Renamed TPP signed by 11 nations with U.S. out
thestar.com
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Michael Geist, the prominent Canadian IP and internet rights activist and pundit, who had previously taken a hard line against the TPP, seems to have basically endorsed the new IP terms:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2018/01/canada-successfully-stand...
I'm somewhat happy that my country's involvement seems to have helped push things in a positive direction. Our PM has also been openly bringing the issue of worker's rights and labour protections in these agreements, at least attempting to reduce some of the distortionary effects of trade between nations where exploited workers in undeveloped markets can be used to compete with developed markets.
All in all, I think we (Canadians as well as other signing nations) got a pretty decent deal out of this.
* Edit: s/IP terms, and was/IP terms that were/
What's not clear to me is why people who were in Seattle in 1999 protesting the WTO are more or less quiet on things like the TPP which were much worse.
The WTO apparently failed to reach consensus later (Doha?) as opponents organized, including Indian farmers who committed suicide. The failure of WTO to reach new agreements is what lead to bi-lateral agreements between individual countries, and multi-lateral agreements (like TPP) + exceptions in bi-lateral “side letters”.
In that sense, the Seattle protestors eventually won (no new WTO agreements) but the battle has moved to smaller and more secretive (national legislators excluded from some phases) contexts.
In addition, for the already established WTO agreements, the US is currently considering new trade barriers that are permissible within existing fine print, which could weaken the old agreements.
Even NPR, typically on the workers side, pushing FUD like canned goods will get expensive due to steel in the cans. As if half a penny per tin will break people and second as if we didn't have alternatives like glass and aseptic packaging.
I'm heartened to learn there could be provisions for us to amend the execution of the NA trade agreement; as it would make sense for our workers.
I don't think I've seen anyone push for unrestricted immigration from Mexico either - what seems to have support is a path to citizenship for the Dreamers and those who are established and working here. Legal status would provide protection for these workers and students, rather than the vicious cycle of black market labor abuses by companies and abusers who have the threat of life destroying deportation to hang over their heads.
It's implied in the phrase "people are not illegal" and whenever presenters and other talking heads invariably conflate legal immigration with illegal immigration (when offering reasons to support illegal immigrants they point to the accomplishments of legal immigrants, for example)
It's hard to argue agianst that when the politician driving the push for the wall wraps it not it policy, or evidence that a wall costing tens of billions of dollars would be effective in reducing migration, but instead racist and xenophobic language.
To me the whole "discussion" about the wall is just to create a xenophobic and populist lightning rod, not to bring any serious policy debate to the table.
Do any of the statements linked below, which were well reported on, seem like productive ways to discuss immigration?
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/donald-trump-announces-pr...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-don...
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/trump-slams-shithole-countr...
The unions should have been behind him 100%, but no, the sheep they were did as their demo bosses bade and voted for Charismaman Clinton.
He also ran on a platform of "reining in the deficit" which is, more often than not, an indirect means of wage repression.
A few things depress wages, an increase in the labor pool and off-shoring, among others.
By August 2016, here was the polling among registered voters in the US on TPP:
62% had heard little or nothing about it.
Of those who had heard about it: 35% supported it, 22% opposed it, and 43% did not know where they stood or had no opinion [1].
A few months earlier, it had been 72% had heard little or nothing about it, and of those who had 26% supported it and 29% opposed it [1].
This is quite different from the impression one would get reading the discussion here and on Reddit at the time, where the narrative was that most of the public was opposed to it, but corporations and special interests were trying to force it through.
I never really understood why people had a hard time believing the public might be in favor. When you look at the lists of companies supporting it, you'd see that it included some of the biggest employers in many areas. It should not be surprising that people whose jobs directly depend on those companies doing well would support something that their employer says will open new foreign markets for their American made goods, or let them compete better in existing foreign markets they export to, or will tighten up safety and environmental rules that their foreign competitors who sell in the US are subject to.
[1] http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/29108...
What TPP exemptions will be unique to Canada?
My guess is this is so that the US might find it more appealing to join in the future on closer to their originally desired terms, but it is weird enough that it's very prone to misleading reporting from journalists and activists.
And I have little doubt of Mickey getting another 20 years, under the political status quo here in the U.S.
So, Trump dumped the deal, but we'll end up getting some of the worst parts of it, here, nonetheless. That's my gut reaction.
I see the purpose of limited monopoly IP rights. But I object to them lengthened to benefit parties having no role in the creative effort nor the creator's personal life, and increasingly towards perpetuity. All the more so as they are used to stifle innovation.
They were originally created to foster innovation.
Rent seekers in Armani suits are not innovation.
It's even more frustrating seeing people who once opposed the TPP now support it - again, because Trump was against it, so that must be a bad thing, right?
First off, the TPP was non-democratic and it introduced a ton of bad stuff, like corporate sovereignty (which was just declared illegal/invalid by EU's top court, another sign of how undemocratic these things are). Second, the US didn't really miss out on much:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160112/07433333306/world...
That doesn't however mean that the US has a diminished international influence. It most certainly does.
On the upside without the US, maybe we'll have fewer terrible agreements showed down our throats.
2012: "This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements" [0]
2014: "Because TPP negotiations are still ongoing, it makes sense to reserve judgment until we can evaluate the final proposed agreement." [0]
2016: "I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages – including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I oppose it now, I’ll oppose it after the election, and I’ll oppose it as president." [1]
[0] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/trump-clinto...
It's worth recalling that Clinton was Obama's Secretary of State into 2013, and anything she said from 2009 til then is likely to reflect the position of the Administration rather than her personal views.
She cannot denounce that. There is no way to say you support and believe in something with more vigor than that.
It'd be her version of saying she liked something before she didn't like something in the most convenient way.
She can certainly denounce the outcome of a negotiation process that wasn't complete when she said that, or even when she left office as Secretary of State. The agreement drafted in 2015 and signed in 2016 may simply not reflect the thing she was talking about in 2012.
I'm quite sure if there had been a female president Clinton, we'd have ratified the TPP as it stood at the end of 2016. Never say never, but I'm as Sure as one can without a crystal ball that we'd be in that mess of an agreement without Sanders and Trump.
She flipped from pro to neutral between the time when she was involved in negotiations and the time the negotiations completed without her, and the whole way to solidly opposed later.
Actually Sen. Bob Menendez probably had more to do with it than Trump with the anti-slavery provision he put in and then tried to take out:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tpp-malaysia-slavery_n...
The beginning of the end of that bill was when Obama started trying to take that clause out and opponents (quite fairly) denounced him for being soft on slavery.
Had Hillary not then changed her tune on the TPP she too could have been depicted as a "pro-slavery" candidate running against an "anti-slavery" candidate which would have been slightly awkward.
They need reigned in. If Bernie and Trump are both against the TPP then it's a safe bet it's bad for the people.
aaand the people within them?
last I checked I cant make my country unilaterally withdraw from a treaty because I don't like being prosecuted by a foreign corporation via a proxy-kangaroo court..
In practice you can expect the disputes to be narrow and not matter to most people...
It's a lot easier to change the rules before you join or not join at all.
I mean, I agree it is absurd to have to point out that countries will only stay party to treaties that are of some net benefit, but there you go.
If the us joined tpp it would get those negatives. We already know that. If those aren’t acceptable they shouldn’t join.
(I posted quite rapidly after you did and my post made more sense before you finished editing)
According to the comment, everything has to be about Trump vs. Clinton; it couldn't possibly be that the IP provisions changed substantially for the better, or any number of other aspects of a complicated agreement.
Well, Trump's tariffs coming at the same time as the ratification definitely (and explicitly, in much of the coverage I've seen) color the news coverage; but, more than that, sure, given the strength, still, of the neoliberal consensus, the response to rejecting a neoliberal trade deal probably does depend a lot on whether your history suggests that's a specially reasoned step in opposition to the specific deal rather than reflexive opposition to trade; Trump's certainly on the not-Nixon side of the “only Nixon could go to China” aphorism here.
We have a lot of tariff's. Obama used tariffs, Bush used tariffs. Did any president in recent history not use them?
But instead of the media discussing the pros and cons of the specific tariffs they just scream about how these tariffs are horrible because they are Trump's idea.