven members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the procedural motion.
Despite its grave implications for civil liberties, the bill has drawn relatively little vocal opposition in the Senate. A final vote could come as soon as Thursday.
Titled Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), the legislation passed the Republican-controlled House last week after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have added a search warrant requirement to Section 702.
The authority allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country, but it has been abused extensively by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency to collect the communications of American lawmakers, activists, journalists, and others without a warrant.
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That would mean U.S. intelligence agencies could, without a warrant, compel gyms, grocery stores, barber shops, and other businesses to hand over communications data.
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More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
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"We write to express our deep concern regarding the U.S. Department of State's recent comments regarding assurances from the Israeli government, under National Security Memorandum (NSM) 20, that the Israeli government is using U.S.-origin weapons in full compliance with relevant U.S. and international law and is not restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Cabinet members.
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According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced in what many Palestinians are calling a second Nakba, a reference to the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who was criticized earlier in the war for not calling for a cease-fire—stood beside a photo of a starving Gazan girl while declaring "no more money for" the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his "war machine."
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