Eric Zuesse
So that U.S. President Barack Obama can end a roadblock and win the agreement of other nations for his proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, he has decided to remove one of the nations, Malaysia, from the U.S. State Department’s official list of countries that allow slavery. Malaysia, which recently found over a hundred graves of discarded slaves, has been on the U.S. State Department’s “Tier 3” list of slave nations, along with North Korea, Zimbabwe, Syria, and Iran, but, unlike those other countries, Obama wants Malaysia to be included in his Trans Pacific Partnership; so, he has decided to remove Malaysia from that official list.
This was first reported by Reuters on July 8th, under the headline “Exclusive: U.S. Upgrades Malaysia in Annual Human Trafficking Report.” Reuters announced: “The United States is upgrading Malaysia from the lowest tier on its list of worst human trafficking centers, U.S. sources said on Wednesday, a move that could smooth the way for an ambitious U.S.-led free-trade deal with the Southeast Asian nation and 11 other countries.”
Zach Carter at Huffington Post headlined, later on July 8th, “Obama To Upgrade Malaysia On Human Rights Despite Mass Graves,” and he reported that U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) issued a statement saying: “If true, this manipulation of Malaysia’s ranking in the State Department’s