The TPP trade deal

It has been signed

Not the best deal for us re dairy, but good news for all other exports and at least we didn't cave on pharmaceuticals
 
cullennz said:
It has been signed

Not the best deal for us re dairy, but good news for all other exports and at least we didn't cave on pharmaceuticals
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Better hope a Republican wins, none of the major Democratic candidates support the TPP.
 
cullennz said:
It has been signed

Not the best deal for us re dairy, but good news for all other exports and at least we didn't cave on pharmaceuticals
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Correction: a deal has been reached. Now it needs to be passed by the legislatures of the twelve participating countries. That process may well be as rancorous and difficult as was reaching the deal itself.
 
FWIW, Here is an open letter to House and Senate leaders
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/cea_letter.pdf
Dear Mr. Speaker, Mr. Leader, Madam Pelosi, and Senator Reid: International trade is fundamentally good for the U.S. economy, beneficial to American families over time, and consonant with our domestic priorities. That is why we support the renewal of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to make it possible for the United States to reach international agreements with our economic partners in Asia through the Trans ‐ Pacific Partnership (TPP) and in Europe through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Trade Promotion Authority provides for an up or down vote on these agreements, without amendments, and thereby encourages our trade partners to put their best offers on the table
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...
The letter writers were chairs of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
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Well this is awkward, although I guess I'm not surprised:

Hillary Clinton comes out against Obama’s Pacific trade deal

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Wednesday that she opposes an expansive 12-nation Pacific Rim free-trade accord finalized by the Obama administration this week, breaking sharply with the president over a deal she had championed while serving as secretary of state.

Clinton said in an interview with PBS that she would not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) based on what she knows of the deal. The 30-chapter text of the agreement, which negotiators concluded Monday, has not been made public.

"As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it," Clinton said in the interview. "I have said from the very beginning that we had to have a trade agreement that would create good American jobs, raise wages and advance our national security. I still believe that's the high bar we have to meet. I've been trying to learn as much as I can about the agreement, but I'm worried."

"I appreciate the hard work that President Obama and his team put into this process and recognize the strides they made," Clinton said in a statement released to reporters traveling with her in Iowa. "But the bar here is very high and, based on what I have seen, I don't believe this agreement has met it."
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Analysis: this is purely a political decision and shows that she's worried about being outflanked on the left by Bernie Sanders. (Sorry if that's too Captain Obvious)

And, thinking back to the 2008 campaign, the roles were reversed. Obama was very critical about NAFTA, even promising to renegotiate some aspects of it by threatening to opt out of it:

It's true that Obama has been harshly critical of NAFTA on the campaign trail, citing shortfalls in its protections for workers and the environment. He has used words like "devastating" and "a big mistake" to describe the agreement.

Obama was particularly critical of NAFTA in February in the run-up to the Ohio Democratic primary. In a debate, he said, "We should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced."

In a June 20, 2008 conference call with reporters, Obama surrogate Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat, said he was "absolutely confident Barack Obama will reopen the negotiations on NAFTA. I have been assured by him and his top economic advisers there is no question his position is constant and will stay that way on the North American Free Trade Agreement."
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So those are the promises Obama made to the Democratic base when he was fighting to win the nomination. Of course we all know what became of those promises once he became president:

Obama Reverses Campaign Pledge to Renegotiate NAFTA

And now he has gone a step further by negotiating a larger free trade agreement than NAFTA. (To be fair, maybe he would argue that there are some aspects of this agreement that are better than those of NAFTA, but the same groups that opposed NAFTA (labor and environmentalists) seem to be equally opposed to this agreement. So, I think I have to conclude that in essence, they are more similar than different and saying NAFTA is bad but TPP is good somehow seems like a very fine needle to thread.)

All that is to say that Obama has essentially done the opposite of what he promised to labor and environmentalists when he was running for president with respect to free trade. He threw some other sops to them in different ways, but on free trade, exactly the opposite of what he promised.

NAFTA of course was concluded under Bill Clinton although the negotiations for it began under the first President Bush. Now Hillary has an opportunity to repay Obama by demagoguing his signature trade agreement in the same way that Obama demagogued Bill's signature trade agreement.
 
This story was covered but didn't get much national attention

Transcanada is suing the US for $15billion over the lost profits from denial of keystone pipeline. what is the legal basis for this suit? NAFTA

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/0...sue-us-for-blocking-keystone-xl-pipeline.html

Opponents of the TPP have pointed similar language and worry about exactly this sort of thing occurring.

In response proponents of the TPP have pointed to how the same thing is in NAFTA and it hasn't been an issue.

Transcanada hasn't won the case yet so maybe it won't amount to anything but if they do win I see more companies bringing such suits.
 
The_Animus said:
This story was covered but didn't get much national attention

Transcanada is suing the US for $15billion over the lost profits from denial of keystone pipeline. what is the legal basis for this suit? NAFTA

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/0...sue-us-for-blocking-keystone-xl-pipeline.html

Opponents of the TPP have pointed similar language and worry about exactly this sort of thing occurring.

In response proponents of the TPP have pointed to how the same thing is in NAFTA and it hasn't been an issue.

Transcanada hasn't won the case yet so maybe it won't amount to anything but if they do win I see more companies bringing such suits.
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Yes it has.

See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...r-future-dispute-settlements/article23603613/ for one example among many.

And there are lots of suits already.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Yes it has.

See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...r-future-dispute-settlements/article23603613/ for one example among many.

And there are lots of suits already.
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I was just repeating arguments I've heard from others on this topic both pro and against. I haven't researched enough to fall solidly on any side, though admittedly with what I do know I lean a little against the TPP and such provisions.

Thanks for the link. I notice that both the cases mentioned are from 2015 even though NAFTA has been in effect for over 20 years. I'm guessing that initially there weren't many lawsuits and that over time the number have grown, likely as a result of some of those lawsuits being successful and setting precedent. But that's just a guess.

I tried briefly looking up total number of lawsuits and the closest I found was that Canada has received the most lawsuits at 36.

I still wonder what the total number of suits is, and more importantly how many of them were successful. Because if there have been few successful suits then the proponent claims that the provision in NAFTA hasn't been an issue would be largely accurate.

Especially given that some of the successful lawsuits may have been justified and the company owed compensation.
 
The_Animus said:
I was just repeating arguments I've heard from others on this topic both pro and against. I haven't researched enough to fall solidly on any side, though admittedly with what I do know I lean a little against the TPP and such provisions.

Thanks for the link. I notice that both the cases mentioned are from 2015 even though NAFTA has been in effect for over 20 years. I'm guessing that initially there weren't many lawsuits and that over time the number have grown, likely as a result of some of those lawsuits being successful and setting precedent. But that's just a guess.

I tried briefly looking up total number of lawsuits and the closest I found was that Canada has received the most lawsuits at 36.

I still wonder what the total number of suits is, and more importantly how many of them were successful. Because if there have been few successful suits then the proponent claims that the provision in NAFTA hasn't been an issue would be largely accurate.

Especially given that some of the successful lawsuits may have been justified and the company owed compensation.
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Justification is in the eye of the beholder.

You could read this for a position that to some extent reflects my own: https://www.salon.com/2016/01/08/at...hilling_sign_of_dystopian_tpp_era_we_live_in/

If you want to do your own research, you can start here;
http://www.international.gc.ca/trad...x/topics-domaines/disp-diff/gov.aspx?lang=eng
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Justification is in the eye of the beholder.

You could read this for a position that to some extent reflects my own: https://www.salon.com/2016/01/08/at...hilling_sign_of_dystopian_tpp_era_we_live_in/

If you want to do your own research, you can start here;
http://www.international.gc.ca/trad...x/topics-domaines/disp-diff/gov.aspx?lang=eng
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Do you think the US cannot get a fair hearing at the court? Or do you think the hearing would be fair and that is the problem (a fair but punishing decision against the US)?
 
BobTheCoward said:
Do you think the US cannot get a fair hearing at the court? Or do you think the hearing would be fair and that is the problem (a fair but punishing decision against the US)?
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I think that sovereign countries are sovereign countries and that issues concerning their ability to decide their own constitutions and make their own laws should not be subverted by foreign corporations. NAFTA gives more rights to a foreign corporation than an indigenous corporation has.

What hearing? What court? Read the Overview of the Dispute Settlement Provisions at https://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Hom...Overview-of-the-Dispute-Settlement-Provisions

And, when the farce is all complete, the bigger country just says "Piss Off" we don't like the final decision. Per the Canada%E2%80%93United_States_softwood_lumber_disputeWP.
 
Puppycow said:
I guess this is an issue that divides Democrats. Obama is for it, but Elizabeth Warren is against it (more broadly, businesses seem to mainly be for it, with some exceptions, while labor and environmental groups are against it). Me, I'm generally in favor of freer trade and lower barriers to trade, and against protectionism because I think the benefits outweigh the costs. However, the benefits can be harder to see than the costs, which is why populist arguments for protectionism seem to sway a lot of people.

This article is from the Boston Globe:
Warren, Mass. business groups at odds on trade pact



On the other hand, I think Warren has a good point to make about the deal: why is the fine print secret? Here she is in her own words:

You can't read this



Even though I am generally in favor of free trade, I find this argument persuasive: Why can't we see what's in the deal? Why can't we see the fine print? If someone asked you to sign a contract, but told you you can't read the fine print, would you sign it? What sorts of things did corporate lobbyists put in the fine print? I want to know before I sign on to it.

This isn't the side of the issue I want to be on, but I want to do my due diligence, and if the fine print is secret, I simply can't support it.
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This will get passed whether the people want it or not. The People have very little say in what goes on anymore. Guaranteed this will be like Shafta on steriods. Does anyone still remember Ross Perot's famous quote about Shafta? "If Nafta passes you will hear a big whoosing sound of jobs leaving the USA." Different day, same ********.
 
jakesteele said:
This will get passed whether the people want it or not. The People have very little say in what goes on anymore. Guaranteed this will be like Shafta on steriods. Does anyone still remember Ross Perot's famous quote about Shafta? "If Nafta passes you will hear a big whoosing sound of jobs leaving the USA." Different day, same ********.
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Which never materialized. Total US employment was notably up and unemployment DOWN for the decade following NAFTA.
http://bookstore.petersoninstitute.org/book-store/332.html

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/108th-congress-2003-2004/reports/report_0.pdf
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/103rd-congress-1993-1994/reports/93doc154.pdf

Had a small positive impact on GDP & employment, had a notable impact on stability of trade results and uncrease of trade (increase ~$600B/yr w/ Mexico).


Funny how this popular falsehood has such 'legs'. I guess the Kos and Huffpo recitations penetrate; tho' it pretty much decimates the argument that all the xenophobic anti-factualist knuckle-draggers are on the Right.
 
stevea said:
...tho' it pretty much decimates the argument that all the xenophobic anti-factualist knuckle-draggers are on the Right.
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You might want to review jakesteele's body of work (here in the Politics subforum).
 
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On a macro level, or for the country's economy as a whole, the TPP will be beneficial. But, in terms of American jobs and American workers, it will do more harm than good. To put it another way, the TPP will enrich a lot of big American companies, but it will destroy a sizable number of good jobs.

One can argue that many/most of those displaced workers will be able to find other jobs as a result of the influx of cash from TPP trade, but those jobs will likely pay less and offer less benefits than their previous jobs.

So I understand why both liberals and conservatives are divided over the TPP. Some liberals and conservatives support it, while other liberals and conservatives oppose it. For example, Marco Rubio and Nancy Pelosi support it. But, Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren oppose it.
 
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bobtaftfan said:
Some liberals and conservatives support it, while other liberals and conservatives oppose it. For example, Marco Rubio and Nancy Pelosi support it. But, Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren oppose it.
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This should tell you something, no? It tells me a couple of things. First, a lot of politicians, conservative and liberal, don't really understand the true impotance of this pact, or only see it as a zero-sum affair. Second, the TPP is a complicated thing with a lot of moving parts and difficult to explain. Even if he or she did understand it, a politician has a hard time conveying its effects on the average voter. So politicians do what comes naturally: resort to pandering and demagoguery. It's a lot easier than explaining the vagaries of New Zealand's horticultural tariff provision.

I see the TPP not as a zero-sum deal, but one that lifts all boats. It helps developing countries such as Vietnam the most. But by lowering tariffs it helps the developed countries too by opening those markets. TPP does not create a worker's paradise but it's an improvement on the status quo and that's all you can ask for from such a pact.
 
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