New Report Challenges Food Safety and Animal Health Standards in TPP Trade Agreement
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) has released an analysis of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement chapter on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, which deals with the regulatory standards intended to protect food safety and animal health. The TPP SPS chapter is legally bound to the World Trade Organization SPS Agreement, which refers to thousands of international food and animal and plant health standards. The IATP analysis places the SPS chapter in the context of how U.S. agencies regulate and deregulate food and agricultural products.
Contrary to claims by the Obama administration that the TPP would be a “high standards” agreement that would serve as a model for future trade agreements, IATP’s research reveals that the safeguards intended to protect the food supply have in effect been lowered and oversight given over to the very industries that the standards are meant to regulate. The TPP would exacerbate the capture of the regulatory agencies by the regulated companies.