USTR Finally Realizing Its All Encompassing Secrecy May Be A Problem, Calls Frantic Meeting For All 'Cleared' Lobbyists

from the you're-doing-it-wrong dept

It's been funny for years watching the USTR continue to repeat the same laughable line about how they've had "unprecedented transparency" concerning the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement -- an agreement that is still completely secret, other than a couple chapters leaked to Wikileaks. Here's a hint: if the text of the agreement is only available thanks to Wikileaks, you're not being transparent, precedented or not. Even the NY Times slammed the USTR's lack of transparency, and multiple members of Congress have been arguing that they're not at all comfortable with the lack of transparency from the USTR. Because of this, it seems that the USTR's desire for fast track authority, which would let it route around Congressional review, is on life support and close to dead.

Given that, it appears that the USTR is in panic mode, and has frantically called an all day meeting for all "cleared advisors" (i.e., the corporate representatives who actually do get to see the document) concerning the whole transparency issue.

In an apparent effort to defuse mounting criticism that the Obama administration is being too secretive about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on short notice has called an all-day briefing for all cleared advisers on Feb. 11, according to sources familiar with a memo sent by USTR announcing the meeting.

The only way they're going to defuse such criticism is to actually be transparent instead of secretive. Anyone taking bets on the likelihood of that happening?

Filed Under: cleared advisors, lobbyists, secrecy, tpp, transparency, ustr