PKR: Obama's speedy return to push TPPA?
PKR has questioned the speedy return of United States president Barrack Obama ( photo ) to Malaysia in November after having just visited the country for the first time last April.
“Why the greater interest in Malaysia and this region?
“Could it be because he needs to garner more support for the flailing Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA)?” asked PKR Youth chief Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad in a statement today.
“Mind you, that last visit was the first by a serving US president to our shores since Lyndon B Johnson came in 1966, almost 50 years apart,” he said.
Nik Nazmi alleged the TPPA was widely reported to be a “lopsided agreement benefiting mega transnational companies” at the expense of the national sovereignty of its partners, and intrudes into the latter’s health sector and internet freedom.
“Obama's continued push for this agreement, which even until now has been negotiated in almost total secrecy, raises a few questions on his exact intention.
“His failure to even convince members from his own ranks, the Democrats, to support the deal even though they stand to benefit greatly from the deal should provide enough indication for Malaysia not to continue with it.
“The Malaysian government must therefore make a stand of its commitment, whether they are happy to play into the hands of the US and their big multinational corporations, or that they would do the right thing and uphold the sanctity of the country's sovereignty,” he said.
He therefore called on the government to withdraw from the TPPA.
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