WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Compromise In Pacific Trade Talks

Documents obtained by WikiLeaks reveal that the United States is retreating on a number of environmental protection provisions during the on-going Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks. Pollution control and limits on logging, as well as a ban on harvesting shark fins, are among the provisions on which U.S. negotiators have given ground – grudgingly, according to the U.S. Trade Representative – in the face of opposition from many of the other 11 Pacific rim countries in the talks. These documents from the notoriously secret trade talks are not the first to have been revealed by way of WikiLeaks. In November, the group also released a copy of the “draft chapter” on intellectual property.