The title of this post and the bilingual document on which it’s based, drafted by Chuck Searcy and Lady Borton, pretty much sums it up.  Chuck is a Vietnam veteran; Lady worked with all sides during the war. Both have worked in Vietnam since before normalization of US-Vietnam diplomatic relations 20 years ago.  Follow this link to download the PDF document in Vietnamese and English.  (The bold below is mine.)

Lady and Chuck speak with great authority and credibility, as well as heartfelt concern about the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on the Vietnamese and American people.  Educate yourself.  Speak out.

MAA

Dear Friends,

We are concerned about the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Agreement, which will benefit only large corporations at significant costs to ordinary Americans and Vietnamese. This agreement threatens Vietnam’s sovereignty as an independent nation, with its own laws and regulations.

If Vietnam ratifies the TPP, Vietnam will begin to lose elements of its national sovereignty in five years. Laws and regulations enacted by the Government of Vietnam may be overpowered, overridden, and replaced by provisions of the TPP.

The TPP has been so secret that even members of the U.S. Congress were not allowed to see the agreement, except for small sections shown to certain members, who could see only a few pages, alone, in a locked room.

As U.S. citizens living and working in Vietnam, we believe this process has been a violation of the ideals that Americans consider very important: truth, integrity, and openness.

We do not like it when our country behaves this way.

We do not want the United States, again, to take unfair advantage of Vietnam as has happened too many times in the past. We urge Americans and citizens of signatory countries – the very people who will be most affected – to scrutinize this agreement and to speak out.

The PDF file, TPP: Americans and Vietnamese lose.  Big corporations win., which you can download here, is a public-domain document. It includes Vietnamese translation, paragraph by paragraph.  Feel free to distribute this message and/or document widely.

Chuck Searcy & Lady Borton