TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) talk is scary

[JRLeft]

Last edited Wed Feb 13, 2013, 03:50 AM - Edit history (1)

It sounds like the TPP is a go, there was talk of the TPP talks were dying a while back but I guess those rumors were wrong. The TPP would give foreign owned corporations and corporations like Wal-Mart unconscionable powers. Powers beyond our government. I am speechless.

[madrchsod]

1. yup...it`s the death of what`s left of the working class in america

[Sekhmets Daughter]

2. It's officially puts corporations in charge of everything....

I think the Australians backed out...I wonder f they have lured them back to the table.

[forestpath]

3. I know, it really makes the rest of his talk about jobs jobs jobs sound so empty.

[JRLeft]

5. It definitely took a hit in my eyes.

[msongs]

4. just because international corporations will overrule our constitution doesnt mean...

oh wait, yes it does nt

[TDale313]

6. It does. It really does. n/t

[limpyhobbler]

7. We really deserve better representation. I'm speechless too.

[woo me with science]

8. Prepare for a "new normal" beyond anything most Americans have imagined

re: changes in our standard of living.

You're right. The implications of this one are really scary.

[pampango]

9. TPP and an EU-US agreement seem to be part of Obama's strategy against China

Romney lost, and it was Romney supporters who were most supportive of the next president confronting China. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans backed getting tougher with Beijing, up 11 percentage points in just a year. Democrats, on the other hand, prioritized building stronger economic relations with China (53%) over getting tougher with China (39%). Democrats’ backing for confrontation was up 6 points since 2011, but it remained the minority sentiment among those in Obama’s party.

Likely components of the administration's economic policy towards China

The first will likely be more complaints about Chinese subsidies and trade practices filed with the WTO, given the president’s campaign promises and his record during his first term. Washington has been relatively successful with such cases in the past, and pursuing multilateral dispute settlements has the added advantage of avoiding a direct bilateral confrontation with China.

The second will be the pursuit of trade agreements that notably do not include China. The most important of these is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement among a growing list of nations bordering the Pacific. It is the Obama administration’s avowed aim to construct a TPP with standards so high — especially rules regarding behavior by state-owned enterprises — that China could never join without transforming its economic system. This stance in part reflects the fact that two-thirds (67%) of the U.S. public believe China practices unfair trade, according to a 2012 survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The likely 2013 launch of a U.S.-European Union trade negotiation — effectively a Trans-Atlantic Partnership, a bookend for the TPP — primarily reflects majority (58%) sentiment in the United States that increased trade with Europe would be a good thing for the United States. But it can also be seen as an attempt to establish U.S.-European, rather than Chinese, technical and regulatory standards as global business norms.

The Obama administration is unlikely to label China a currency manipulator, which is something Mitt Romney promised he would do on his first day in office. In Obama’s first term, the White House had multiple opportunities to do so and declined, even though the renminbi was weaker against the dollar than it is now.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/12/10/u-s-china-economic-relations-in-the-wake-of-the-u-s-election/

TPP and US-EU trade negotiations seem to be designed to marginalize China's emergence as an economic power by forcing it to change the way it does business in order to compete in the world economy.

Apparently China agrees. This is from the China Peoples Daily (the official paper of the CPC) on why the TPP is taking so long to negotiate:

... the (TPP) negotiation is subject to the U.S. domestic politics. At the very beginning of the negotiation, the United States reminded other members that the U.S. Congress would not accept a TPP without strong labor and environmental measures. Obviously, the United States aims to lower the comparative advantages of developing countries so as to create more job opportunities for itself.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/8113289.html

Obviously China understands that 'strong labor and environmental measures' will eliminate the 'comparative advantage of developing countries' (including China itself) in the world market.