Zaid Jilani✉zaid.jilani@theintercept.comt@ZaidJilani
The news media
and advocates of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade
agreement have repeatedly described opponents of the deal as
“protectionist” or opposed to trade itself.
For instance, after Donald Trump pressed Hillary Clinton to swear off passage of the deal, the New York Times reported that Trump was embracing “nationalistic anti-trade policies.” The Wall Street Journal said Trump expressed “protectionist views.” President Obama warned that you can’t withdraw “from trade deals” and focus “solely on your local market.”
But opposition to the TPP is not accurately described as opposition to all trade, or even to free trade.
In fact, the deal’s major impact would not come in the area of lowering tariffs, the most common trade barriers. The TPP is more focused on crafting regulatory regimes that benefit certain industries.
So the most consequential parts of the deal would actually undermine the free flow of goods and services by expanding some protectionist, anti-competitive policies sought by global corporations.
“We already have trade agreements with six of the 11 countries. Canada and Mexico — our two biggest trading partners — are in there. The tariffs are almost zero [with those countries] anyhow,” Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told The Intercept. “What’s in the deal? Higher patent and copyright protection! That’s protectionism.”
The U.S. International Trade Commission’s own report on the agreement notes that “few tariffs remain between the United States and its existing [free trade agreement] partners,” which compose a majority of TPP countries.
It’s true that past trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have dramatically lowered tariffs, freeing companies to move manufacturing jobs out of the country. And as a result, the very notion of trade agreements has left many Americans understandably skeptical.
Concerns that the TPP would lead to even more job losses “are real and I think that the political discussion is responding to those concerns from both parties,” Melinda St. Louis, director of international campaigns at Public Citizen, told The Intercept. But, she noted, “I do think that the trade aspects of the TPP are a small part of it. It’s only six of 30 chapters that have to do with trade and goods really at all. The rest of it is about setting global rules.”
One of the proposed TPP rules, for instance, involves the expansion of copyrights, which would impose anti-competitive costs on economies.
The agreement has been harshly criticized by humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders, which deploys thousands of doctors overseas to offer medical care to those who cannot afford it, because it expands monopoly protections and patents for various pharmaceutical drugs.
For instance, the agreement requires the countries involved to offer eight years of market exclusivity, or five years plus other mechanisms, to assure “comparable market outcome” for a class of pharmaceutical products called biologics. These cutting-edge, biologically manufactured drugs have been used to treat Crohn’s disease, arthritis, and other common ailments — and expanding market exclusivity means there is less room for competitors to produce lower-cost generic drugs to compete.
“We do not have a position on the TPP as a whole, we’re not anti-trade, we’re a humanitarian organization,” Judit Rius Sanjuan, a legal policy adviser for Doctors Without Borders explained. “Some of the provisions in the text will also make it much more difficult to have innovation, because they create patent monopolies for big pharmaceutical companies.”
The TPP also seeks to strengthen and extend monopoly patents for the entertainment industry.
In a victory lap early this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger wrote to company employees boasting about the role his company played in expanding the intellectual property provisions in the TPP, saying Disney was able to “advocate successfully for a strong IP chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.”
Disney played a major role in lobbying for a 1998 law that extended copyrights for media creations.
Congress’s 1998 rule change was a boon to Disney, which was due to lose its Mickey Mouse copyright in 2003. Thanks to this law change, which opponents derided as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” Mickey’s copyright was extended to 2023.
The TPP seeks to expand on that, establishing a global Mickey Mouse Protection regime. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made a trip to Hollywood in May to remind a trade group that the TPP would require countries to lift their copyright terms to the 70-year standard in the United States. This would be an increase from 50 years, the current standard in many of the countries that are part of the negotiation.
Froman pointed to films such as Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago, noting that these films are “1966 vintage, which without TPP will be off protection next year.”
For instance, after Donald Trump pressed Hillary Clinton to swear off passage of the deal, the New York Times reported that Trump was embracing “nationalistic anti-trade policies.” The Wall Street Journal said Trump expressed “protectionist views.” President Obama warned that you can’t withdraw “from trade deals” and focus “solely on your local market.”
But opposition to the TPP is not accurately described as opposition to all trade, or even to free trade.
In fact, the deal’s major impact would not come in the area of lowering tariffs, the most common trade barriers. The TPP is more focused on crafting regulatory regimes that benefit certain industries.
So the most consequential parts of the deal would actually undermine the free flow of goods and services by expanding some protectionist, anti-competitive policies sought by global corporations.
“We already have trade agreements with six of the 11 countries. Canada and Mexico — our two biggest trading partners — are in there. The tariffs are almost zero [with those countries] anyhow,” Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told The Intercept. “What’s in the deal? Higher patent and copyright protection! That’s protectionism.”
The U.S. International Trade Commission’s own report on the agreement notes that “few tariffs remain between the United States and its existing [free trade agreement] partners,” which compose a majority of TPP countries.
It’s true that past trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have dramatically lowered tariffs, freeing companies to move manufacturing jobs out of the country. And as a result, the very notion of trade agreements has left many Americans understandably skeptical.
Concerns that the TPP would lead to even more job losses “are real and I think that the political discussion is responding to those concerns from both parties,” Melinda St. Louis, director of international campaigns at Public Citizen, told The Intercept. But, she noted, “I do think that the trade aspects of the TPP are a small part of it. It’s only six of 30 chapters that have to do with trade and goods really at all. The rest of it is about setting global rules.”
One of the proposed TPP rules, for instance, involves the expansion of copyrights, which would impose anti-competitive costs on economies.
The agreement has been harshly criticized by humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders, which deploys thousands of doctors overseas to offer medical care to those who cannot afford it, because it expands monopoly protections and patents for various pharmaceutical drugs.
For instance, the agreement requires the countries involved to offer eight years of market exclusivity, or five years plus other mechanisms, to assure “comparable market outcome” for a class of pharmaceutical products called biologics. These cutting-edge, biologically manufactured drugs have been used to treat Crohn’s disease, arthritis, and other common ailments — and expanding market exclusivity means there is less room for competitors to produce lower-cost generic drugs to compete.
“We do not have a position on the TPP as a whole, we’re not anti-trade, we’re a humanitarian organization,” Judit Rius Sanjuan, a legal policy adviser for Doctors Without Borders explained. “Some of the provisions in the text will also make it much more difficult to have innovation, because they create patent monopolies for big pharmaceutical companies.”
The TPP also seeks to strengthen and extend monopoly patents for the entertainment industry.
In a victory lap early this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger wrote to company employees boasting about the role his company played in expanding the intellectual property provisions in the TPP, saying Disney was able to “advocate successfully for a strong IP chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.”
Disney played a major role in lobbying for a 1998 law that extended copyrights for media creations.
Congress’s 1998 rule change was a boon to Disney, which was due to lose its Mickey Mouse copyright in 2003. Thanks to this law change, which opponents derided as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” Mickey’s copyright was extended to 2023.
The TPP seeks to expand on that, establishing a global Mickey Mouse Protection regime. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made a trip to Hollywood in May to remind a trade group that the TPP would require countries to lift their copyright terms to the 70-year standard in the United States. This would be an increase from 50 years, the current standard in many of the countries that are part of the negotiation.
Froman pointed to films such as Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago, noting that these films are “1966 vintage, which without TPP will be off protection next year.”
This is historical fantasy, all efforts toward “Free Trade” or “Free Markets” have in fact been a push for ridiculous entitlements granted by rising authoritarian powers.
“The TPP is more focused on crafting regulatory regimes that benefit certain industries.”
This is exactly what free trade really means outside of propaganda. There are literally no exceptions, there has never been such a thing as a free market and their never will. Every time you think you’ve learned about one, look up the real history. example : china, shanghai – touted as free market in it’s day, not even remotely true. chile, post-coup, shitty libertarian economics destroyed the country, had to go back to nationalistic protectionism and it worked. Now touted as free market ‘miracle’.
It’s literally no different than believing in a religion.
In a follow up to an earlier post below by a different pseudonym; There are only two eventual outcomes when capitalism can’t continue to expand. 1). collapse, taking financial, economic, and structures of governance away, or 2). start a major war; WW II was partially due to this factor. If war is chosen, and it’s looking more like this everyday, it can’t be won even if it’s the greatest one ever and will take the world down with it. Times are indeed darkening with outcomes up in the air and we are all heading into uncharted territory.
Clinton and Trump are the same as their supporters and
their corporate owned parties.
Who do you imagine is going to stop this trainwreck?
The voters who are going to put one or the other of them in office???
Also, “the middle class” distinction is a lousy ploy
which dismisses those who are most vulnerable and those
who are least wealthy. It is a way of focusing on
“the right kind of people.”
There was no coverage of the French protests against labour laws reforms. Now the French government is bypassing the parliament to adopt these laws.
The amazing thing is that this started almost immediately after the Paris attacks when the media worldwide diverted everyone’s attention to France. Suddenly, not a word any more!
Any chance the intercept would give us some analysis of this situation. Why MSM never mentions such protests. How do these reforms fit in with the neo-liberal agenda?
Would there be any relation between these reforms and what the TPP has in store?
Would there be any relation between these reforms and what the TPP has in store?
Any chance
Google white house. Call Obama ASAP with your opposition
It is important to view TPP in the context of what has led up to its introduction along with the other significant investor/capital rights deals referred to as “trade.”
Over the past forty years vast wealth has been transferred to a small number of oligarchs the fortunes of these people/families is greater than history has ever seen. Families such as the Saud family have fortunes in the trillions of dollars in terms of market control. Theses fortunes control as much as 40 trillion dollars in annual revenues and have control of all key markets globally. The empire does not control Russia or China yet but they are surrounded by trillions of dollars of aggressive war making men and material. Additionally, what I think was Obama’s greatest achievement in office for Imperial interests was cementing the relationship with India by giving them material for many new nuclear weapons. This seriously cripples any China-Russia breakout of their containment by US Imperial forces.
TPP, TTIP and the lesser known but perhaps even more harmful Trade in Services Agreement are the institutionalization of Imperial power the sweeping away of sovereignty and civil society, that is government and all its institutions.
Corporations are the tools of oligarchs – when you have work done on your kitchen and the builder screws it up you don’t go and yell at his tools or his truck what is the point of railing against corporations?
We don’t even know who the top oligarchs are, except for a very few, we know that Alphabet/Google is controlled by Larry Page and Surgey Brin, they in reality own all the revenue of their many corporations and have huge market influence in other markets reinvesting profits in strategic industries and controlling them. But even they don’t have the power of thee Saud family. Having taken in trillions sense WWII selling oil at high prices the deal was that they would plow the money back into the US buying lots of arms and T-bills. But they cheated – who would have thought – and invested strategically around the globe in such a way that even the US can not buck them too much or they will sink the global economy.
Those are the people – whomever they are – who has the controlling interest in Apple? It is no more than three people who’s names I certainly don’t know, who does?
It seems like we the hoi polloi as always have figured all this out about 30 years too late – the money and power has already been transferred, the Empire is in place and is moving rapidly t consolidate its power by institutionalization it.
Our problem is made far more difficult as well because power is no longer in one place, DC, Peking, London, it is everywhere and nowhere. It is every digital digit, every computer, on every street corner it is everywhere. Yet, we don’t even know the names of those with the real power.
I often joke that these people ARE the Illuminati, the Free Masons, the Trilateral commission, and the ever present Jewish Bankers all rolled into one.
Dystopia is the here and now for 2/3rds of the human population who have right now today no access to clean water or toilets. That number will only grow as Artificial Inelegance eliminates jobs which is underway now.
Global warming is not even an issue for these powerful few, it is clear the lives of the hoi polloi are not a part of their calculations for the future they desire. If a billion people or two billion are wiped away what does it matter, especially when they have given all they have and there is nothing more to take?
I am at a loss as to how to confront power in any meaningful way.
Waiting for the TTIP which is waiting in the wings.Has been and is being worked on also as we write and speak for the last 3years now with the support of politicians in the European Union and Commission.These deals are for the world on both sides of America.
So what can and is going to be done to stop it?
We all don’t want it;we write about it , … many peoples in all these countries do not want it….Power, Control and Ownership, with wealth and military means….How can we fight it?
In Canada we worry the TPP will allow corporations to first propose projects with dire environmental concerns, sparking opposition from communities, scientists, and Native groups which will then give that corporate entity the right to sue the Canadian government . Proposing pipelines or new mining projects could become a litigious industry in itself. This is the ONLY reason one needs to oppose TPP.
Great article. But, where’s the rest of it? I notice that many articles on this site kind of end 3/4 of the way through the discussion. They kind of just end in mid–…..
The consequences of a Hillary Clinton presidency? Surely an increase in foreign wars, adoption of the TPP, more coup attempts in Central and South America, continued regime change disasters in the Middle East and central Asia, and an expanded military-industrial budget with increased militarism in eastern Europe and the Pacific, part of the neocon/neolib agenda ‘restart the Cold War’ agenda. Domestically, poverty and the wage gap between rich and poor will continue to grow, as Clinton’s foreign policy agenda will suck up all the spending, fostering the growth of extremist right-wing white militia movements.
Consequences of a Donald Trump presidency? Perhaps much less damaging on a global basis than a Clinton victory, but more damaging within the United States? It’s hard to see how Trump could accomplish anything at all; likely Congress and the Courts would oppose most of his domestic policy and his foreign policy – withdrawal from NATO, for example, is actually much better than Clinton’s. However, his domestic manufacturing and infrastructure programs seem as unlikely as Clinton’s; funding and management of such programs (given his suggested tax cuts for the wealthy) seem just as unlikely as Clinton’s (given her foreign militaristic agenda) – hence, domestically, poverty and the wealth gap will also continue to grow under a Trump presidency.
This is a lose-lose situation for the American middle class, in my opinion. Given such terrrible candidates, the only positive thing to be done is to take steps to weaken the power of the Presidency such that neither one’s agenda can be fulfilled.
What the establishment wants, the establishment gets. Sometimes it takes a while, but mostly it happens continuously. A few examples: Wall Street should have been broken up, and the major securities fraudsters prosecuted and incarcerated. The elite made sure this didn’t happen. The Republican architects of the torture program should have been prosecuted and incarcerated. The elite made sure this didn’t happen. The Democrat Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and incarcerated for her email shenanigans. The elite just now made sure that didn’t happen.
It doesn’t matter what your party affiliation is – if you are from the elite, or are a useful tool for the establishment, you will find your path unhindered by problematic things like having to be lawful or ethical.
Some guy named Glenn Greenwald described this unconscionable dynamic in a book called ‘With Liberty and Justice For Some.’
Still, most of America is convinced there are two parties, each trying to overcome the other – this is simply bullshit; the establishment is united and self-protective on almost everything corporatist, imperialist and militarist. For them the ‘other side’ is the American people, not the other party. That’s why they keep us divided and at each other’s throats. If we unite, we might get uppity about all this.
And the same goes for the TPP: The establishment wants it, and will get it.
I have only one solution: Vote Green, particularly Jill Stein for President. And hope to God the votes are counted honestly.
The piece I am particularly concerned with is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system because it effectively guts our capacity to create laws protecting ourselves from, for example, the next DDT. Under ISDS Any state or municipality that wanted to ban a toxic pesticide or gasoline additive would almost certainly be required to reimburse the company that produces the product for every cent of lost business.
With all due respect, I find this much scarier than Disney getting 20 more years of Micky Mouse royalties, however distasteful that might be. :)
It is worse than what you stated.
It is not just the “democrat and republican leadership.”
The “shit train” is supported by the vast majority of voters
who cling, desperate and fearful, to the creators of that
desperation and fearfulness and who will, if Trump wins,
blame Hillary’s loss on the minority of voters who refused
to be a part of this perverse sham
AND
if Hillary wins, they will congratulate themselves for their
own lack of integrity and their willingness to turn a blind eye
to the oncoming slaughter in order to feel superior.
Look at Warren and Sanders. they have clearly shown that they
are more than willing
to help fuel the “shit train” as long as it is driven by a
corporate sadist dem.
I admire your diligence, but you must bear in mind that,
to the corporate-political-pretense-class,
“it depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘Is’ is.”
ANYTHING said or written by them is lacking credibility
and just part of their service to the church of money.
If you look at the “trading relationships” between the USSR and its eastern European and central Asia “satellite states” during the Cold War, especially during the Brezhnev era, they look remarkably similar to current U.S. -sponsored ‘free trade agreements’ such as NAFTA and the TPP.
Henry Kissinger was always jealous of the kind of authority Moscow had over the Russian people and within its “sphere of influence”. He and his cohort dreamed of the day when they too could exert that kind of power – enter domestic mass surveillance, the War on Terror, and NAFTA & TPP – their own version of the Warsaw Pact:
In fact, throughout the more than thirty years since it was founded, the Warsaw Pact has served as one of the Soviet Union’s primary mechanisms for keeping its East European allies under its political and military control. The Soviet Union has used the Warsaw Pact to erect a facade of collective decision making and action around the reality of its political domination and military intervention in the internal affairs of its allies. . .
That’s precisely the agenda of the TPP as well. It has very little to do with trade and everything to do with ‘security cooperation’ and the establishment of clear lines of control stretching from Washington to all Pacific Rim countries, as part of the political-economic-military strategy of the neolib/neocon crowd, the imperial fantasists and megalomaniacs, who still persist inside Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department, despite their clear record of stupidity, greed and incompetence in the name of global empire, a constant theme of theirs since the end of the Cold War (which they are also trying to re-start, to justify the bloated military budget).
Once again, we see an election year-spectacle of “liberal Democrats” and “conservative Republicans” trying to appease their populist bases while simultaneously following the orders of the wealthy donors who finance their campaigns and whose interesets come first in this faux-democracy, in what is actually a plutocratic system of government.
For the Democrats, a central stumbling block is the reality of fossil-fueled global warming and climate change, which they pretend to be concerned about, even though most of the climate & energy positions promoted by Sanders were just vetoed by Hillary Clinton’s lobbyists on the DNC platform committee. Obama likewise gives lip service to ‘concerns about climate change’ – catering to the Democratic base – yet his actual policies often go in the opposite direction:
Obama’s Trade Deals Could Overturn New York’s Fracking Ban and Accelerate Climate Change
. . . Under the accord, still under negotiation but nearing completion, companies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings – federal, state or local – before tribunals organized under the World Bank or the United Nations.
What Obama is actually doing – as is Hillary – is lying to the populist base while quietly promoting the interests of the global fossil fuel cartels, which include the banks with huge fossil fuel investments that are top donors to corporate Democrats. Warren Buffet, noted backer of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, is one of the real benefiaries of this game, with his huge investments in Alberta tar sands, coal-hauling trains, and fossil-fuel-heavy private utilities all across the United States.
Republicans are more blatant supporters of fossil fuels interests , being climate science denialists and taking a great deal of money directly from the fossil fuel industry (rather, than as with Democrats, from their shareholders); but their duplicity with respect to TPP issues centers around job outsourcing, low minimum wages, and facilitating tax avoidance – all issues which greatly benefit Wall Street’s bottom line.
Sure, Donald Trump – like Hillary Clinton – may claim to be opposed to such trade deals in this election season, but as someone who has repeatedly used cheap immigrant labor in his own business operations to keep costs down, who can believe his claims on this issue? It’s political theater that will, like Clinton’s, be abandoned during his/her first year in office, in the name of continued support from Wall Street for Republican candidates. Labor costs must be kept low, or profits and dividends will fall.
More and more, it is obvious that the Democratic and Republican leadership are both tools of Wall Street elites, and their charade of election-year promises is nothing but a shit train of lies foisted on the American public with the assistance of a dishonest paid-off corporate media. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Great article Zaid, thank you. Hopefully we can keep this from passing here in the U.S..
Looking at all this its hard not to come to the conclusion that our political process has become completely corrupted in which both party’s are willing participants and past the point of being able to be saved.
Well we’d need about 75% of 535 in the federal legislature and approximately the same percentage 75% of (50 X 100 = 5000) in all the state legislatures. And basically all elected in a fairly compressed time frame.
And since that’s never going to happen, organizationally, and the fact ideologically we appear to be fairly segregated in this nation, my vote is for a peaceful nationwide democratic referendum on partitioning America into 3 to 4 independent nations. But since that’s not likely going to happen either, my second vote/hope is that the better angels of our collective nature hang on just long enough for the more revanchist subset of the population to die off and see what happens then. “Civil wars” are anything but civil and usually don’t work out too well for the little people who end up fighting them.
Interesting times to say the least. And although the “paranoid style” in America culture and politics has been written about many times, I thought this was a nice illustration of what it is America is dealing with (on both sides) at present.
The level of unreasoning fear and incoherence in the Trump supporter ranks is quite disturbing but shouldn’t be unfamiliar to any American. But my nominal “allies” aren’t doing themselves any favors by group slapping down an old women and/or engaging the loons with tit-for-tat unreasoning invective.
I believe there’s a time and place for some snotty invective to be hurled at one group or another (although generally best lobbed at ideas/values/ideology rather than personally at individuals with some narrow exceptions), but when it replaces the ability of large groups (and their “representatives”) to engage each other in some sort of productive dialogue (substance and tone), then you’re approaching a dangerous crossroads as a nation and people. However, productive dialogue is becoming very difficult to engage in when large groups of human beings in this nation can insulate themselves with their own reality and set of “facts”, when we can’t even agree what a “fact” is/is not, and when we have wildly divergent “value” systems and normative understandings and goals about “what America should be”. Again, that’s a nation at a very dangerous crossroads, IMHO.
We’ll see what happens over the next 10 years. I’m equal parts optimistic and pessimistic at this point tending toward the former.
“No one, outside of the very very small number of corporate tools and their lackeys, really KNOWS what this perversely secretive scheme encompasses.”
Well, actually the draft of TPP has been officially released. I downloaded it and read it and we are toast if it passes since any law that could result in corporate ‘lost profits’ can lead to money damages against the country that has that law or laws. The determination is decided by a panel and its judgment can not be appealed in national courts. Talk about loss of sovereignty. Talk about banning fracking, coal, dolphin-safe tuna labeling, health and safety requirements, and the list doesn’t stop, fugettaboutit.
Finance is really the new Cold War. along with Terror, Drugs and Political Chaos.
Nuclear weapons and modern missile systems make it very costly to actually engage in Real War and there is nothing like body bags to enrile an otherwise manipulatable and dumbly docile domestic populous (that’s you, Westerners).
TPP is really what US imperialism is all about. The warships and stealth bombers are for global bullying (“Power Projection”), because the US much prefers Proxy War to real American expenditure, body bags and political commitment.
At the end of the day this is all about making money and gaining control of regions and global markets, and the TPP is more effective at controlling, reaping benefits and creating regional divisiveness amongst neighbours than actually killing folk and putting boots on the ground as in a conventional war.
American businesses get all the profit and American politicians get all the power through rewarding a host nation’s controlling elite backed by the American legal system. These people then use their own country’s tax money to keep their populations in check, riding rough-shod over local businesses and using US might and media know-how should things start to get difficult.
It’s such a disturbingly good system it is hard to say no to.
That individuals in governments have secretly signed up their countries to this Treaty without a democratic process to decide should be taken as treasonable as it hands over large amounts of sovereign power to a foreign nation without even a bullet being fired. It is better than war.
It is appealing to micronations like Brunei and Singapore as they have no means of protecting themselves from any external “aggressors”. It is appealing to paranoid arse-kissers like Australia and New Zealand and Canada as they are WASPy 5-Eyes.
But Vietnam and Chile? I hope Vietnam are just in the mix as a double-agent, but are probably being controlled by the oil people who want to drill in the South China Seas.
But I think Chile have just been betrayed by their politicians. Where is Colo-Colo now?
Malaysia are in it because they are nothing much regionally without their oil, and it gives them teeth when dealing with Indonesia and Thailand, who are the economic powers of the region. The Malaysians seem to have a bit of a thing against China, but to get to Malaysia, China would need to cross Thailand, and Thailand seems to have little fear or concern about China’s broader regional ambitions. What looks like aggression in the South China Seas is just China protecting itself against America’s long-term strategy of hiking the global price of oil high enough to frack their own reserves, and China has 1.2 billion people to think about.
A country is nothing without trade, and I think this is what the mistreatment of North Korea by the US is for: to show the rest of the world that this is how we can fuck you if you try to pull away from our trade systems. Greece shows Europe that this is what America can do to YOU. Iraq shows everyone what happens when America does bomb you and leaves a load of crazy terrorists to run riot.
But this is it: The TPP is Imperialism for the Pacific Rim. The Middle East gets bombs and terror and the demonisation ofShia Islam. Africa gets drones and terror and corruption. South America gets political chaos, corruption and the War on Drugs. Central America gets drugs and murder and insanity. Europe gets BREXIT and GREXIT and political turmoil and financial ruin. Russia gets NATO threats and Ukraine and bases in Afghanistan looking northwards as well as at Iran.
America hopefully gets a smack in its fucking face soon enough. But don’t hold your breath.
For a trade agreement as vast as the TPP, this article makes some significant claims that are backed up by only two fairly unexamined examples. More specifically, Jilani states:
“The TPP is more focused on crafting regulatory regimes that benefit certain industries. So the most consequential parts of the deal would actually undermine the free flow of goods and services by expanding some protectionist, anti-competitive policies sought by global corporations.”
He then gives patent protection for pharmaceuticals and copyright protection for the entertainment industry as the only two examples to back up his claim about the entirety of the TPP.
Where is the data and economic analysis supporting the notion that this is mostly about protecting corporate profits? I’m not saying that the TPP is not that – but Jilani fails to make a case for his claim. He seems more interested in stating an opinion.
And regarding the implied note that regulatory barriers do not restrict the free flow of goods and services simply because most tariffs have already been eliminated (and thusly the TPP must then be about constructing regulations to protect corporate interest): it seems fairly intuitive to me that different employment, product safety, environmental, worker safety, and yes patent and copyright protection laws, could easily serve as non-tariff barriers to the free flow of goods and services.
Not only does he present minimal evidence for his claim, Jilani’s basic underlying assumption regarding non-tariff barriers is deeply flawed.
Remember, to the lying U.S. Government – 116 sounded “reasonable.”
Prez Hillary will again find TPP best serves empire, it “fixed” things for her.
https://twitter.com/i/moments/750347532790882304
https://twitter.com/i/moments/750347532790882304
TPP is about our Politicians letting big corporate Lawyers actually write the document. This folks is a rouge criminal group they elect to “null and void” all the laws in the land and turn it loose to Corpotartions regardless of laws, safety, and what the local people say. They will destroy Mom and Pop towns and bring in more big businesses to control your cities/states. I live in Tuscaloosa, AL and this city is already being taken over by Obama’s agenda 21. They actually renamed it to “Tuscalossa Forward”. Kinda like they created ISIS out of Al Queda. Same group, same beliefs, different name. All of this happened after a Tornado came through our town In 2011. The mayor wanted Federal help, and so Obama came down, met with the Mayor (Walt Maddox) and signed us into Agenda 21. They want to mix all races, societies, civilizations, because they know this won’t work, and they will continue this until there is a collaspse, so they can declare martial law and try to finalize their move to set up their NWO.
Just more slight of hand by the one party fascist state of the US. These new trade deals give the corporate thugs carte blanch license to destroy the planet and enslave the poorest people they can find anywhere to fatten their bulging, tax dodging, offshore wallets while Americans languish in their death spiral to oblivion. The neocon-neolib regime has just about accomplished their goal of laying waste to humanity; well done, we’ll all just wait ’till the vultures pick our carcasses clean but have the last laugh because all the gold and money in the won’t be able to grow food and filter the air whilst you lay gasping in your last dying effort to survive a poisoned heated and radiated Earth, all by the invisible hand of greed and penultimate hubris in your glowing towers of vanity!
We need a thousand Jill Steins.
(a slightly better version)
It is really very simple to deal with the US:
Either get bombed,
or
Wave your sovereignty goodbye and sign these lopsided treaties.
TPP does not give any such commitment and enforcement to A LIVING WAGE?? It is also about enforcing the exclusive useof the uspetrodollar, closing the FREEMARKET (omg! What did i say.) to other successful currencies, preventing the China renminbi from being used! Prolongs the usa’s false sense of security!
Indeed, the entire business of trade negotiations in the modern era, starting with NAFTA, has been antidemocratic in the extreme. The government argues the need for the negotiations to be conducted in secret, and our elected representatives quietly comply because they have bought the corporate lies. The results are agreements that benefit the international corporations and nobody else. When jobs are exported from a developed economy to a third world one, it is because the manufacturers are presented the opportunity to pay slave wages, ignore worker health and safety, and despoil the environment. A truly equitable free trade pact would ensure that workers would be paid decent wages, have health care and retirement benefits, work in a safe environment, and that the environment would be protected.
NAFTA, TTP, TTIP: all cut from the same mold, and all about corporate greed. Trump can rail about it but only the Senate can ratify a treaty. As for Clinton, who knows: she says she is against TTP but her record says otherwise. If you really want to stop this stuff, get rid of your democrat/republican congressperson and senator, and vote for Jill Stein for President.
3 things
#1. No one, outside of the very very small number of corporate tools and their lackeys,
really KNOWS what this perversely secretive scheme encompasses.
#2. Neither Trump nor Clinton would really oppose any version of this scheme once they get into the corporate owned white house.
#3. They may say “no” to what Obama has privately created, only to privately re-create it under a different label.
That is the hallmark of the demo-repub marketing fraud. They re-label and pretend the ingredients are different and their sucker-supporters (including Sanders, Warren, Cruz……) then take up phony positions to help implement the program they pretend to oppose.
