General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUS farmers 'helpless' as TPP boosts Australia
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/us-farmers-helpless-as-tpp-boosts-austAmerican farmers are facing the "imminent collapse" of key markets and fear uneven trade playing fields as Australian, Canadian and other rival nations take advantage of the soon-to-be implemented Trans-Pacific Partnership.
After President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the TPP on just his third day in the White House in 2017, the States will be left on the sidelines when the re-shaped TPP-11 comes into effect 12am on Sunday AEDT.
Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore were the first nations to ratify the agreement, formally titled the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement. Vietnam, Chile, Brunei, Peru and Malaysia are set to follow in coming months
US farmers, already hit hard by Trump's tariff battle with China and the lack of a free trade agreement with Japan, are bracing to immediately lose market share.
American wheat and beef producers have been particularly vocal.
Sid
yortsed snacilbuper
(7,939 posts)Squinch
(50,918 posts)ismnotwasm
(41,967 posts)Cha
(296,871 posts)and trump is trying to destroy America any which way he can. putin's orders.
I'm sorry for those farmers.
He is just following orders. Bring America to her knees. Destroy them.
MBS
(9,688 posts)I remember his saying that we had a choice: the US and Pacific allies in the economic driver's seat via the TPP, or China calling the (economic) shots. MAGA, my eye. Good going, Two Scoops.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Putin, Bannon et al are doing exactly what they set out to do, take America down
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Guarantee you 75% of them voted for dipshit.
Elections have consequences
czarjak
(11,254 posts)ALL ABOARD!!!!!!!
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)brush
(53,743 posts)if Mueller hasn't gotten him first.
CharleyDog
(757 posts)Dangerous stupid = impeach
or he is doing it on purpose to destroy our country (and is succeeding) and should be impeached
OMGWTF
(3,943 posts)Trump is a mental midget with zero character and Putin wants to destroy the USA, as well as the EU, and Trump is perfect for the job.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)China looks like it.
So friggin tired of the I told you so,now reality will smack our Ag Business right in the kisser.
Already folks who missed out on this last Bean Order are scared of what is ahead,now the TPP thing will be driving tons of nails in Coffins.
How is that working out for ya Wilbur?
betsuni
(25,380 posts)phylny
(8,368 posts)I either didn't understand or didn't pay attention. I remember wondering why President Obama was a proponent.
airplaneman
(1,239 posts)I do think there were some very negative things about it like strengthening and extending copyright and patent rights against the detriment of us all but it is bazaar to see almost nobody now suggesting it was a bad idea. Makes me think short memories are here also
-Airplane
Cha
(296,871 posts)President Obama knew what he was talking about.. I remember being called "crazy" for thinking that.
All those years they expected Obama to finally, finally expose himself as the evil Trojan horse Republican they fantasized about.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)But you were right and the other people that said the President Obama would not be defending a bad deal for us were right.
Cha
(296,871 posts)so they had to use some decorum.
Exactly about President Obama not "defending a bad dea"l, Blue_true.
airplaneman
(1,239 posts)and not happy about the parts that sounded unfair.
Its tough to just believe someone would not do ill of us while hearing the TPP would do us ill.
Add to that NAFTA has not done what it was supposed to so why were we to believe TPP would not follow the same path. It was a difficult call for any sane person.
-Airplane
betsuni
(25,380 posts)an improvement overall. People were getting really dramatic with their conspiracy theories of this terrible secret plot by corporations to keep us all in chains or whatever. Ridiculous. It was the same ones who went on and on about Obama murdering little children with drones and who stopped caring about drone warfare the instant he left office.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Stop caring about drone warfare, or protesters at the Keystone pipeline getting the crap beaten out of them. When Trump walked into the Oval Office, the purists went silent, the Greens went silent, not one has spoken out against him yet.
Celerity
(43,130 posts)Just because the orange globule Trump is a nightmare and clatters about spewing simplistic America first bullshit and trying to con people into thinking he actually gives a shit about the 99% via dodgy anti-free trade and faux protectionist claptrap doesn't mean I will be gas-lighted into accepting that the TPP and TTIP (the European Version of TTP) were overall good agreements. I wholeheartedly think they were not.
Multiple liberal economists, including Robert Reich and Nobel Prize Nobel laureates such as Joseph Stiglitz laid out rock solid cases why it was a bad agreement.
Beware of TPPs InvestorState Dispute Settlement Provision
By Joseph Stiglitz | 03.28.16
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/beware-tpps-investor-state-dispute-settlement-provision/
While advocates promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a free trade agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries, the most economically significant provisions are not cuts to trade barriers. Instead, the key element is TPPs investment chapter, which gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international arbitration when they feel their newly created property rights are violated (a process known as investorstate dispute settlement, or ISDS).
The alleged goal of ISDS is to increase security for investors in states without an adequate rule of law. But the fact that the U.S. is insisting on the same provisions in Europe, where legal safeguards are as strong as they are in the U.S., suggests another motive: the desire to make it harder to adopt new financial regulations, environmental laws, worker protections, and food and health safety standards.
While defenders of ISDS sometimes claim that it prevents discrimination against foreign firms, foreign firms have suedand woneven when they are treated no differently from domestic firms. In fact, these provisions discriminate in favor of foreign firms: A foreign firm can sue the U.S. government in private arbitration for cash rewards if it thinks government actions violate the new rights and privileges granted by TPP, but domestic American firms have no such recourse in U.S. courts. Two arbitrators can, in effect, undermine decisions of Congress and the president, ordering billions of dollars in payments for their lost investment value and guesstimated lost profits.
Under TPP, foreign investors could sue over pretty much any law, regulation, or government decision. The agreement guarantees a minimum standard of treatment, a vague standard that corporate-friendly arbitrators have interpreted liberally in past decisions, inventing obligations for governments that do not exist in the actual text of agreements or host countries laws.
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Who Gets to Write and Interpret the Rules Under TPP?
By Joseph Stiglitz | 03.28.16
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/who-gets-write-and-interpret-rules-under-tpp/
If the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is enacted, multinational investors will be able to sue the United States and other host country governments in private international arbitration (investorstate dispute settlement, or ISDS) when they feel domestic laws, regulations, or other government actions violate their rights under the new agreement. How will such challenges be handled? No matter how well contracts or treaties are written, disputes will inevitably arise. And there needs to be a low-cost, expeditious, fair, open, and consistent means of resolving disputes. This is a basic public good provided by every democratic society. The system created by TPP to adjudicate investor disputes, in contrast, fails to meet these basic criteria.
Under TPP, tribunals comprised of three individualstypically, practicing investment lawyers specialized in this boutique area of international lawwould decide whether governments had to pay investors potentially billions of taxpayer dollars because of rule changes intended to improve the health and safety of our workers, food, environment, and financial system. Business could demand compensation for any regulation that resulted in the diminution of their expected profits and value of their investment.
These arbitrators would not be tenured, impartial judges. In the ISDS system, arbitrators rotate between representing investors in investment arbitrations and sitting in judgment on investment tribunalsworse, they can fill these conflicting roles simultaneously. This game of musical chairs is played among a relatively small group of lawyers who are either bringing or adjudicating cases against governments; reportedly, 15 arbitrators have decided more than half of all international investment arbitration cases.
Only investors can initiate disputes under this system. They choose not only their own lawyers, but also one of the three arbitrators (with a second chosen jointly by the plaintiff and the defending government). Arbitration lawyers that buck the system risk being culled from the herd. These are glaring conflicts of interest for people asked to judge what is reasonable and fair and equitable in balancing public and private interests.
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TPPs Hidden Climate Costs
By Joseph Stiglitz | 03.28.16
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/tpps-hidden-climate-costs/
President Obama has said that no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change. Yet the word climate is conspicuously missing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Worse, many provisions of the proposed trade agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries could undermine critical policies and initiatives needed to contain global climate change. All the evidence suggests that in order to limit global warming to the 2 degrees Celsius that scientists see as critical to avert the worst effects of climate change, we must retrofit global economic structures for production, investment, and trade. Instead, TPP would cement in place a system that treats the environment as distinct from and subordinate to international trade and investment.
Though trade negotiators may treat commerce and climate as separate problems, the emissions giving rise to climate change are in fact an unaccounted cost of the goods and services exchanged in our increasingly complex and globally integrated production and consumption chains. Not paying for these large social costs of pollution in production and global shipping delivers a hidden subsidy to the corporations polluting our global atmosphere.
Any good trade agreement would seek to do away with distorting subsidies to producers. One cannot have fair trade if firms are not required to pay the environmental costs they impose on society, which also present an existent threat to life on this planet. TPP does nothing to prohibit these typically hidden subsidies or others, such as subsidies for fossil fuels, buried within the tax system.
TPP is worse still because it creates the risk of lengthy lawsuits and sizable cash awards to investors for government actions that would rein in many of the current hidden subsidies for greenhouse gas pollution or ban climate-imperiling products and production methods. For instance, under TPP rules, government policies to incentivize more environmentally sustainable goods and serviceseven with voluntary labelingcan be challenged as illegal technical trade barriers unless the government has requested a specific policy exception in the existing agreement. Countries that lose such cases will face millions in sanctions unless they eliminate the policy favoring more socially and environmentally sustainable conditions.
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Will TPP Help to Curb Chinas Rise?
By Joseph Stiglitz | 03.28.16
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/will-tpp-help-curb-chinas-rise/
With few people buying the argument that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping trade and investment agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries, will bring more jobs and higher wages, proponents of TPP now argue that it is a critical front in the geopolitical conflict between the United States and China. President Obama made this case in his State of the Union address: With TPP, China does not set the rules in that region; we do. Such rhetoric, reminiscent of Cold War containment strategies, is not constructive for the worlds most important bilateral relationship. The truth is that this strategic rationale for TPP makes little sense.
With China now the worlds largest economy in terms of output (measured in purchasing power parity), trade, and source of foreign direct investment, the ship has sailed on containing Chinas influence. This should have been obvious from last years failed attempt by U.S. policymakers to block the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, created under Chinas leadership.
If trade deals were all that mattered for securing influence, the United States could at best hope for a stalemate with China, which already has agreements with more than half of TPP partners, among other nations. What matters for influence is not just signing agreements but the depth and nature of relationships. Given the hundreds of billions of dollars China has committed to finance infrastructure development across the region and the magnitude of Chinas trade and investment integration with the world, there is little reason to think that implementation of TPP would tip the balance of economic power in the U.S.s favor.
The rules to which parties agree do, however, matter a great deal when it comes to determining who wins and who loses. Here, President Obamas rhetoric obscures the reality that we did not write these rules. More than 500 official advisorsoverwhelmingly representing corporate interestshad special access to U.S. negotiators and TPP texts to advance their own special interests, not the national interest, but Congress, the public, and the press were shut out of seven years of closed-door negotiations.
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The High Health Costs of TPPs Free Trade
By Joseph Stiglitz | 03.28.16
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/high-health-costs-tpps-free-trade/
Despite protests from industry lobbyists who are upset that they did not get everything they wanted, big pharmaceutical companies are some of the biggest winners in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This supposed free trade agreement between the United States and 11 countries in the Americas and Asia would enshrine expansive monopoly protections for intellectual properties that shield drug makers from competition and provide them with new powers to challenge government decisions aimed at managing health care costs. A win for Big Pharma here will leave virtually everyone else worse off, with their higher profits coming at the expense of higher health care costs for consumers and taxpayers, avoidable deaths and suffering, and health innovations being brought to market at a slower pace.
In order to maximize public welfare, intellectual property rights (IPRs) must strike a balance between providing incentives for innovation and enabling their widespread dissemination so people can benefit from and build on new ideas and technologies. Since past knowledge is the most important input to the production of new ideas, more restrictive IPRs actually restrain opportunities for future innovation. Patents are part of innovation systems in all countries; however, both recent and historical economic evidence shows that patents with varying degrees of strength have little relationship to measures of innovation, investment, or economic performance. In other words, patents are not the only way to incentivize research and development.
Nowhere is it more imperative to get the IPR balance right than in the health care field. The 1984 Hatch-Waxman act struck the right balance, saving U.S. consumers, employers, and taxpayers more than $100 billion per year with lower-cost generic medicines. Since then, pharmaceutical firms have developed new policy devices to claw back their monopoly protections and are advancing these policies in trade agreements. TPP would lock these in place in the U.S. and export them to other countries, tipping the IPR balance for all TPP partners as well as countries outside the bloc.
First, TPP will require countries to implement measures that allow evergreening of monopoly protections that prevent the introduction of low-cost generic treatments to the market. TPP achieves this by requiring signatory countries to grant new 20-year patents for new uses of old medicines or for trivial alterations of existing medicines. For example, if a drug that is dosed four times a day is reformulated to be dosed once a day, this would qualify it for an additional 20 years of monopoly protection.
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Why TPP Is a Bad Deal for America and American Workers
By Joseph Stiglitz | 03.28.16
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/why-tpp-bad-deal-america-and-american-workers/
From the rhetoric of proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping trade and investment pact between the U.S. and 11 Asia-Pacific countries, it would be easy to conclude that the agreement is an economic panacea for the shrinking middle class and stagnant wages faced by most workers in America. The reality is more sobering: There are good economic reasons to believe that TPP will not only fail to provide the promised benefits but actually make things worse.
Yes, economic gains can be found through trade liberalization where trade barriers are high, but tariffs are already low (just 2.7 percent on average between TPP member countries). Put this minuscule number next to the surging U.S. dollar, up 26 percent since July 2011. A more expensive dollar makes imports cheaper and exports less competitive in foreign markets. The exchange rate change swamps the benefits from the small reduction in tariffs. And the toothless side declaration on exchange rate misalignments by TPP finance ministers is likely to be as ineffective as current diplomatic efforts to rebalance exchange rates.
While the U.S. Trade Representative boasts of 18,000 tariff cuts for American exporters, the economic significance of many of these to U.S. producers and workers appears negligible. For example, tropical, impoverished Vietnam will eliminate tariffs on skis, snowplows, and caviar, while predominantly Muslim Brunei and Malaysia will eliminate tariffs on pork. In fact, in more than half of the 18,000 categories, the U.S. exported nothing to TPP nations last year; for many of the remaining 7,500 categories, American exporters sold only small amounts. These are areas where American producers are unlikely to develop a comparative advantage.
With trade barriers already so low, it is no wonder that existing modeling analyses from economists at the Peterson Institute and the World Bank show such negligible benefits from eliminating trade barriers in TPP. Both find that gains to the U.S. economy will be less than the statistical error when the Commerce Department calculates our GDP figures. A study by the Economic Research Service found that TPP would have zero effect on U.S. GDP. Even these estimates should be taken with a grain of salt: The models assume that trade will be balanced and no unemployment will ensue. Models incorporating more realistic assumptions, like those from economists at Tufts University, find a net GDP loss for the United States from TPP.
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What is TTIP? And six reasons why the answer should scare you
Have you heard about TTIP? If your answer is no, dont get too worried; youre not meant to have
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a series of trade negotiations being carried out mostly in secret between the EU and US. As a bi-lateral trade agreement, TTIP is about reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations. It is, as John Hilary, Executive Director of campaign group War on Want, said: An assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations.
Since before TTIP negotiations began last February, the process has been secretive and undemocratic. This secrecy is on-going, with nearly all information on negotiations coming from leaked documents and Freedom of Information requests.
But worryingly, the covert nature of the talks may well be the least of our problems. Here are six other reasons why we should be scared of TTIP, very scared indeed:
1 The NHS
Public services, especially the NHS, are in the firing line. One of the main aims of TTIP is to open up Europes public health, education and water services to US companies. This could essentially mean the privatisation of the NHS.
The European Commission has claimed that public services will be kept out of TTIP. However, according to the Huffington Post, the UK Trade Minister Lord Livingston has admitted that talks about the NHS were still on the table.
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TTIP: what does the transatlantic trade deal mean for renewable energy?
https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2015/aug/05/ttip-free-trade-deal-renewable-energy-transatlantic-partnership-eu-us
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Undermines local government
However, some fear that losing local content requirements would lose political appetite for renewable energy along with it. Concerns were raised at a roundtable held by RenewableUK, which represents the wind and marine energy sector: If one of the reasons to have more renewable energy deployment is because it is good for [local] jobs and supply chain, how will politicians and the public react to some of the socio-economic value potentially draining to far-flung corners of the globe? This is a big dilemma.
TTIP could even undermine the democratic authority of local government. The UKs Local Government Association representative in Brussels, Dominic Rowles, imagines a situation whereby a public authority, whether local or national, takes a democratic decision on energy generation that TTIP then makes easier for corporations to challenge.
More opportunities to sue
The bone of contention here is the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), which allows private companies to sue governments for loss of profits connected to regulation. It is seen as a key US demand for the trade partnership. Precedents include a US tobacco firm suing the Australian government over packaging restrictions and a US fracking company suing the Québec government following a moratorium on drilling under the St Lawrence River.
Where the US wants to engage it does so pretty forcefully, says David Baldock, executive director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy. He questions why an ISDS provision is needed at all, given the robust nature of the courts in both jurisdictions and the huge levels of trade already between the EU and the US. Yet an ISDS independent tribunal which would bypass national courts (and doesnt sit at all comfortably with the European decision-making process, says Baldock) appears to be strongly favoured by US negotiators.
Race to the bottom on regulation
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Cha
(296,871 posts)on the Nation. And, there's been more than a few.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Not many, just some harshly vocal ones. If anyone attempted to point out the positive aspects of the TPP, they were called names like corporatist democrat.
DFW
(54,302 posts)Don't take seriously anyone who calls you a "corporatist"
It's like someone on the right calling you a "libbrul."
It's just one of those meaningless terms that makes them think they have just called you something bad.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)snort
(2,334 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)paleotn
(17,884 posts)but it wasn't all bad. It put US farmers on an even playing field with Australia and Canada. Industrial framing is another argument, but it was quite an accomplishment as American producers are the most efficient in the world.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)I'd say there is no "potential" to it, we are worse off now environmentally and any other way one looks at it.
I recall opposition to it being a progressive and Trumpian campaign staple. Families are suffering now. These markets will never be recovered.
CharleyDog
(757 posts)our massive debt
our currency
China is being more and more empowered as the heel to crush us on a whim - just like Obama tried to warn.
George II
(67,782 posts)dhol82
(9,352 posts)Sad, but what it will be.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Link: "Hillary Comes Out Against TPP Deal"
It's a clip from an interview in which she explains her opposition.
BeyondGeography
(39,351 posts)Last edited Sun Dec 30, 2018, 09:00 AM - Edit history (1)
Which was before Terry MacAuliffe said she would support it after the election, just a couple of minor fixes yanno. Which was followed by John Podesta saying she opposed it, full stop.
How did we lose to Trump again?
MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)Most of which concludes WE didnt lose, rather the election was stolen and Trump is an illegitimate poser.
Perhaps youve heard that theory floated somewhere?
BeyondGeography
(39,351 posts)MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)BeyondGeography
(39,351 posts)MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)Im not really interested in debate with someone who thinks Hillarys stance on the TPP is why we have Trump.
MrsCoffee
(5,801 posts)Led astray again.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)She was one of the Democrats who opposed the TPP. Also opposing it were quite a few of the Democrats in Congress, along with numerous NGOs who analyzed it from the point of view of their expertise (labor, environment, etc.).
JCanete
(5,272 posts)ones. We shouldn't be making trade deals to primarily give leverage to big corporations and yet we can't seem to help ourselves, so fuck that.
Trump is shitty and his reasons for even killing this were shitty and had nothing to do with the merits or problems of TPP, but that doesn't mean that we should have signed onto it as it stood.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)in that respect.
I suppose Obama was selling the country down the river (if you listen to Sanders and those who believe everything he says), and all the other countries who begged to be party to the agreement were too stupid to see.
Of course, it doesn't matter now. Sanders' supporters got their way with the TPP with trump, and we are out of the agreement to our detriment.
paleotn
(17,884 posts)No sympathy here. He's fucked up what markets US farmers spent decades developing. Now they have nearly no overseas markets. And who did rural voters overwhelmingly support? Own it.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)who is about to get fucked with what is happening...
There we have it.
We are fucked!
PatrickforO
(14,559 posts)In spite of some griping about the secrecy in which the TPP was negotiated, the too-limited congressional oversight, and the suspicious ISDS provisions (I was one of the gripers, I admit), Trump seriously weakened the US trade position in the Pacific Rim countries by pulling us out of TPP.
That, and the debacle of pulling us out of Paris...
The guy is just SUCH a dumbass. A corrupt, treasonous, racist, sociopathic con man who is so far out of his depth in the US presidency...well, hopefully the Trump 'presidency' will implode. What, EIGHT criminal investigations and counting?
We can only hope. This country is groaning under the stupidity of Trump and the Freedom Caucus.
'Freedom Caucus,' what does that even mean? I guess they want us all to be free to be broke as a result of their crappy policies, eh? Or maybe free to die if we can't afford healthcare or worse, have a pre-existing condition? Or free to go into poverty in old age because they have to make cuts in Social Security and Medicare so we can have a Space Force? Or maybe free to lose everything in a second great recession, this time with stagflation, caused by their utter fiscal irresponsibility in passing the giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations?
pangaia
(24,324 posts)He has no idea what he is doing, just doing what putin tells him to do.
dhol82
(9,352 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)They must be walking on a knife's edge.
"Do I bail now? Later?"
"Don't bail?"
"Pretend to bail?"
"Talk the good talk but vote like the asshole I am?"
JDC
(10,117 posts)SergeStorms
(19,187 posts)Everything Trump touches turns directly into shit.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)And that support will come at a cost. But not for Trump.
I would also suppose that many if not most of these same farmers would vote for Trump again.
Crazyleftie
(458 posts)that would have destroyed consumer protections.
phylny
(8,368 posts)Cha
(296,871 posts)only the BUZZWORDS.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Of course, some of us saw through that. Others bought it as dogma.
betsuni
(25,380 posts)AJT
(5,240 posts)Yes, they were particularly vocal, I believe they were yelling "lock her up".....
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)Billions worth? Wasn't China given in a little and brought a huge bushel of soybeans?
elmac
(4,642 posts)property around here so I'm sure he will be forgiven.
dhol82
(9,352 posts)Didnt plug piss from a donkey for their loss.
Me.
(35,454 posts)Both wheat and meat producers gave more to Individual 1
The meat industry is such a strong supporter of the GOP that it has given the party 79 percent of its more than $16.6 million in contributions since the 1990 election cycle. [Read more Background]
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=G2300
elmac
(4,642 posts)Farmer-Rick
(10,140 posts)Yeah, yeah they don't call it a treaty to avoid legislative hurdles but the dancing supremes treat trade agreements as treaties so the president can play with them.
It allows corporations to bring suits in extra secret special courts that citizen groups and unions do NOT have access to.
But TPP gave benefits to grain, GMO, factory, chemical farms. It discouraged small farms and farmers markets. It pushed chemicals and discouraged natural farming.
What Trump is doing is just as bad. Both are poison.
elmac
(4,642 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)trade agreement has had the same dispute mechanism since 1959, and just about every country begs to be part of the agreements.
But America Firsters, Nationalists, and trumpsters are against global trade.
TheFarseer
(9,317 posts)What we need is a free trade agreement with Japan and other individual countries. Not corporations being able to sue the US for lost revenue, higher drug prices, and even more jobs going to low wage countries. Lots of knee jerk reactions on this thread.
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)We should have negotiated to improve certain provisions instead of capriciously jettisoning the whole thing like Trump did. Negotiating individual agreements with countries (as Trump said he would do instead of the TPP) simply cannot serve that same function:
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/16/17234792/trump-tpp-rejoin
TheFarseer
(9,317 posts)TPP does not preclude countries from trading with China. Would it stop them from buying up all the real estate in CA? No. Some companies might have outsourced to Vietnam instead-WOW what a win for American workers. The main point of the agreement was to get corporations whatever they wanted, plain and simple. When no other argument proved persuasive, they threw out the stop China argument. Its the same line of thinking that brought us the Vietnam War.
Cha
(296,871 posts)you "buy it" or not.
President Obama was right and those who were demonizing TPP were wrong.
TheFarseer
(9,317 posts)Thats just YOUR opinion. We will apparently never know for sure. All we can know is that corporations were on one side and labor leaders, environmentalists, health care professionals were on the other.
Cha
(296,871 posts)TheFarseer
(9,317 posts)Cha
(296,871 posts)Cha
(296,871 posts)SunSeeker!
Cha
(296,871 posts)All these international trade experts sing the same song
Cha
(296,871 posts)SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)The fact is, the TPP would have established minimum environmental and labor standards.
Trade will still go on of course, but now it will be without those standards, and with China dominating the scene.
As the New Yorker explained:
https://www.newyorker.com/business/adam-davidson/what-the-death-of-the-t-p-p-means-for-america/amp
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)Manufacturing will be outsourced to Vietnam with or without the TPP. The difference is with the TPP, Vietnam would have been forced to abide by environmental and labor standards that it would not otherwise follow:
https://www.newyorker.com/business/adam-davidson/what-the-death-of-the-t-p-p-means-for-america/amp
TheFarseer
(9,317 posts)Why were corporate lobbyists so desperate to push this through??? If labor and environmental leaders had won major victories, why were they against it?
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)Environmentalists and labor unions wanted higher standards. But that does not mean environmentalists and labor unions preferred no standards at all, which is what we have now.
Electrical Arc
(38 posts)That allows corporates to go sue for lost revenues. I think it was called ISDR provision
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)But don't throw out the whole concept of a multilateral trade agreement. We can't counterbalance China without a multilateral (i.e. many countries) agreement.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)They've sued Mexico dozens of times under NAFTA and nearly always won.
The alternative to companies being able to sue is countries having tariff wars, and we're seeing what that's like right now.
MarcA
(2,195 posts)Something better than TPP was/is needed. But of course it was not offered.
Cha
(296,871 posts)right and those who Demonized TPP were Wrong.
TPP would benefit corporations not citizens.
Cha
(296,871 posts)betsuni
(25,380 posts)Cha
(296,871 posts)SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)Electrical Arc
(38 posts)That was a sticking point of the TPP negotiations. We did not need that.
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)It was not a "sticking point." The US simply abandoned the TPP negotiations.
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)Just like Obamacare, it was a good first step, which could have been continually improved upon.
MarcA
(2,195 posts)I believe Tester had something to do with that. Now we have an opportunity
to work for a better TPP. Agreed that the U.S. is an very important player.
betsuni
(25,380 posts)Didn't pass in the Senate because of Joe Lieberman.
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)Lieberman, an Independent at the time, absolutely refused to vote for the ACA unless the public option was taken out, and it couldn't pass without his vote:
It is a lot easier to improve something that already exists than starting from scratch. Sure, we could negotiate a better TPP. But if we had passed the TPP, at least those minimum labor and environmental standards would be in place while we were negotiating a better TPP. Right now, we have no standards, and no negotiations. Nothing. Just China dominating the scene in a trade free for all forcing a race to the bottom on labor and environment.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)that have been in almost every global trade agree, over 2500, since 1959.
TheFarseer
(9,317 posts)WTO allows suits to be brought only by governments. TPP allows suits by any foreign investor. A huge distinction. Will Hoyt and TheFarseer ever agree on anything? I should start a poll thread.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)support trump for reneging on the TPP, and still believe Obama and Clinton were -- as Bernie Sanders made sure voters knew -- corrupt in pursuing the TPP and similar agreements?
Cha
(296,871 posts)TheFarseer
(9,317 posts)To benefit corporations. You really need to let the 2016 primary go. Other people are allowed to run for president, not just the early favorite. Bernie Sanders sucks is your counterpoint to literally every argument.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)There's a reason for it -- countries want foreign investment within their borders. That investment doesn't get made if a country can jerk them around, including nationalization. Countries can avoid the dispute mechanism, but their people will suffer.
In any event, please answer the question.
There are differences as I pointed out and you choose to ignore. It seems there has been plenty of foreign investment before this trade agreement.
Please answer the question. You are not the boss of DemocraticUnderground despite what you think but I will answer your question anyway. I think Obama and Clinton listened to too much conventional wisdom on this one and bought into some dubious stuff. The same kind of thinking that got us bank bailouts-which is self serving for bankers but I certainly think reasonable people can argue either side. I think Obama though something had to be done and this was the best available option. Trump-I think he just went with the polls.
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)Once again, she was proven prescient.
keithbvadu2
(36,669 posts)But the farmers are going to win BIGLY in the end, according to Donald.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)I'm thinking the "heartland" states may be regretting their vote.
LisaM
(27,794 posts)taped over their mouths must be ecstatic. They got just what they wanted...
ooky
(8,908 posts)With America's farmers shut out of global markets, prices will rise at home.
ananda
(28,836 posts)Did they vote for I-1?
If so, they got what they voted for.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)when the TPP was proposed. Now theyre all for it.
Cha
(296,871 posts)in the minority and was proud of it.
SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)You were viciously flamed just for saying you trusted Obama's judgment.
Cha
(296,871 posts)I just considered the source and carried on.
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)But I sure as shit didn't post a lot saying that. The vast majority of the board was violently against TPP. I prefer to stay or if flame wars and saying you were for it guaranteed a pile-on.
It was used as a bludgeon against Hillary too.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)idea what they were posting about, nor did they care. Just bash Obama, Clinton, etc., anyway they could.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)the TPP was corrupt and we're happy trump killed it.
JI7
(89,241 posts)lutherj
(2,495 posts)of corporate execs and corporate think tank lobbyists. Once ratified its contents were to be kept secret from the public for 5 years, while its regulations went into effect. The only reason we know what's in it is the drafts were leaked. Is that your idea of democracy?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)trade agreement since 1959 (over 2500 trade agreements). But Obama purposely kept it a big secret; well, unless you took a couple of seconds and did some research.
betsuni
(25,380 posts)lutherj
(2,495 posts)appearances on Democracy Now and wrote opinion pieces for various mainstream media arguing against the TPP. Thats how I remember the details. Noam Chomsky spoke out against it, as did Ralph Nader, among other progressives.
Heres the relevant bit from the Wikipedia entry:
Secrecy of negotiations
As with many trade agreements, until being finalized, negotiations for the TPP were conducted with significant secrecy. Drafts of the agreement were kept classified during negotiations, and access to the working text was significantly restricted even for government officials and business representatives involved in the talks.[199] Despite this, some sections of TPP drafts were leaked to the public by WikiLeaks, which published an intellectual property chapter draft in 2013,[200][201] an environmental chapter draft in 2014,[202] and the final intellectual property chapter in 2014.
Another bit:
In 2014, linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky warned that the TPP is "designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity."[211] Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) argues that trade agreements like the TPP "have ended up devastating working families and enriching large corporations."[212] Professor Robert Reich contends that the TPP is a "Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom.
Elizabeth Warren also opposed it. Shes someone youll probably be reading a lot about here at DU over the next couple years.
MarcA
(2,195 posts)Gothmog
(144,939 posts)SunSeeker
(51,518 posts)Cha
(296,871 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)When folks tried to defend it here 2 years ago they about got run off. I know from personal experience.
DU was strongly anti-TPP.
Perhaps we should all adopt my motto: What Would President Obama Do.
He was right, knew he was right and never backed down. Despite the Anti-globalist spasm the Democratic Party had. Hope that is over.
Cha
(296,871 posts)WePurrsevere
(24,259 posts)As you and a few others have pointed out in other posts, Cha, Obama knew that the TPP wasn't 'perfect', many of us who researched it got that too, but it was the best offer at the time and better than the absolutely NOTHING we have now thanks to Trump.
Sometimes in life we can't get exactly what we want so we (hopefully) learn to make do with The best that we can and than hope (and work towards) for something better down the road.
Trump basically, "threw the baby out with the bath water."
Cha
(296,871 posts)Cha
(296,871 posts)tirebiter
(2,533 posts)And did not buy into the argument that TPP was a bigger badder version of NAFTA. My focus was on the argument that low to no tariffs only benefit big business. FDR came into office with that belief initially. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs were in place when he came in, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. Europe led mostly by England had high tariffs for anybody not a part of their empire. Smoot-Hawley was supposed to even that out. It tended to stop trade losing jobs in industry and farming. Cordell Hull pushed lower tariffs from his lips to FDR's ear. Thus the RTA or Reciprocal Trade Act of 1934
> Wiki)-"President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA) into law in 1934. RTAA gave the president power to negotiate bilateral, reciprocal trade agreements with other countries. This law enabled Roosevelt to liberalize American trade policy around the globe. It is widely credited with ushering in the era of liberal trade policy that persisted through the 20th century."
I've had to argue these points with Trumpers and Bernie fans
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)and becoming Nationalists and America Firsters.
Kurt V.
(5,624 posts)That's the bottom line.