There are many dangers that have been caused by this agreement. You should be concerned about food safety under the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Food Safety Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Whether someone shops for food at the local grocery store, a farmers market or anywhere else, we all have one goal in common. We do not want to get sick from the food we are buying. Most of the time we take this for granted when buying food.
Moving forward, food safety under the Trans-Pacific Partnership is something we must be concerned about. If this terrible deal (TPP) goes into effect, some of the food in our stores may not be safe to eat.
The TPP puts the interest of big food ahead of the consumer. It was intended to help huge corporations expand into new areas and increase profit. If it gets passed, the border inspects will be even more overwhelmed than they already are. Also, our food systems will be overloaded with imported food that is potentially unsafe.
Suspicious imports are a huge deal. Read this from Common Dreams for more info on it:
Suspicious Imports
Food & Water Watch recently released new data on the volume of meat and poultry imports rejected at the border by USDA food safety inspectors. We found that U.S. border inspectors rejected nearly 30,000 shipments, totaling more than 69 million pounds of imported food from other nations in the 18 months between January 1, 2015 and June 10, 2016. Nearly 64 million pounds of this meat, poultry, catfish and egg products were rejected for serious food safety violations.
The TPP puts the interests of Big Food ahead of yours and mine. That’s because it wasn’t negotiated in the public’s interest. Much of the rejected food came from nations that are a part of the TPP. Even more disturbing—the tainted shipments were stopped by a mere 70 USDA inspectors—an inadequate number for tackling our current volume of food imports, let alone the additional shipments that the TPP would encourage.
Currently, many food imports, particularly seafood from Vietnam and Malaysia, are rejected. This is because they contain residues of drugs banned in U.S. food production. Last Friday we received word that food safety inspectors had also stopped over 40,000 pounds of catfish products from being imported into the U.S. from Vietnam. The shipment tested positive for malachite green, a veterinary drug banned for use in food animals in the U.S. because it is potentially carcinogenic. Vietnam, another TPP member country, is notorious for raising seafood in farms with chemicals and antibiotics prohibited in the United States.
We Must Stop the TPP
It makes no sense that the United States worked so hard to make our food safe. Now that safety is being taken away. The TPP helps foreign government work against the policies that keep the food in the United States safe. It lets the exporters challenge the border inspectors and pass products that they normally wouldn't have been able to. This agreement allows the exporters to push forward when their food is stopped by border inspectors. They can even get the food to pass through and enter the United States. What does this mean? More unsafe food will be entering the United States.
