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Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The Trans-Pacific Partnership
An anonymous reader writes: This Techdirt story shows how industry lobbyists influenced the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, to the point that one even openly celebrates that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) version copied his own text word for word. The email exchange between Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official reads: "Hi Barbara – John sent through a link to the P4 agreement. I have taken a quick look at the rules of origin. Someone owes USTR a royalty payment – these are our rules. They will need some tweaking but will likely not need major surgery. This is a very pleasant surprise. I will study more closely over the weekend."
I think it's common knowledge by now that industry can buy legislation. The new low is that the actual text of the bill is being kept under lock and key.
I simply cannot see how it is constitutional to permit this to happen. While I understand that rules are being leveraged to limit its exposure (including the fast-track vote process), the spirit of the Constitution has always advocated for transparency and public ownership of government operations.
I suppose what upsets me the most is that I cannot determine which I am more upset with: what's being done with the TPP or the fact that we don't have enough congressmen speaking out against it. As a representative of the people, any legislative process that seeks to erode the spirit of the Constitution is a threat to their constituents and should not be passed. I don't care if the text of the bill would buy every American a new house; the fact that it's being kept secret should be plenty of reason alone to vote it down.
Most of the TPP is your standard free trade agreement fare - removing tarriffs, stopping countries from favoring their local companies and punishing foreign ones, etc. If you're a fan of free trade agreements, you'll probably be a fan of it. If you hate free trade agreements, you'll probably hate it.
The part that most people on Slashdot will hate regardless of views on free trade agreements in general however is the IP section. It basically imposes an even more rightsholder-friendly version of US IP law on all member states. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been railing about it since the earlier versions were leaked, like Issa's leak in 2012. It's not gotten any better.
But as for all of the other stuff: 1) if you like free trade agreements, "Yeay!". 2) If you don't like free trade agreements, "Boo!"
As for the secrecy, unfortunately, this is generally how complex international treaties are negotiated - the concept being that if the public is involved in every stage of the negotiations, they'll never get anywhere; there's so many countless details to iron out and a lot of give-and-take between countries. It's supposed to be fair because when it's done, the full text is made public and each country gets to vote on it; it's not like it suddenly becomes some sort of "secret law". But obviously whenever you negotiate something in secret it's going to make the public suspicious of it - that should pretty much be a given.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Please stop the stream of BS. Most of the tariffs and similar obstructions to free trade have BEEN LONG ELIMINATED BETWEEN US AND EU.
This agreement is about demolishing democracy as the last obstacle of "free trade" where "free trade" means "governments having any sovereign power left to actually be able to legislate for their constituents against the power of capital".
The EU is not a member party to the negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
The economists love to say that trade is great for everyone.
You are correct. Economists do love to say that trade is great for everyone. The reason that economists love to say that trade is great for everyone is because it's true, and economists love to say true things. (Exception: exporters who face stiffer competition from foreign suppliers.)
But they assume that all parties have an equal amount of advantages and disadvantages.
What! Nothing could be further from the truth! Economists would never say that because they love avoiding saying untrue things.
There is this illusion of comparative advantage.
Illusion! It's a mathematical near-certainty. The only way that two countries could have no comparative advantage would be if the productivity of First Country divided by the productivity of Second Country were the same ratio for every product that either of them makes.
But at least with the US we are making trade deals for the sole purpose of businesses lowering their costs to boost profits and make their shareholders richer and their CEOs even richer; while we little people lose opportunities and jobs and stagnant wages.
We do make trade deals so that businesses can lower their costs, but that's not the sole purpose. It's also so that consumers can buy things at lower prices. People do lose opportunities and jobs when they are employed at making things that can be made more cheaply elsewhere, but they gain jobs when they are employed at making things that can be made more cheaply here. The neat thing about comparative advantage is that the latter must exist.
Protectionism? Absolutely not!
Protectionism? Ubiquitous! Exactly how much can be found here
What we need is a business environment like Germany's where government, business and labor all work together for society's overall prosperity.
What you need to do is give me all of your money and all of your possessions and, for a nominal fee that I'll determine at my sole discretion, I'll make sure that it's used to best effect.
In the US, labor needs much more power (unions) and business needs to be taken down a few notches.
What we need is for the government to have far less power. If they had, there there would be no incentives for business to lobby them for exclusive advantages for themselves. What we need is for labor to have exactly as much power as businesses. If businesses can't have a monopoly on goods, then labor shouldn't have a monopoly on services.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Some European countries are defining reserved sectors in the TTIP negotiations, like healthcare, so that some transnational corporation can't sue them over having to compete with an established national service. Others, like UK aren't having any reserved sectors. From the rush David Cameron seems to be in to get it approved I can only assume he is being very well rewarded.
> Most of the TPP is your standard free trade agreement fare
Nope. Only 5 of 29 chapters are about trade, the others are about granting power to corporations that cover essentially every aspect of our economy.
http://bit.ly/1HUXjrz