So...I forget how much I talked about it back in 2016, but back then, I HATED the TPP or trans pacific partnership. It was a free trade agreement between various nations that bordered the pacific rim generally, both in the Americas and in Asia. And here's the thing. It always came off to me as this weird corporate giveaway enshrined in international law. While the advocates for it often argued for it in a geopolitical context arguing "WE HAVE TO CONTAIN CHINA, IF WE DON'T MAKE THE RULES THEY WILL MAKE THE RULES", it seemed to be problematic on many levels, from how it was negotiated, to the actual provisions that made it up. So that said, given the fact that I recently came out against the likes of Russia and China, and argue for strong, multilateral cooperation with various countries in the different regions of the world to counter their influence, I kind of want to reinvestigate the validity of the TPP and whether my mind has changed on it at all. I will be going along with Wikipedia, as the entire agreement is too long to reasonably read, so I'll be hitting the key points in this one.
So, what does the TPP actually DO?!
The agreement cuts over 18,000 tariffs.[89] Tariffs on all U.S. manufactured goods and almost all U.S. farm products would be eliminated completely, with most eliminations occurring immediately.[90] According to the Congressional Research Service, TPP "would be the largest U.S. FTA by trade flows ($905 billion in U.S. goods and services exports and $980 billion in imports in 2014)".[20] Including the US, the signatories represent roughly 40% of global GDP, and one-third of world trade.[91]
This provision comes off as fairly innocuous. I mean, that's what free trade agreements are SUPPOSED to do. Remove barriers to trade. Tariffs are intended to encourage people to buy local, by essentially taxing foreign goods to the point they're uncompetitive with locally made goods. But, generally speaking, economists argue that this leads to a net loss for society in terms of real GDP gain. So they don't make the world a better place. If anything they make it worse overall.
According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the "TPP includes the most robust enforceable environment commitments of any trade agreement in history".[92] The USTR notes that the TPP requires signatories to fulfill their obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to protect and conserve iconic species.[92] According to the USTR, TPP is the first trade agreement to prohibit harmful fisheries subsidies, such as those that contribute to overfishing.[92] The USTR asserts that TPP signatories are required to "combat illegal fishing", "promote sustainable fisheries management practices", and "protect wetlands and important natural areas", "combat wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and illegal fishing" and "protect the marine environment from ship pollution, including by implementing their obligations under MARPOL (an international agreement to prevent marine pollution)".[92]
I dont see anything particularly bad here. I support environmental regulations and think working with other countries to combat climate change is a must to get it under control.
According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, signatories are required to join the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC); criminalize bribery of public officials; have in place a code of conduct for public officials; take measures to decrease conflicts of interest; effectively enforce anti-corruption laws and regulations; and involve private organizations in the fight against corruption.[105]
Not against anti corruption either. This is a positive thing.
According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the TPP prohibits exploitative child labor and forced labor; ensures the right to collective bargaining; and prohibits employment discrimination.[106] The USTR asserts that "research by the International Labor Organization and the World Trade Organization finds that combining expanded trade opportunities with strong protections for workers can help workers move from informal-sector jobs into formal work in wage-paying, regulated export industries which offer a minimum wage, benefits, and safety programs".[106] The USTR asserts that "research also shows that trade improves human rights conditions by fostering pluralistic institutions and increasing open exchanges of information."[106]
You see, this is the kind of stuff I wish that free trade agreements engaged in more. A huge issue with me with free trade agreements is liberalization can lead to a race to the bottom. But if we establish core labor laws in free trade agreements, then that cuts down on exploitation worldwide and abolishes questionable practices, without having to compete with one another in the process. You see, as I see it, if you are an advanced western country and you compete with a country with no minimum wage or labor law or safety nets, you're competing with that nation for corporations' favor. And it always bugged me, why dont free trade agreements focus on improving these things? I have nothing against free trade with other nations with similar values to mine. It's having to have free trade with nations with different values. If those nations don't value human life and well being and put corporate interests over peoples' interests, I have to oppose the agreement. So this is the kind of thing I want to see more from, from potential free trade agreements.
The intellectual property section of a leaked draft of the TPP lays out a minimum level of protection parties to the Agreement must grant for trademarks, copyright, and patents.[109] Copyright is granted at a length of life of the author plus 70 years,[109] and requires countries to set criminal penalties for violating copyright protections such as Digital Rights Management.[110]
So, this is where I really come out swinging against the TPP and see problem #1. I noticed, as this thing was designed, the US's primary interest in it, as far as the "rules" it wanted to make, were rules of copyright. Essentially, we wanted to impose our standards of copyright on the rest of the world. And here's the thing, I HATE COPYRIGHT AS IT EXISTS. Seriously, our laws are so in favor of corporate interests that it's ridiculous. They're extremely anti consumer, and honestly? While I can see some copyright existing, such as the original form of like 7 years or whatever, the whole life + 75 years seems outrageous. Stuff should enter the public domain WAY sooner than it does. We got stuff from like 1900 that STILL isn't in the public domain. And we wanna export that standard to the rest of the world? I'm gonna call BS on this one.
And I know, the neolib hawks are like "BUT CHINA, CHINA VIOLATES OUR COPYRIGHT! CHINA!!!!!",. but uh...why should I care? There's a lot of problems I have with China. Their flagrant disregard of our IP laws aren't among them. Here's the thing, and this is something I wanna make really clear for people because I've been called a bad faith agent a lot since 2016 for this in general. I really DON'T like other authoritarian great powers like Russia and China. My allegiance is with the west, geopolitically. But, don't try to red scare me into a position. I feel like neolibs do this too often, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to take on the TPP again. Neolibs like to act like McCarthyists, trying to scare the everloving crap out of people about other countries, when in reality, it's just a rhetorical tactic to bully you into supporting their position. They did this with Russia too after 2016, basically, if you dont like Hillary or the dems you're Putin's stooge. If you like the greens, you're in with Putin. If you like Trump, you're in with Putin. Anyone who doesn't like them are in with Putin. I mean, seriously, screw off with that crap. Same here. Don't try to use the threat of China to bully me into supporting the TPP. Especially if THIS is your argument. Because I dont like China, but I sure as heck don't like our corporate interests here in the US either. We have oligarchs and special interests too, and this provision is a giveaway to them at the expense of the people. Seeing how I support reforming our own copyright laws away from the life+75 year standard, and how this agreement would stop us from doing so, I have no choice but to oppose the agreement here.
In May 2015, Nobel Memorial prize winning economist Paul Krugman expressed concern that the TPP would tighten the patent laws and allow corporations such as big pharmaceutical companies and Hollywood to gain advantages, in terms of increasing rewards, at the cost of consumers, and that people in developing countries would not be able to access the medicines under the TPP regime.[117] However, Walter Park, Professor of Economics at American University, argues that it is far from clear in economic research that this would necessarily happen: clarifying intellectual property rights on drugs, for some developing countries, has not led to greater prices and less access to drugs.[112] Park also argues, based on the existing literature, that the pharmaceutical protections in TPP will potentially enhance unaffiliated licensing in developing countries, lead to tech transfers that contribute to local learning-by-doing, stimulate new drug launches in more countries, expand marketing and distribution networks, and encourage early stage pharmaceutical innovations.[112] The Office of the United States Trade Representative notes that the TPP "aligns with the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health", which allows developing countries to circumvent patent rights for better access to essential medicines.[111]
And here's strike #2 for me. I'm on the Krugman side of being concerned here. This is a corporate giveaway to me. I don't care about pharmaceutical companies and their patents and profits. Healthcare should be free at the point of use IMO, or at the very least, we should have a robust public option to minimize costs. I actually think that the medical industry being for profit is a bad thing. It just leads to insane price increases and exploitation that don't need to exist. So trying to protect that stuff in a free trade agreement is suspect to me. Again, I don't care about intellectual property, and it isn't my priority to strengthen those protections. No, I seek to weaken them, as I see weaker protections as benefitting people, and stronger ones as protecting corporations. Bad agreement, bad.
The TPP agreement establishes an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism,[130] which grants investors the right to sue foreign governments for treaty violations. For example, if an investor invests in country "A", a member of a trade treaty, and country A breaches that treaty, then the investor may sue country A's government for the breach.[131] ISDS is meant to provide investors in foreign countries basic protections from foreign government actions such as "freedom from discrimination", "protection against uncompensated expropriation of property", "protection against denial of justice" and "right to transfer capital":[132][133]
I'm very uncomfortable with this, and this is something I recall making me against TPP back in 2015-2016. I don't like the idea of corporations suing governments for treaty violations. To see how it can go wrong, look no further than Warren's statements on it:
In a February 2016 op-ed against the TPP, Senator Elizabeth Warren used the example of a French company suing Egypt because Egypt raised its minimum wage as an argument against the ISDS provisions of the TPP.[143] The Washington Post's editorial board has, however, challenged this characterization of the case, noting that "Veolia of France, a waste management company, invoked ISDS to enforce a contract with the government of Alexandria, Egypt, that it says required compensation if costs increased; the company maintains that the wage increases triggered this provision. Incidentally, Veolia was working with Alexandria on a World Bank-supported project to reduce greenhouse gases, not some corporate plot to exploit the people. The case — which would result, at most, in a monetary award to Veolia, not the overthrow of the minimum wage — remains in litigation."[144]
Uh, yeah no. I don't like the idea of corporations trying to see countries for "violating their rights" when in fact the corporation in question is doing shady corporation things. All things considered, I err on the nationalist side of things when these kinds of provisions are subject to abuse. I don't want my country to not be able to do something I see as just and needed because it violates some trade agreement. Doesn't help that the TPP was negotiated mostly in secret and it was dumped on us in this form and we were only given a choice of yes or no. It's shady.
According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the TPP imposes "binding and fully enforceable obligations" on signatories to "protect the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively" and "eliminate exploitative child labor and forced labor protect against employment discrimination".[147] The obligations include "laws on acceptable conditions of work related to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health."[147] The USTR insists that if countries like Malaysia and Vietnam do not enforce provisions relating to forced labor, human trafficking and collective bargaining, they will cease to get the economic benefits of the TPP agreement.[148]
This I support. Again, we should make labor laws part of trade agreements as minimums, to ensure a lack of exploitation. We should have agreements that weaken corporate influence and work for the people of the signatory countries. Not agreements that strengthen corporate influence at the public's expense.
Even though the TPP had not been passed, the agreement had already introduced forms of regulatory cooperation for agriculture beyond that found in the WTO.[154] This means that regulators in different TPP signatories have been engaging with each other and building trust.[154] Chad P. Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, argues that this regulatory cooperation meant that the US poultry industry was not as hard-hit by the 2015 bird flu outbreak, as regulators in TPP countries cooperated and continued to accept US exports of poultry.[154]
Neutral on this mostly, but this seems positive.
All in all...
All in all, the TPP is a blatantly flawed agreement in my opinion. While it would've done some good things overall, it also had a lot of corporate influence in it, as many of its provisions seemed to be blatant giveaways to various special interests here in the US. I am also concerned with the provision to allow companies to sue signatory countries for alleged violations of the agreement. The fact is, this did too many bad things to be acceptable.
And as for the argument about it containing China...how? Like, I literally dont understand how this contains China at all. China isn't a signatory, and would never agree to the terms. I guess the argument is they'll make their own agreement with various pacific countries instead based on their rules, but...seriously, if they were this scared, why not make an agreement that is actually agreeable? I'm convinced that they were trying to ram through this agreement full of benefits for corporate interests under the guise of anti China paranoia in order to get it through without people really scrutinizing it too hard. Most of the time, that's the only point for appealing so hard to patriotic fervor. When they fear monger about China, the goal is to get you to say "OH NO NOT CHINA" and you're supposed to just accept what they tell you. Same thing with Russiagate in 2016. OH NO NOT RUSSIA I'M WITH YOU HILLARY! That's the whole point of it. It's just this weird jingoistic circlejerk.
We definitely do need international cooperation to counter the likes of Russia and China on the world stage. But let's not just boogeyman arguments in order to justify crap agreements chock full of corporate benefits. I mean, this agreement would've done some positive things. But it also would've done some bad things too, and even now, I'm fully against it and glad it died. Still, a lot of neolibs act like its death was a tragedy for some reason even now, and honestly? Ugh, screw this agreement.
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