The controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership has been signed by its 12 participating governments amid widespread public outcry, but the real fight against the multibillion dollar trade pact will now kick off in the U.S. to stop the deal from getting through Congress, anti-TPP campaigners said Wednesday as Vermont Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called the TPP a continuation of the U.S.’s “disastrous trade policies.”
"The TPP signing today is theater, and the actors are not very convincing,” said Evan Greer of the advocacy group Fight for the Future in a statement Wednesday. “Everyone knows the real fight will be in Congress, where this unpopular and anti-democratic deal faces fierce opposition from both sides of the aisle.”
Fight for the Future, which has actively campaigned against the TPP, said a big push to ramp up protest against the trade deal is in the works to block the TPP from being ratified now that it is signed.
STATEMENT: The #TPP signing today is theater, and the actors aren't very convincing." https://t.co/LfwWoSSR9U pic.twitter.com/LuVBB9hnpR
— Fight for the Future (@fightfortheftr) February 3, 2016
“Recent polls show that the more people learn about the TPP, the less they like it,” added Greer.
Other groups have slammed the White House for relying on “Republican friendly organizations” to get the deal through Congress, highlighting just how regressive the TPP is.
IN DEPTH: TPP Putting Profit Above People
“It’s ironic that even the administration now admits that passage of TPP relies on the support and work of some of the most vehement opponents of real progressive policies,” Shane Larson, legislative director at the Communications Workers of America, said in a statement after the deal was signed. “The lack of support from Democrats and the progressive movement clearly demonstrates the emptiness of claims that the TPP is a ‘progressive’ trade agreement.”
Bernie Sanders said on his Twitter account that the TPP continues the “disastrous trade policies that have devastated manufacturing cities and towns” across the United States.
The TPP is a continuation of our disastrous trade policies that have devastated manufacturing cities and towns all over this country.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 3, 2016
Campaigners have long raised the alarm that the TPP is an anti-democratic deal that will further balloon corporate power at the expense of labor rights, food security, public health, human rights and the environment.
U.S. labor unions have slammed the deal for undermining workers’ rights and threatening U.S. jobs and manufacturing.
According to International President of the United Steelworkers Leo Gerard, groups in the U.S. will be expanding their protests against the TPP in order to “make it perfectly clear that this proposed agreement is just like all the previous ones that have destroyed millions of family-supporting jobs, while shuttering plants and devastating communities.”
OPINION: The TPP: A Corporate Bill of Rights
The TPP has been criticized for exacerbating the worst impacts of free trade enshrined in current agreements, such as NAFTA, and expand corporations' rights to be able to level lawsuits against countries, locking the world into a future dominated by fossil fuels.
"Most of TPP is about letting multi national corporations rigg the rules." -@SenWarren https://t.co/45Vy6qMPCc
— Friends of the Earth (@foe_us) February 3, 201
According to Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica, the TPP will add “new provisions for dirty energy companies that care little about the existential threat posed by climate change.” Pica also added that the TPP will override agreements reached at COP21 in Paris in December, further undermining largely unbinding commitments to tackling climate crisis.
GALLERY: People Affected by the TPP Speak Out
Governments in the 12-country trade pact now have two years to ratify the deal.
A U.N. independent human rights expert who urged world leaders not to sign the TPP has said that if the deal is ratified in participating countries and comes into force, it should be challenged in the International Court of Justice as a “flawed” deal devoid of human rights guarantees.
But ratification is not certain, and many advocacy organizations have pledged to continue to vehemently oppose the deal.
WATCH: What's Wrong with the TPP?