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News from the movements

The rise of trade in services: corporate manoeuvres and popular resistance
6-Mar-2023     bilaterals.org
The idea of ‘Trade in services’ is an artificial creation of the late 1970s and 1980s, designed to bring the social and public phenomenon of services under international ‘trade’ rules that would work for corporations.
EU-Mercosur: a nightmare for nature
6-Mar-2023     Greenpeace
The deal as negotiated is in principle a neocolonial, extractivist instrument: intended to secure EU imports of commodities and raw materials from South America, while increasing EU exports of industrial and chemical products.
Rigging the rules: How Big Tech uses stealth “trade” agreements and how we can stop them
2-Mar-2023     Third World Network
Efforts to curb the ruinous business practices of the Big Tech corporations are at risk of being impeded by “digital trade” rules negotiated in international trade pacts. It is time to overturn this anti-regulatory agenda in favour of a governance model that prioritizes digital industrialization and data as a public good.
Ecuador-Canada Free Trade Agreement: a new attack on communities, Indigenous peoples, and the environment
2-Mar-2023     Mining Watch
A Free Trade Agreement between Ecuador and Canada is not in the interests of Indigenous peoples, territories or the environment. The FTA will only be another instrument of corporate power, wielded by the national elites to deepen the rationale for devastation.
Civil societies call on European Parliament to pressure Vietnam on human rights
2-Mar-2023     Radio Free Asia
Civil groups urged the European Parliament to step up pressure on Vietnam to improve its dismal human and labor rights records during a review of the implementation of the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.
Mercosur files
1-Mar-2023     Friends of the Earth Europe
Despite the ongoing devastation, and with the Amazon likely at an irreversible environmental tipping point, the European Union continues to push for a free trade agreement with Mercosur which would increase the pressure on the region.
Emerging issues in the IPEF trade negotiations: A critical summary
28-Feb-2023     Ibon International
The US is trying to present IPEF as a rethinking of the aggressive trade liberalisation model it championed for the last four decades. At its core, however, IPEF appears to be mainly a geopolitical tool for the US to maintain its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific.
There are many ways to rebuild Brazil: EU-Mercosur trade deal is not one of them
24-Feb-2023     Euractiv
It is time to fundamentally change trade relations to put the environment, climate and human rights at the centre and dismantle the legacy of neo-colonial economics.
No to RCEP! don't make the Philippines an “ukay-ukay” Republic!!
24-Feb-2023     The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas
The Senate should withhold its concurrence with the treaty until the necessary policies, strategies, and programs are emplaced so that the RCEP benefits, and does not harm, the agricultural sector and the economy as a whole.
Farmers make a final appeal to Senators to reject RCEP
21-Feb-2023     The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas said the Philippines’ agriculture sector stands to lose the most under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreements.