Wikileaks Implicates Mexico, Peru, Colombia And 47 Other Countries In New ‘Trade in Service Agreement’

According to documents released by Wikileaks to newspaper La Jornada, an agreements is being made between 50 countries, among them Mexico, wich negotiates the release of health services, telecommunications and financial services to transnational private equity firms, without any kind of international debate involved. The agreement is called the Trade in Service Agreement (TISA) and began to be negotiated in early 2012, primarily driven by the United States.

The greatest danger is that the TISA will prevent governments from imposing stringent rules on the financial sector. The other countries involved in this program are Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, United States, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Norway, New Zealand, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Korea South, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and the European Union, representing 28 states.

The United States and the European Union are the main drivers behind the agreement and the authors of most of the changes. In a significant move to prevent transparency, the project has been classified to keep it secret not only during the negotiations, but for five years after its entry into force. WikiLeaks explains that despite the obvious failures in financial regulation during the global financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, as well as calls to improve relevant regulatory structures, TISA advocates seek to further deregulate the global financial services market.