Stop the US trade deal
Plans for a trade deal with the US are being used to kickstart a process that could reshape our society into a corporate marketplace.
It’s a high risk deal and here are three reasons we need to stop it going ahead:
Attacking standards
A US trade deal could see chlorine chicken on our supermarket shelves (chlorine is used to mask dirty conditions and poor animal welfare), along with hormone-fed beef, pus in milk, pesticide residues in baby food, and unlabelled GM ingredients.
But it’s not just about a few iconic products and it’s not just food. It’s about chemicals that are currently banned in the UK being used in cosmetics, it’s about dangerous pesticides being sprayed on fields, it’s about cars produced to lower safety standards, and the list goes on
It is about importing an entire regulatory system with weaker protection.
Threatening public services
The NHS is at risk from a US trade deal. The government says ‘the NHS is not for sale’ but the risk isn’t that the whole NHS could be sold off, like Royal Mail. The danger is that a deal would lock in existing outsourcing and privatisation and bring big corporations deeper into our healthcare. It is also very likely to lead to higher medicine prices, straining the NHS’s budget.
Bringing the railways back into public hands could also be much harder with a US trade deal.
Blocking climate action
Trade rules are powerful. They can override climate goals and have been fueling climate breakdown.
A US trade deal is likely to encourage trade in dirty fossil fuels, when we should be keeping them in the ground.
It could also be used to challenge the sort of strong binding climate regulation that we need to overcome decades of inaction – or even simply to prevent such regulation ever being introduced.
We don’t need this deal to trade with the US – we already have high levels of trade. And this deal will have very little impact in getting the real economy going again after the Covid pandemic or in light of Brexit. The most optimistic estimates predict it could bring, at most, a fraction of a percent in growth after 15 years.
All this type of deal will do is weaken the standards that protect the things we value, erode the services that take care of us, and damage the planet. All to entrench corporate power.
Take action
We need to stop the US trade deal. Together we are powerful – public pressure has already forced the government to make promises on chlorine chicken and the NHS. If enough of us speak out and take action, we can stop this dangerous deal going ahead:
- Sign the petition to oppose a toxic US trade deal
- Take action in your local area – our activist guide has ideas whether you want to take action from your home or socially distant on the streets
- Order a #TrumpInYourTrolley activist pack and take action at your local supermarket to raise awareness about the dangers of a US-UK trade deal.
Learn more
- Trade Secrets is a short book by Global Justice Now’s director, Nick Dearden, exposing the corporate agenda behind the US trade deal and explaining how we can stop it. Download or order a copy.
- Trading with Trump is a briefing on what to expect from the US trade deal
