Presumably in response to the secrecy of the Bush administration, Obama made the promise that his administration would be transparent. Those who have Obama derangement syndrome claim that Obama is a Communist while those with a milder form of the affliction claim that he is a Socialist. His secret Free Trade Agreement seems to take a hammer to his own claim and the fearful fantasies of his foes.
While some information about the Free Trade Agreement has been leaked, there was considerable effort to keep its details hidden from not only the voters but also the Congress of the United States. Conveniently enough, some of the top corporations were in the know and presumably involved in laying out the details of the agreement.
Not surprisingly, this agreement seems to be incredibly beneficial to multinational corporations at the expense of sovereign nations and their citizens. For example, the agreement seems to include provisions that allow corporations to sue sovereign states if their laws (such as environmental laws against fracking in certain areas) would impede their profits. These lawsuits would apparently be brought in an international court with authority over sovereign states.
As might be imagined, some of the folks on the left (including people who are real communists and socialists) find this agreement to be of considerable concern. After all, it seems that it is tailored to grant corporations considerable advantages and to infringe on the usual rights of states.
Interestingly, this agreement should also bother many of the folks on the right. While there is obviously a strong pro-corporate camp among conservatives, there is also a strong element that has long been opposed to the notion of world-government and strongly opposed to the idea of the United States being subject to international courts. These people, if they are consistent, would presumably be as opposed to this agreement as they were to other proposals to limit American sovereignty.
That said, there does seem to be a difference between the past cases and the proposed agreement. In the past, those who opposed impositions on American sovereignty were generally imposing attempts to limit what the United States could do. For example, attempts to get the United States to accept internationally based limits in regards to environmental issues were strongly opposed. The rhetoric used included appeals to national sovereignty. Of course, this appeal to sovereignty was beneficial to corporations—they could exempt themselves from laws imposed by other nations behind the shield of United States sovereignty.
In contrast, the proposed agreement removes the shield of sovereignty in ways that are beneficial to the corporations. Obviously, it is rather useful to corporations to be able to hide behind the shield of a sovereign nation when they want to do things they would otherwise be prevented from doing and have that shield set aside when they want to do things to a sovereign nation.
It will be interesting to see how those who influence the conservative base will sell the proposed agreement to those they have long trained to cry out against world government and impositions on sovereignty. My guess is that they will make use of the magic words “free trade” and “free market” to sell the imposition on sovereignty. I also suspect they will make use of the notion that they have been pushing for quite some time, namely the idea that government is a bad thing.
Those who get the notion of consistency will, of course, note that the only consistent principle in use here is the idea that what is good for the profits of the few is good, whether what is good for profits defending national sovereignty in one case or ignoring that sovereignty in another.