Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Trade Agreement

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Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal signed

AFP / February 3, 2016

The biggest trade deal in history was signed Thursday, yoking 12 Pacific rim countries in a US-led initiative aimed at wresting influence from booming China.

The ambitious Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) aims to slash tariffs and trade barriers for an enormous 40 percent of the global economy -- but pointedly does not include Beijing.

"TPP allows America -- and not countries like China -- to write the rules of the road in the 21st century," US President Barack Obama said after the pact was signed in New Zealand.

The deal -- whose birth was fraught by domestic opposition in the US and in other key players, such as Japan -- is a key plank of Obama's so-called "pivot" to Asia, as he seeks to counter the rising power of China.

Along with a rebalancing of the US military machine towards the western Pacific, the TPP is recognition of the growing might of China, which has come to dominate the region, threatening American influence.

Supporters of the deal say harnessing the power of free trade in such a dynamic part of the world is vital if the US is to fend off China's challenge to its supremacy.

Trade ministers from 12 participating countries -- Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam -- signed the pact in Auckland early Thursday.

Beijing was muted in its reaction to the deal, saying its officials were studying the 6,000-page document.

A commerce ministry statement said China would "actively participate in and facilitate highly transparent, open and inclusive free trade arrangements in the region".

Despite Obama's comments, the US has also sought to play down any overt anti-China rhetoric.

US trade representative Michael Froman, in Auckland, said the agreement was "never directed against" any specific country and "it's important to have a constructive economic relationship" with China.

Although the signing marks the end of the negotiating process, member states still have two years to get the deal approved at home before it becomes legally binding.

"We will encourage all countries to complete their domestic ratification processes as quickly as possible," New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said.

"TPP will provide much better access for goods and services to more than 800 million people across the TPP countries, which make up 36 percent of global GDP."

However, ratification may prove far from easy, notably in the United States, where poisonous election-year politics are likely to stymie co-operation over a deal opponents have spun as a job killer.

"It's highly unlikely (ratification) before the national elections in November," Tom Switzer of the University of Sydney's US Studies Centre told AFP.

"In an election year, free trade is not a popular cause, and there are a lot of constituencies in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party who are very much opposed to free trade or any kind of trade deal."

In Japan -- the second biggest economy in the bloc, and one that was a relative latecomer to the process -- mainstream politicians and economists have generally supported the TPP as positive for Tokyo's export-driven growth even amid concerns over its impact on its prized agriculture industry.

The Canadian government, which has changed since the deal was negotiated, signed up Thursday but has yet to decide whether to go through with ratification.

While the 12 trade ministers were shaking hands in Auckland, thousands of protesters clogged the streets outside to voice their opposition.

They argue the TPP will cost jobs and impact on sovereignty in Asia-Pacific states.

American economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz believes the TPP "may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades.

"In 2016, we should hope for the TPP's defeat and the beginning of a new era of trade agreements that don't reward the powerful and punish the weak," Stiglitz recently wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

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In 2016, let's hope for better trade agreements - and the death of TPP

The Guardian / January 10, 2016

The Trans-Pacific Partnership may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades

Last year was a memorable one for the global economy. Not only was overall performance disappointing, but profound changes – both for better and for worse – occurred in the global economic system.

Most notable was the Paris climate agreement reached last month. By itself, the agreement is far from enough to limit the increase in global warming to the target of 2ºC above the pre-industrial level. But it did put everyone on notice: the world is moving, inexorably, toward a green economy. One day not too far off, fossil fuels will be largely a thing of the past. So anyone who invests in coal now does so at his or her peril. With more green investments coming to the fore, those financing them will, we should hope, counterbalance powerful lobbying by the coal industry, which is willing to put the world at risk to advance its shortsighted interests.

Indeed, the move away from a high-carbon economy, where coal, gas, and oil interests often dominate, is just one of several major changes in the global geo-economic order. Many others are inevitable, given China’s soaring share of global output and demand. The New Development Bank, established by the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), was launched during the year, becoming the first major international financial institution led by emerging countries. And, despite Barack Obama’s resistance, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was established as well, and is to start operation this month.

The US did act with greater wisdom where China’s currency was concerned. It did not obstruct the renminbi’s admission to the basket of currencies that constitute the International Monetary Fund’s reserve asset, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). In addition, a half-decade after the Obama administration agreed to modest changes in the voting rights of China and other emerging markets at the IMF – a small nod to the new economic realities – the US Congress finally approved the reforms.

The most controversial geo-economic decisions last year concerned trade. Almost unnoticed after years of desultory talks, the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round – initiated to redress imbalances in previous trade agreements that favored developed countries – was given a quiet burial. America’s hypocrisy – advocating free trade but refusing to abandon subsidies on cotton and other agricultural commodities – had posed an insurmountable obstacle to the Doha negotiations. In place of global trade talks, the US and Europe have mounted a divide-and-conquer strategy, based on overlapping trade blocs and agreements.

As a result, what was intended to be a global free trade regime has given way to a discordant managed trade regime. Trade for much of the Pacific and Atlantic regions will be governed by agreements, thousands of pages in length and replete with complex rules of origin that contradict basic principles of efficiency and the free flow of goods.

The US concluded secret negotiations on what may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades, the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and now faces an uphill battle for ratification, as all the leading Democratic presidential candidates and many of the Republicans have weighed in against it. The problem is not so much with the agreement’s trade provisions, but with the “investment” chapter, which severely constrains environmental, health, and safety regulation, and even financial regulations with significant macroeconomic impacts.

In particular, the chapter gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms (inscribed on more than 6,000 pages). In the past, such tribunals have interpreted the requirement that foreign investors receive “fair and equitable treatment” as grounds for striking down new government regulations – even if they are non-discriminatory and are adopted simply to protect citizens from newly discovered egregious harms.

While the language is complex – inviting costly lawsuits pitting powerful corporations against poorly financed governments – even regulations protecting the planet from greenhouse gas emissions are vulnerable. The only regulations that appear safe are those involving cigarettes (lawsuits filed against Uruguay and Australia for requiring modest labeling about health hazards had drawn too much negative attention). But there remain a host of questions about the possibility of lawsuits in myriad other areas.

Furthermore, a “most favoured nation” provision ensures that corporations can claim the best treatment offered in any of a host country’s treaties. That sets up a race to the bottom – exactly the opposite of what US President Barack Obama promised.

Even the way Obama argued for the new trade agreement showed how out of touch with the emerging global economy his administration is. He repeatedly said that the TPP would determine who – America or China – would write the twenty-first century’s trade rules. The correct approach is to arrive at such rules collectively, with all voices heard, and in a transparent way. Obama has sought to perpetuate business as usual, whereby the rules governing global trade and investment are written by US corporations for US corporations. This should be unacceptable to anyone committed to democratic principles.

Those seeking closer economic integration have a special responsibility to be strong advocates of global governance reforms: if authority over domestic policies is ceded to supranational bodies, then the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of the rules and regulations has to be particularly sensitive to democratic concerns. Unfortunately, that was not always the case in 2015.

In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new era of trade agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak. The Paris climate agreement may be a harbinger of the spirit and mindset needed to sustain genuine global cooperation.

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose

The Washington Post / February 25, 2015

The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?

One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft. The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called “Investor-State Dispute Settlement,” or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but don’t be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.

ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.

If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments. If you’re a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when it’s your turn in the judge’s seat?

If the tilt toward giant corporations wasn’t clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, big corporations. So if a Vietnamese company with U.S. operations wanted to challenge an increase in the U.S. minimum wage, it could use ISDS. But if an American labor union believed Vietnam was allowing Vietnamese companies to pay slave wages in violation of trade commitments, the union would have to make its case in the Vietnamese courts.

Why create these rigged, pseudo-courts at all? What’s so wrong with the U.S. judicial system? Nothing, actually. But after World War II, some investors worried about plunking down their money in developing countries, where the legal systems were not as dependable. They were concerned that a corporation might build a plant one day only to watch a dictator confiscate it the next. To encourage foreign investment in countries with weak legal systems, the United States and other nations began to include ISDS in trade agreements.

Those justifications don’t make sense anymore, if they ever did. Countries in the TPP are hardly emerging economies with weak legal systems. Australia and Japan have well-developed, well-respected legal systems, and multinational corporations navigate those systems every day, but ISDS would preempt their courts too. And to the extent there are countries that are riskier politically, market competition can solve the problem. Countries that respect property rights and the rule of law — such as the United States — should be more competitive, and if a company wants to invest in a country with a weak legal system, then it should buy political-risk insurance.

The use of ISDS is on the rise around the globe. From 1959 to 2002, there were fewer than 100 ISDS claims worldwide. But in 2012 alone, there were 58 cases. Recent cases include a French company that sued Egypt because Egypt raised its minimum wage, a Swedish company that sued Germany because Germany decided to phase out nuclear power after Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and a Dutch company that sued the Czech Republic because the Czechs didn’t bail out a bank that the company partially owned. U.S. corporations have also gotten in on the action: Philip Morris is trying to use ISDS to stop Uruguay from implementing new tobacco regulations intended to cut smoking rates.

ISDS advocates point out that, so far, this process hasn’t harmed the United States. And our negotiators, who refuse to share the text of the TPP publicly, assure us that it will include a bigger, better version of ISDS that will protect our ability to regulate in the public interest. But with the number of ISDS cases exploding and more and more multinational corporations headquartered abroad, it is only a matter of time before such a challenge does serious damage here. Replacing the U.S. legal system with a complex and unnecessary alternative — on the assumption that nothing could possibly go wrong — seems like a really bad idea

This isn’t a partisan issue. Conservatives who believe in U.S. sovereignty should be outraged that ISDS would shift power from American courts, whose authority is derived from our Constitution, to unaccountable international tribunals. Libertarians should be offended that ISDS effectively would offer a free taxpayer subsidy to countries with weak legal systems. And progressives should oppose ISDS because it would allow big multinationals to weaken labor and environmental rules.

Giving foreign corporations special rights to challenge our laws outside of our legal system would be a bad deal. If a final TPP agreement includes Investor-State Dispute Settlement, the only winners will be multinational corporations.

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Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Unconstitutional?

The Atlantic / June 23, 2015

Provisions that allow foreign investors to bypass the federal courts could undermine U.S. legal protections.

It is January 2017. The mayor of San Francisco signs a bill that will raise the minimum wage of all workers from $8 to $16 an hour effective July 1st. His lawyers assure him that neither federal nor California minimum wage laws forbid that and that it is fine under the U.S. Constitution.

Then, a month later, a Vietnamese company that owns 15 restaurants in San Francisco files a lawsuit saying that the pay increase violates the “investor protection” provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement recently approved by Congress. The lawsuit is not in a federal or state court, but instead will be heard by three private arbitrators; the United States government is the sole defendant; and the city can participate only if the U.S. allows it.

It is not a far-fetched scenario. The TPP reportedly includes such provisions, as a means of solving a thorny problem. In the United States, the courts are, by and large, independent and willing to fairly decide challenges to arbitrary government laws and rulings, no matter who the plaintiff is. The same is not consistently true in less developed countries.

The solution proposed in the TPP is to allow foreign investors to bring claims for money damages over violations of the TPP’s investor protection provisions before a private arbitration tribunal that operates outside the challenged government’s court system. One arbitrator would be chosen by the investor, one by the country being challenged, and a third by agreement of the other two arbitrators.

The arbitrators are often lawyers who specialize in international trade and investment, for whom serving as arbitrators is only one source of their income. Unlike U.S. judges, they are not salaried but paid by the hour, and they can rotate between arbitrating cases and representing investors suing governments.

Despite the fairness of our court system, the U.S. government has consented in prior trade agreements, and in a leaked version of the still-secret TPP, to allow foreign investors to bypass our courts and instead move to “investor-state” arbitration. Thus, challenges based upon TPP to our duly enacted laws and other regulatory actions would be decided by three individuals who are not government officials and need not be American citizens. And they would have the final word as to whether the federal government will be compelled to pay damages, because there is no judicial review in any U.S. court of the merits of these arbitral rulings.

If such a case were brought, the foreign investor would sue the United States and ask that the arbitrators find that “investor-based expectations” under the TPP were violated. So, for example, it might claim that doubling the minimum wage from its prior level violated the TPP’s provisions requiring fair and equitable treatment of foreign investors. If the arbitrators agreed, they would assess money damages that would be paid from the federal treasury, but the San Francisco wage law would not be directly affected. However, because the ruling would open the door for other foreign investors in any number of businesses to bring similar claims, Congress would almost assuredly step in and override the wage increase to prevent opening the doors to the Treasury to every foreign investor in San Francisco. Indeed, in a similar situation Canada reversed a toxics ban and published a worldwide advertisement that the chemical was safe in order to avoid the possibility of having to pay substantial damages. In recent years, there has been a major increase in the use of arbitration in the United States to decide commercial disputes, but those cases involve contracts in which the parties agreed to arbitration, with the outcome generally depending on how factual issues are resolved. TPP arbitrators, by contrast, will decide what is essentially a legal question: whether governmental actions, which are designed to protect our health, safety, environment and economic well-being, are consistent with the TPP. Those protections extend from locally enacted laws like the San Francisco minimum-wage provision, to state statutes and regulatory actions, to laws passed by Congress and decisions of federal regulatory agencies. And under the TPP, as under other trade agreements, decisions of a majority of the arbitrators on compliance with the TPP will not be subject to review in any court, federal or state. Among the other important public policy measures currently being debated that might be the basis for a TPP claim by a foreign investor include water rationing in California, the legality of selling e-cigarettes to minors, and the state regulation of medical facilities performing abortions. If a foreign investor won a TPP arbitration in these situations or the wage increase discussed above, that would not only cost the Treasury, but it would disadvantage American competitors who cannot benefit from TPP arbitrations, unless the offending law were set aside. And if governments feel compelled to set aside such laws in response to adverse rulings, the three arbitrators will effectively have substituted their own judgments for that of the electorate.

Under the TPP, the arbitrators will act like judges, deciding legal questions just as federal judges decide constitutional claims. However, unlike judges appointed under Article III of the Constitution, TPP arbitrators are not appointed by the president or confirmed by the Senate, nor do they have the independence that comes from life tenure. And that presents a significant constitutional issue: Can the president and Congress, consistent with Article III, assign to three private arbitrators the judicial function of deciding the merits of a TPP investor challenge?

The Supreme Court has not ruled on this precise question. But the collective reasoning in four of its recent rulings bearing on the issue leans heavily toward a finding of unconstitutionality. The Court has placed significant limits on the ability of Congress to assign the power to decide cases traditionally handled by the courts to people other than Article III judges, even when the judicial substitutes are full-time federal officials, such as bankruptcy judges or the heads of federal agencies. Moreover, in each case in which the Court approved of a dispute being taken away from federal judges, there was judicial review at the end of the process, which is not the case with TPP. Moreover, although the Justice Department issued a lengthy opinion in 1995 on when arbitration can be used to replace court adjudication, it did not then, and has not since then, defended the constitutionality of arbitration provisions like those in the proposed TPP.

As it presses for the passage of TPP, the administration needs to explain how the Constitution allows the United States to agree to submit the validity of its federal, state, and local laws to three private arbitrators, with no possibility of review by any U.S. court. Otherwise, it risks securing a trade agreement that won’t survive judicial scrutiny, or, even worse, which will undermine the structural protections that an independent federal judiciary was created to ensure.

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TPP or not TPP? What's the Trans-Pacific Partnership and should we support it?

The Guardian / October 5, 2015

Twelve Pacific rim countries have signed a sweeping trade deal but will it cut red tape and boost commerce or is it a sellout to big business that will cost jobs?

Close to a decade in the making, the most important trade pact in a generation moved closer to becoming a reality on Monday.

Thanks to the alphabet soup of acronyms and the byzantine path the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has taken, and the secrecy in which talks have been conducted, many people have ignored the pact. But as a deal gets closer to being sealed, tempers are fraying and the TPP is set to make its way up the news agenda. Here’s your guide through the maze – what we can see of it anyway.

So we have a deal.

Yes, at least the beginning of a deal.

In a final round of negotiations, Pacific trade ministers from Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam reached the widest-ranging trade deal in a generation, covering everything from pharmaceuticals and banking to milk. The terms of the agreement will now have to be approved by each of the TPP countries.

Who is missing?

The notable exception is China. In part, the deal is meant to tackle China’s dominance in the region. China has its own trade plans under discussion but could one day be part of the TPP.

Will the US sign off?

It should do – although the effort won’t be without friction. Hoping to avoid a long, drawn-out fight over the TPP, Obama asked the US Congress to give him Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to negotiate the trade agreement. TPA gives Congress the ability to review and vote for or against a final trade agreement, but they are not able to amend it or filibuster. Getting the TPA through Congress wasn’t easy, but after weeks of back and forth the bill was finally passed in late June.

Who is against this trade deal?

Among those speaking out against the agreement are unions, workers’ rights groups and environmentalists, all of whom have traditionally been Obama supporters. Many in the president’s own party – including senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – oppose the trade deal. Free speech advocates and financial reformers are also worried about the deal. Warren is specifically afraid that if it is passed, a future president could use the TPP to change regulations like Dodd-Frank that are meant to safeguard US investors.

In a statement issued on Monday, Sanders said that he is “disappointed but not surprised by the decision to move forward on the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that will hurt consumers and cost American jobs.

“Wall Street and other big corporations have won again. It is time for the rest of us to stop letting multinational corporations rig the system to pad their profits at our expense,” he said. He added that this agreement was akin to failed trade deals with Mexico and China which cost the US millions of jobs and vowed to do what he could to defeat the agreement in Congress.

Who supports the agreement?

Big businesses like Nike – from whose headquarters Obama controversially chose to shill for the deal – support the agreement because it would reduce the tariffs on the shoes they produce overseas and then ship to the US. (Right now 98% of shoes in the US are imported.) They also argue free trade will benefit US companies and create more jobs at home. The deal would clarify trade rules that currently ensnare businesses large and small in red tape and would arguably make trading in the Pacific rim far easier.

Did the corporations lobby for passage of the deal?

They sure did. An analysis of Federal Election Commission data showed that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP donated more than $1m to members of US Senate campaigns between January and March of this year, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated.

Here is what that analysis found:

Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes.

The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.

The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.

Wasn’t there another agreement that promised much the same but cost the US jobs?

Yes. That was Nafta – the North American Free Trade Agreement – signed in 1994 between the US, Canada and Mexico. As Sanders points out, post-Nafta the US lost nearly 700,000 jobs, and over 60% of the lost jobs were in manufacturing.

Obama is really tired of people making the Nafta comparison. While speaking at Nike HQ in May, he told the audience that Nafta was a different agreement, passed 20 years ago.

“In fact, this agreement fixes some of what was wrong with Nafta by making labor and environmental provisions actually enforceable,” he said. He argued the agreement will not cost US jobs and will raise standards for workers in countries like Vietnam, where many large US companies currently outsource work.

So who is right, and what does the agreement actually say?

Well, that’s the thing: we don’t know. The agreement is secret. The most detail we have had so far comes from WikiLeaks, which leaked chapters on intellectual property proposals that have caused consternation online. “If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs,” said the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

Meanwhile, Obama insisted that the deal is not secret at all.

… how?

Well, he says that people will get to see it before he officially signs off on it. This is what he said in May:

“You’ve got some critics saying that any deal would be rushed through; it’s a secret deal, people don’t know what’s in it. This is not true. Any agreement that we finalize with the other 11 countries will have to be posted online for at least 60 days before I even sign it. Then it would go to Congress – and you know they’re not going to do anything fast. So there will be months of review. Every T crossed, every I dotted. Everybody is going to be able to see exactly what’s in it.”

So what now?

Now, we wait for the 30 chapters of the agreement to be posted. Everyone – from lawmakers to unions to lobbyists – is eager to get their hands on a copy of the deal to see what exactly it contains.

“We ask the administration to release the text immediately, and urge legislators to exercise great caution in evaluating the TPP,” Richard Trumka, president of the largest labor union federation in the US, AFL-CIO, said on Monday.

After it receives the text of the agreement, Congress will have 90 days to review it before a straight yes-or-no vote. Thanks to the TPA, there will be no amendments and no filibusters.

Wait, so this is not over yet?

Nope. Let’s get together in another three months and see how it’s going then.

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Trans-Pacific Partnership: four key issues to watch out for

The Guardian / November 5, 2015

On the words ‘climate change’ being absent from the TPP, trade minister Andrew Robb says: ‘It’s not an agreement on climate change, it’s a trade agreement’

Overnight, thousands of pages of text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership have been released, ending months of secrecy. As experts around the world begin the task of poring over the detail, here are four key issues to watch.

Environment

The language in this chapter of the TPP covers objectives ranging from protecting the environment from ship pollution, protecting the ozone layer, dealing with “invasive alien species” and implementing voluntary mechanisms to enhance environmental performance. But green groups and trade experts including Matthew Rimmer, professor of intellectual property and innovation at the Queensland University of Technology, have been surprised to learn the chapter doesn’t actually use the words climate change. “Instead [of climate change], there is some weak language on the transition to a low emissions economy,” Rimmer says.

TPP or not TPP? What's the Trans-Pacific Partnership and should we support it?

The “low emissions” language in the text is not so much weak as artfully non-specific. It says parties to the TPP recognise “each party’s actions to transition to a low emissions economy should reflect domestic circumstances and capabilities”. It presages cooperation between the signatories on energy efficiency, renewable energy investment, sustainable urban infrastructure development, addressing deforestation and forest degradation, conducting emissions monitoring, developing market and non-market mechanisms, and pursuing low-emissions, resilient development (whatever that might mean). It also says the parties shall, “as appropriate”, engage in cooperative and capacity-building activities related to transitioning to a low emissions economy.

On the omission of the words “climate change” from the TPP, the Australian trade minister, Andrew Robb, says: “Well, this is not a climate change policy. It’s not an agreement to do with climate change, it’s a trade agreement.” Environmental group Greenpeace says the chapter as a whole is very disappointing. “There are no new enforcement mechanisms to ensure that countries uphold their own environmental standards, and the mechanisms to enhance environmental performance are only voluntary,” said Emma Gibson, head of program for Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

Labour rights

This chapter draws on the declaration of the International Labour Organisation to articulate labour standards and regulations within signatory countries. It says parties to the TPP should engage in cooperative activity to “enhance opportunities to improve labour standards and to further advance common commitments regarding labour matters, including workers’ wellbeing and quality of life and the principles and rights stated in the ILO declaration”. It also notes “each party recognises the goal of eliminating all forms of forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory child labour”.

TPP deal: US and 11 other countries reach landmark Pacific trade pact

In Australia, trade unions will be paying close attention to the labour rights chapter, particularly in the wake of controversy over comparable provisions in the recent bilateral Australia/China free trade agreement. Looking globally, Rimmer says there will be a lot of discussion as to whether the TPP’s labour rights enforcement regime will be effective and workable. The enforcement provision says this: “No party shall fail to effectively enforce its labour laws through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction in a manner affecting trade or investment between the parties after the date of entry into force of this agreement.” Rimmer predicts the global labour movement will be unconvinced by the wording. “There will remain much disquiet about the inclusion of Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia in the agreement. There will continue to be concerns about labour rights, freedom of association, and human trafficking,” he says.

Intellectual property

Any non-lawyerly person contemplating reading the TPP’s intellectual property chapter before they’ve downed a stiff whiskey or some other mind clearing substance is a very brave soul indeed. But read we must, because the IP chapter has been one of the biggest fight clubs of the TPP. In summary, the chapter delivers a stronger regime in copyright protection, trademark and patent law, and sets out rules for “biologics” – pharmaceuticals, in layperson’s terms. The Australian trade minister Andrew Robb says 40 straight hours of negotiation were required at the final meeting to settle the treatment of biologics to Canberra’s satisfaction. The US wanted at least eight years of data exclusivity for biologics, when the Australian standard is five years. The US demand would have meant Australians waiting longer before cheaper versions of pharmaceuticals became available. “We haven’t moved one iota on any of that health area,” Robb says.

From cars to cough medicine: why the Trans-Pacific Partnership matters to you

But Patricia Ranald, coordinator of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network says the TPP text isn’t open and shut. It opens up the prospect of a review, and further consultations. “Five years is a minimum standard but the text also refers to eight years and to ‘other measures’ which would ‘deliver a comparable market outcome,’ and to a future review. It is not clear how this will be applied in Australia,” Ranald says. But trade consultant Alan Oxley plays down the risk. “That’s called a negotiation, I really don’t think that is significant. Robb had a brief and he held it.”

Rimmer also points to another area of potential controversy in the IP chapter: criminal procedures and penalties in respect of disclosure of trade secrets, computer crimes and espionage. “Such provisions could have a significant impact upon journalists, whistleblowers, and civil society,” he says.

Investment

The TPP aims to free up investment between signatory countries. But the controversy in this chapter will be focussed squarely on the inclusion of an investor state dispute settlement clause. Trade agreements with ISDS clauses are increasingly controversial both in Australia and around the world. These clauses allow foreign investors to sue governments over policies that harm their interests. On Friday, the shadow trade minister Penny Wong said Robb should have “rejected the inclusion of ISDS provisions in the TPP”. Greens leader Richard Di Natale said it was “remarkable that what we are prepared to do is to see big foreign multinational corporations given the power to sue governments for protecting people’s health and the environment”.

Trans-Pacific Partnership will lead to a global race to the bottom | Rose Aguilar

But trade consultant Oxley is unmoved by the backlash. He says the current opposition to ISDS clauses is merely a new focal point for anti-trade liberalisation activists. “Business supports ISDS clauses – no-one in Australian business thinks these are a bad idea. The onerousness of them is significantly misrepresented.” But Ranald cites an often quoted case – the Philip Morris case – as a reason ISDS clauses should be a no go zone. The tobacco firm is taking legal action against Australia’s plain packaging laws. “The general ‘safeguards’ in the TPP text are qualified, and similar to those in other recent agreements which have not prevented cases against health and environmental laws,” she says.

The TPP text recognises it is legitimate to protect “public welfare objectives” and this activity does not constitute “indirect expropriations, except in rare circumstances”. Robb has pointed to these exclusions as significant, preventing potential abuse of the ISDS process. Rimmer points out the general exceptions chapter in the TPP text provides the opportunity for countries to elect to protect tobacco from the investment regime for tobacco control measures. There’s a “but”, though. “However, this is not a complete carve-out for tobacco control measures. Moreover, the agreement does not necessarily provide protection for tobacco control measures from attack under other regimes.”

[kscarbel2]

TPP is going to have as great an effect on Americans as NAFTA did (Perot was correct about that "giant sucking sound", the sound of jobs heading south to Mexico).

I'm very surprised that there are no comments on this. But, details were kept secret up to the last minute, and it's received little coverage in mainstream media like CNN.

The ramifications of TPP are so great, that like NAFTA, the American people should have had the ability to vote on it. But as it has always been*, it is largely the aristocracy which guides the country's direction, which includes the big business heads.

*The founding fathers of our country were amongst the small group of wealthy and schooled individuals, the aristocracy, in the thirteen British colonies that felt the uneducated commoners were unqualified to participate in government. This is why the Electoral College was created, to avoid allowing the mass population to vote directly. The Electoral College, overseen by the founding fathers, would ensure behind the veil that a proper choice was made for president and vice-president.

The founding fathers enticed the commoners (mass population) of the English colonist to join together in a revolutionary war for independence by promising them the ability to participate in government. However they didn’t really mean it and, at that time, were quite concerned that should they gain independence, the commoners would hold them to their promises. Much to their relief, that never happened. Under the illusion that they had a say in government, the ignorant commoners for the most part fell in line and allowed the founding fathers to run the show.

(To gain an accurate picture of our beginning, I encourage you to read "Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free", by John Ferling - http://www.amazon.co...s=independence)

[41chevy]

Once again American manufacturers, American business, the American workers, the American consumer and the American Tax payer get the short end of the stick.

[kscarbel2]

Once again American manufacturers, American business, the American workers, the American consumer and the American Tax payer get the short end of the stick.

TPP was approved by Washington at the behest of American manufacturers, as was NAFTA.

[41chevy]

TPP was approved by Washington at the behest of American manufacturers, as was NAFTA.

Yes the companies with lobbyists and international ties whom will benefit the most from it. Surly will hinder more than benefit the companies with a few hundred workers and little or no international presence.

[kscarbel2]

To applause and boos, Kerry urges Congress to ratify Pacific trade pact

Reuters  /  October 26, 2016

Failure to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would be a major setback for U.S. interests in Asia as Washington seeks to deepen alliances in the region, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday, urging Congress to ratify the pact.

The 12-nation Pan-Pacific trade deal championed by President Barack Obama has been pilloried by both major-party nominees in the U.S. presidential race, Democrat Hilary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

While Republicans have traditionally backed free trade deals, Trump has blamed them for U.S. job losses and threatened to rip them up or renegotiate them if he wins the Nov. 8 election.

"If we see the TPP rejected, it would be a gigantic self-inflicted wound – a setback to our own interests in the region," Kerry told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, in remarks that drew a smattering of applause and boos.

"It would amount to a conscious turning of our backs on the Asia Pacific at the very moment that we ought to be linking arms – it would be an act that will hurt American workers, slow our economy, hinder our ability to advance the full range of U.S. objectives" in the fast-growing region, he added.

Republican leaders have said there is no point in bringing the trade deal for a vote in the "lame-duck" session of Congress after the election.

But Kerry urged Congress to approve the deal after the election, saying: "It's the right thing to do for America – and no matter what the loudest voices may be shouting – it is also the popular choice."

There are concerns in Washington that failure to pass the TPP would prompt Southeast Asian nations to turn to China and Russia.

Kerry said the trade deal was a "litmus" test of Washington's capacity to lead and was necessary if the United States wanted a steady and reliable presence in the region.

His comments came amid tensions with China over the disputed South China Sea, increased concerns over North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs, and questions over the future of the U.S.-Philippines alliance.

[kscarbel2]

Cummins president openly mixed business and politics

http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/47344-cummins-president-promotes-free-trade-agreements/

 

[kscarbel2]

How China Has Created Its Own TPP

The National Interest  /  November 8, 2016

While the United States was talking, China was acting.

We’ve heard repeated attacks during the presidential campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the commercial treaty signed by the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and seven additional countries from Asia and Latin America. Much of the opposition—and even the occasional support—has focused on China.

Supporters of the proposed treaty see it less as an economic accord and more as a strategic accord, necessary to contain China. Opponents see it as a threat, another bad trade deal which, after ratification by the U.S. Senate, might embolden signatories to let China in through “the back door,” resulting in new calamities for American workers.

The truth is: Both views are wrong—and for the same reason. TPP will do little, if anything, to slow the growth of China’s economic and political power. And it will have little effect on American workers. The reason: because TPP is irrelevant to China. They don’t need to be involved.

As Kim Iskyan, founder of Singapore’s Truewealth Publishing pointed out in a revealing analysis, China wasn’t sitting on its hands during the eight-year period in which TPP was being negotiated (2006-2014.) It was enhancing its economic ties to the Asia-Pacific region and building a strong trading network of its own.

Today, while U.S. politicians are busy running from and against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China already has free-trade agreements (FTAs) with nine of the twelve TPP signatories. While the United States was talking, China was acting, completing agreements with Australia and Chile in 2006, New Zealand and Singapore in 2008, Peru in 2009, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)—which includes TPP members Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam—in 2010.

Chinese investment in the region also has skyrocketed, increasing more than 350 percent among the ASEAN nations alone from 2006 to 2014.

While U.S. politicians are debating whether TPP is the best way to contain Beijing or a Trojan horse of Chinese economic imperialism (even though China isn’t even part of the treaty), the Chinese have created their own TPP and they’re busy expanding it.

The ties go well beyond trade and investment.

China also is building new links to their trading partners—physical links, including airports, roads and ports—providing everything from the concrete, steel and labor to the financing to pay for them. As Harold L. Sirkin, a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group, wrote in Forbes, China’s “Belt and Road” initiative—the name of the ambitious $1 trillion program—will strengthen China's ties to other nations, while the United States is in apparent retreat. Sirkin concludes: “The United States can do everything that is necessary to successfully compete in tomorrow’s world or we can go into decline. If we become a trade prima donna,” he warns, “we open the door to the Chinese, who are ready, willing and able to fill any void we create.”

Don’t look, but it may already be happening. According to the World Bank global trade accounts for some 58 percent of world GDP. In North America, the equivalent figure is 31 percent of GDP.

Who’s to blame? Not Canada (where trade accounts for 65 percent of GDP) or Mexico (73 percent); the problem is the United States, where trade accounts for just 28 percent of GDP.

The U.S. presidential campaign features politicians on both sides whose trade policies—if that’s what they can be called—are mired in misinformation and ideological fabrications. That’s the real threat to American workers.

If there’s any solace to be taken, it’s the fact that the United States already has twelve free trade agreements with Latin America that will be very difficult to undo if the next president feels the urge or the pressure to “renegotiate” them.

One wonders how long it would take a country like China to become the region’s dominant economic power in this sort of environment. More than ten percent of Latin America’s exports already go to China and almost eighteen percent of its imports originate in that country.

That a communist dictatorship should be giving the land of Thomas Jefferson lessons on free trade is one of the paradoxes of these confusing times.

[kscarbel2]

Beijing plans rival Asia-Pacific trade deal after Trump victory

The Financial Times  /  November 10, 2016

China moves to fill gap amid expectations next US president will refuse to ratify TPP

Chinese President Xi Jinping is rekindling efforts to promote a rival to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory.

China was excluded from the TPP, which the Obama administration signed earlier this year with Japan and 10 other countries and promoted as a strategic response to Beijing’s rise and its growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region. But Mr Trump put opposition to the pact at the heart of his campaign and his election has killed the prospects of its ratification by the US Congress. 

(TPP signatory countries: the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Chile and Peru. South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines have expressed interest in joining.)

The void has offered Beijing an opportunity to argue for faster adoption of a broader Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific.

With Mr Xi set to travel to Peru this month for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit, vice-foreign minister Li Baodong said China’s plan could fill the void. Chinese officials have previously sought to promote the proposal at APEC, only to encounter resistance from US officials who wanted to prioritize TPP negotiations.

“Protectionism is rearing its head and the Asia-Pacific region faces insufficient growth momentum,” said Mr. Li. “China believes we should set a new plan to respond to the expectations of industry and sustain momentum for the early establishment of a free trade area.”

US officials have warned for months that the failure of the TPP would open the door to China to promote its own trade agreements.

“We are seeing that play out in real time,” said US trade representative Mike Froman. “We are the only ones who are going to be left on the sidelines as others move forward if [TPP] doesn’t happen.”

China’s efforts have been focused on wrapping up talks over a deal known as the “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership” with the 10 members* of ASEAN and other countries including Australia and India.

(ASEAN members: Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.)

But Beijing’s move on Thursday to seize the lead role as the top power advocating regional trade deals highlights the shift in US policy to come with Mr Trump’s election and how China is likely to take advantage.

“[China] are stepping into the vacuum that is likely to be there in a Trump administration” with regard to trade negotiations, says Matthew Goodman, senior adviser on Asian economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. 

China’s move came after the lower house of Japan’s parliament voted to ratify the TPP on Thursday.

Following weeks of bitter political argument, the ruling coalition of prime minister Shinzo Abe ended debate and pushed TPP through.

But with the US president-elect having vowed to ditch TPP, which would encompass nearly 40 per cent of the global economy, members of the ruling Liberal Democratic party fear they have expended political capital for nothing.

The TPP cannot come into force without US ratification and its failure will leave a huge gap in Mr Abe’s economic program. By slashing Japan’s tariffs on food, Mr Abe hoped the deal would lead to reform and greater efficiency in agriculture.

In anticipation of a Hillary Clinton victory, Japan’s government had rushed to ratify the deal, fearing she might seek to renegotiate parts of it.

TPP now goes to the upper house, where its passage is assured. Under Japanese rules for ratification of treaties, if the upper house does not approve TPP within 30 days, it will automatically enter into law.

Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of Mr Abe’s LDP, indicated that Japan had not yet given up on persuading the US. “As an independent parliament it’s important for us to put Japan’s position openly and clearly,” he said.

Mr Abe plans to meet Mr Trump in New York next week and TPP is likely to be high on the agenda.

Eizo Kobayashi, chairman of the Japan Foreign Trade Council, praised the passage of TPP and indicated that he too had not given up. “To aid the ratification of TPP by the US and other participants, we have high expectations for an early passage through the Diet,” he said.

[kscarbel2]

Obama Administration Gives Up on Pacific Trade Deal

The Wall Street Journal  /  November 11, 2016

Congressional GOP leaders indicated they wouldn’t consider Trans-Pacific Partnership in lame-duck session

A sweeping Pacific trade pact meant to bind the U.S.and Asia effectively died Friday, as Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress told the White House they won’t advance it in the election’s aftermath, and Obama administration officials acknowledged it has no way forward now.

The failure to pass the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership—by far the biggest trade agreement in more than a decade—is a bitter defeat for President Barack Obama, whose belated but fervent support for freer trade divided his party and complicated the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The White House had lobbied hard for months in the hope of moving forward on the pact if Mrs. Clinton had won.

The deal’s collapse, which comes amid a rising wave of antitrade sentiment in the U.S., also dents American prestige in the region at a time when China is flexing its economic and military muscles.

Just over a year ago, Republicans were willing to vote overwhelmingly in support of Mr. Obama’s trade policy. But as the political season approached and voters registered their concerns by supporting Donald J. Trump, the GOP reacted coolly to the deal Mr. Obama’s team reached with Japan and 10 others countries just over a year ago in Atlanta.

Winning a majority of votes for the TPP in the House and Senate would have required both a last-minute deal to address Republican priorities and an election result that didn’t show such broad discontent.

Neither occurred. Since the election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) have said no to bringing the TPP to a vote in the lame duck session, despite the strong support of many senators in both parties for freer trade.

In the House, Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), the chairman of the committee that oversees trade, said in a statement Wednesday that “this important agreement is not ready to be considered during the lame duck and will remain on hold until President Trump decides the path forward.”

Matthew McAlvanah, a spokesman for U.S. trade representative Mike Froman, said Friday that despite all the work the administration has done with lawmakers on Capitol Hill “ultimately it is a legislative process, and the final step is for Congress to take.”

White House officials preparing for Mr. Obama’s trip to meet Pacific leaders in Peru appeared to acknowledge the defeat on Friday. “In terms of the TPP agreement itself, Leader McConnell has spoken to that, and it’s something that he’s going to work with the president-elect to figure out where they go in terms of trade agreements in the future,” said Wally Adeyemo, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.

Chinese officials preparing for the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit next week said they had heard the rumblings of protectionism and vowed to push alternative, lower-standard Pacific trade deals that aren’t likely to include the U.S.

President Xi Jinping will seek support for a broad free-trade area in the Asia-Pacific during the APEC summit, a senior Chinese official said.

U.S. officials have long warned that failure to pass the TPP, which doesn’t include China, would help Beijing take the lead with another framework, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which could be concluded in coming months and would lower or eliminate tariffs among some Pacific countries but not the U.S.

Neither proposed trade framework would have the TPP’s safeguards for intellectual property, the environment, labor or other U.S. priorities, administration officials say. A tariffs-only trade agreement led by China wouldn’t have the same strategic or economic impact as the TPP.

Recently China has started taking advantage of U.S. hesitation abroad to push its own international financial programs and economic alliances, marking a new phase in the U.S.-led order that has helped provide prosperity and security in the Pacific for decades.

This week’s election is also affecting European ties. The top trade official in Brussels said Friday that Mr. Trump’s election will further delay a big trade deal the Obama administration has been negotiating with the European Union—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP.

Many American politicians see U.S. trade agreements as complicated and politically fraught deals that can provide a bit of extra economic growth and shore up strategic alliances.

But foreign officials see Washington’s willingness to enter into such deals as a crucial barometer on whether the world’s biggest economy and military power is looking outward toward international engagement and problem-solving or inward toward domestic problems.

The 2016 election season has shown that domestic concerns about globalization, the trade deficit and stagnant wages easily beat out the appetite for international engagement.

The TPP became a symbol of Washington pursuing policies that disproportionately favor wealthier Americans over ordinary workers. Mr. Trump blamed the TPP on special interests trying to “rape” the country.

Some lawmakers and officials say the TPP or a similar deal could reappear in the Pacific in the future, perhaps with different countries in the region or even a single partner.