USTR Fishing For Academics To Astroturf In Favor Of TPP

from the if-you're-asking... dept

Now that the TPP deal is done, it appears that the USTR has decided to focus on pushing propaganda, rather than legitimately discussing the details with the American public. An anonymous recipient of a pitch from the USTR's "Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement," Mitch Gainer has passed along an email she or he recently received:

From: Gainer, Mitch <Mitchel_J_Gainer@ustr.eop.gov>
Date: Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 12:45 PM
Subject: USTR Trans-Pacific Partnership professor outreach
To: XXX

Dear Professor XXX,

The U.S Trade Representative is enthusiastic to inform you and your office that The Trans-Pacific Partnership has closed ministerial negotiations!

We believe that your expertise in labor standards in international trade would be significant in expanding the conversation about the benefits of this historic trade agreement to your larger community. I would be delighted to set up a call if you are interested in writing an op-ed, writing a blog post, doing research, or being on background for reporters – to highlight the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We would love to provide you with as much information as we can and answer any questions.

For more information about the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership take a look at www.ustr.gov/tpp. It has detailed issue-by-issue fact sheets for the areas that TPP will address.

Please let me know if there is time that works for you in the next two weeks to talk. When you respond, please include Catherine Vegis at Catherine_A_Vegis@ustr.gov – thank you!

Best,
Mitch

Mitch Gainer
Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Mitchel_J_Gainer@ustr.eop.gov

Of course, if the person in charge of "public engagement" were truly interested in "public engagement" he'd be focused on actually releasing the document, so that the public can actually engage, rather than fishing around for an op-ed, blog post, research or being a source for reporters. Notice that Gainer points the person to the laughably misleading sets of "facts" that the USTR has posted to its website, rather than the actual documents. Funny how that works.

Also, given how we've seen this kind of propaganda appear before, you have to wonder how much of it is orchestrated by the USTR. The very fact that the USTR seems to think its job is selling this to the American public, rather than hearing from the American public says an awful lot about the way the USTR is approaching everything related to the TPP, and confirms that it's not serving the interests of the US public at all.

Filed Under: astroturf, mitch gainer, propaganda, tpp, ustr