2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary Clinton EVOLVED Today, Yesterday, Last Week, In June And In April UPDATED With May! [View all]Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)A former Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), who was involved with working on the TPP while Hillary was SoS and calling it a "gold standard", said that it was crap even then. Too many giveaways to corporations, few if any benefits to the average citizen. And the debates in the Japanese Parliament at the time also made it clear that TPP was supported by "free-traders", but had opposition from both sides of the aisle.
Here's what some Japanese politicians had to say about it a few months after Hillary left State:
TPPが自由貿易というのは真っ赤なウソ。TPPはアメリカの、アメリカによる、アメリカのための利益追求システム」――。
"Saying TPP is free trade is a big, fat Lie. TPP is a system of, by and for America to pursue profits"
The former MAFF minister (Masahiko Yamada) had this to say about USTR Michael Froman,
私に言わせれば、アメリカの多国籍企業の投資家の代理人みたいな人」
"If you ask me, he (Froman) looks like a representative of investors of American multinational corporations".
And as early as November 2011, Yamada had founded the "TPP wo Shinchou ni Kangaeru Kai" ("The Society for Seriously Considering the TPP"
along with 100+ other Japanese politicians to examine the many unfavorable issues with the TPP, including "abolition of tariffs, residual farm chemicals, chemical food additives, changing GMO regulations, reducing the basic amounts of government procurements, changing the national health care system, the introduction of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement system, environmental problems, changes in the intellectual property rights system, and adverse impacts on public companies", among other things.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPPを慎重に考える会
TPP was bad then, it is bad now.