What most people don't understand about the TPP.

[Jim Lane]

85. I hope you don’t consider every disagreement an “attack”

I’m in the minority among opponents of fast track in that I agree with you that the no-amendments rule makes sense, although my reasoning is somewhat different from yours. You stress that Congress is an idiot. For me, the point is that, even assuming a Congress composed of incorruptible geniuses, it doesn’t work to have each of the twelve nations involved proposing amendments. There would be an endless round of amendment and counter-amendment. The project of getting everyone to approve the same version would be hopelessly complicated. Amendments must be concluded during the negotiations and ruled out thereafter.

Your analysis, however, omits the “fast” part of fast track.

You write, “The final version of the TPP will be extraordinarily complex, and almost impenetrable by people who do not have an extensive knowledge of and experience in international trade.” That’s absolutely correct. In fact, because most of the chapters don’t deal primarily with trade, I’d go further, and say that no one, including the negotiators, will fully understand the entire deal. Particular chapters will be almost impenetrable except to experts in that field (labor, environment, intellectual property, whatever). Those experts outside government have gotten some information, from leaked drafts, but their criticisms have been dismissed (by governments and by DU members, including by you in your responses in this thread) because not based on the final text. Only when that text is available can outside analysts do a proper job.

The proponents, however, will be ready to go from Day One. That includes the business interests that have been given preferential access to the negotiations.

This deal has been in negotiation for years. There is no reason why, once it’s finally completed and released, its consideration by Congress suddenly becomes an emergency matter that must be completed within a few months. The complexity and the imbalance of information mean that the artificial deadlines embodied in the TPA are particularly harmful.

You add that the TPP “will be approved, because such agreements are essential to have some sort of regulation for international trade.” This seems to imply that, if the TPP were rejected, then international trade would collapse. That’s certainly not the case. The modern era of trade regulation began with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947, superseded by the World Trade Organization in 1995. Trade has not collapsed during the years of the TPP negotiations and it won’t suddenly become unregulated, let alone collapse, if TPP is rejected by one or more of the countries involved.

As for the prospects, I'm somewhat more optimistic than you. The TPA vote was a loss but was closer than I'd expected. When the final TPP text is published, its proponents will have to defend specific provisions and will no longer be able to intone "it's just a draft" as an answer to any criticism. We may find that the AFL-CIO's denunciation of labor provisions picks off a vote here, and the Sierra Club's analysis of the environmental issues picks off another vote there, and who knows, maybe the horse will sing.