The secrecy surrounding the negotiations based on the premise that "We'll see it when it's passed" is absolutely part of the reasons it's been resisted in the way it has. The portions that have been leaked so far seem to suggest it's role is little more than expanding US control over media rights and limiting other countries abilities to produce potentially competing products (Medicines, media etc) which of course means any country with any form of sensible population would want nothing to do with it. Sadly the desires of the population seems to mean little when governments weigh the concerns of big business but still.
I'm surprised that the article doesn't spend more time pointing out the sheer arrogance of this, to non-US eyes.
Even the countries who would possibly be signing on to this must be insulted by it. That's not a good place to start.
Nobody else in the world cares about US interests, except insofar as it enriches them and/or prevents them from getting beat up and/or cornholed by friendly, drunk, sometimes generous, often abusive Uncle Sam.
When Europe passes TPP it will be the fault of the Americans. Europeans leaders are not held responsible for anything they do and therefore can easily do what the US asks with no fear of repercussions. This is self fulfilling victimology.
> Europeans leaders are not held responsible for anything they do
And even when someone tries to make someone responsible, they just say: "Well it's an EU thing. We tried to stop it, but the other countries wanted it". EU in turn points to the individual countries and say: "It's up to the parliament in each member country to interpret and implement the rules". It's the perfect system for not taking responsibility and still have the flexibility to do what ever you want.
China is setting up a 'New Silk Road' [1], not the darknet one but resurgence of their trade dominance of Asia from the past. China is also benefiting their trade partners in ways that the US doesn't always and we should. The original silk road was known for bringing riches to all points on the routes.
China also has presence in the South China Sea where 2/3rds of all trade go through, it is the reason they are adding new islands there as well. CNN recently had this in the news but it is ultimately protection for the trade routes through the South China Sea.
They have also been diplomatically setting up station in Yemen [2] and Somalia [3] along the Suez Canal trade route. So at major points of the water based trade routes, China is owning them or taking control of them.
China is also building a massive trade route through Pakistan to the Gwadar and Karachi ports in Iran and Pakistan, very close to Iraq + India and near Afghanistan[4]. Completely within Pakistan/Iran, it is another route around the South China sea into/near the Persian Gulf.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 left China with huge advantages in exports and currency tools due to large currency purchases in other countries, that are smart for them and bad for the US in terms of running trade in Asia and currency values. We have slipped a bit, largely this is due to short term thinking and overt control of trade partners, while China is very long term. We are giving up alot in the TPP because we never really have, we have to convince countries to trade with us for our advantages and theirs, over what China is offering.
Trade agreements aren't always bad. But the problem in the US now, due to the control of them, they are usually bad for the workers and great for corporations. The problem with the TPP is that corporate riders have attached on in ways that are solely focused in greed, over the workers of the US and protections for US.
You could argue that China lent us the money to get into debt to them to allow them to do this while we were bogged down with wars, unwinnable wars, with force in the Middle East around the same areas.
We forgot how to benefit countries and even our own now. We need more Marshall Plan type liberation through economic advantages for all countries involved (including us) to be a better option for trading partners. China is winning the game, that is why this is fast tracked but it is also bad for the US internally but the other option is losing more trade dominance. Noone wants to join the mean person's team when there is a more friendly option that is mutually beneficial, or to pick sides.
The Yale article on the new Chinese Silk Road (One Belt, One Road initiative) mentions a fundamental problem in our reasoning in this snippet:
Will supporting China's One Belt, One Road, compromise core universal values and high environmental and labor standards? These are key areas where the US can show leadership and remain a keystone of the 21st century global economic architecture. But a keystone must work with other stones rather than stand alone.
It is a pretty easy sell for the Chinese to these countries like Pakistan, Iran etc with us right on their doorstep and without a good economic mutually beneficial plan for the places we 'liberated'. Iraq and Afghanistan should have been nation building as the main goal, but it appears we created chaos a decade later. Force doesn't always work but better quality of life always works, always brings more money. We should leave places in a state like Japan or South Korea, not how we left Iraq/Afghanistan/etc. Now China is also getting defense/military power to contain these areas.
This is a massive world change. We can't change it with force this time, China is everyone's biggest trade partner including ours. It would be better to work it out with them than exclude them. We have to benefit the US and other countries with trade, not take everyone down. China is doing the opp...
If they'd just drop the horrible intellectual property provisions, which aren't even relevant to geo-strategic trade, I wouldn't care so much what kind of geo-strategic trade deal they wanted to negotiate in secret.
I agree. Drop the requirements that were easy to stiff arm in after WWII but that luster has worn off. We might have to compromise.
I don't understand why we can't just say the real reason for the TPP publicly, China is winning world trade, then discuss the trade agreements more in the open. Let people know how it will affect them, give groups time to setup alternate paths for work/options. Secrecy is a short term thought path, we need long term planning and we need to give people a heads up.
The general populace can't really vote on it anyways and our opinion doesn't impact decisions like this unless it is a corporate or wealth influence [1]
Congress is acting like a manager that 'protects' you from problems that ends up causing more problems. Then one day, protected you so good the company shut down the division or similar. Informed people always fair better, they can plan better, they can survive better.
While the IP sections are horrendous, it's dangerous to ignore the problems inherent with the investor-state dispute section(s). There are already multiple cases involving corporations suing countries for having laws that prevent them from making money in their preferred manner. Increasing the scope or range of those conflicts will strip more nations (including the US) of self-government.
I don't want to come off as hyperbolic, but these provisions can seriously undermine any future legislation and nation might want to undertake in order to protect their resources or population.
ISDS complaints can only win if the government is shown to unfairly hobble foreign investors, for example a regulation that says "companies owned by Americans can pollute twice as much as companies owned by Malaysians."
That's not the way that U.S. law works; our laws are based on measurable standards that apply equally to all companies regardless of who owns them. That's why the U.S. has never lost an ISDS case in the decades they have already been in force.
You seriously don't care about anything outside of IP provisions?
You do recognize the irony inherent in claiming you wouldn't care so much about deals negotiated in secret, so long as they don't include horrible provision X that was included during these secret negotiations, and you only know that because the secrecy was violated and the information was released, right?
+1 thanks for this writeup. I have been complaining to friends and family about TPP and they don't care. As one last try to get them to email their Congress-critters, I am sending a link to the parent article and quoting some of the excellent HN comments.
No one has forced the nations of the TPP into negotiations. They entered them willingly with the U.S. because they recognize the advantages of doing business with the U.S.
The U.S. government is among the least corrupt and most transparent in the world. Foreign nations and investors trust that they will be treated predictably and fairly by the U.S. government. The same cannot be said for China.
The U.S. economy is incredible innovative, which drives growth in a trading relationship. China today is rich because they have been the manufacturer, not originator, of major innovations. They can (and IMO will) develop a similar level of innovation themselves, but they have a long way to go because of the next point.
The single biggest long-term strategic advantage of the U.S. is our protections for citizen rights like expression, assembly, lobbying, etc. This is why we have one of the most innovative economies in the world. People are free to say what they think, invent new ideas and products, and influence the government to support them.
The U.S. is seen as less militarily and territorially agressive than China. No nation in the Pacific Rim today worries that the U.S. will invade them or seize islands, with the possible exception of always-paranoid North Korea. Many nations have that worry about China.
People like to say that China is playing chess and the U.S. is playing checkers. They said the same thing about the USSR, about Japan, about Putin, etc. The thing about long-term plans is that work great until they don't--then new thinking is required. The U.S. is among the best in the world at surfacing and applying new thinking.
Important Edit:
The TPP is a multilateral agreement, so it's not just about the U.S. vs China. The U.S. is by far the largest economy in the agreement, and I live there so that is what I focused on above. But the intention is for all the TPP nations to improve their trade and relationships with one another.
Not to hijack the better points of the article, because it's a good one, but this line is telling:
"The White House’s efforts to portray the treaty as critical to national security simply underscores its inability to make a case for the agreement on the basis of economic benefits."
If you can't make a cogent argument, just flail your hands about and yell "National Security!" You wouldn't dare try to impede national security!
Those two words are what remain of Bush's "you're either with us, or against us" brand of patriotism, but it has a choke hold on the U.S. I cannot understand why otherwise smart people continue to let "national security" dissuade all common sense in everything.
Edit: "Investor-State Dispute Settlements" make me want to throw up my hands and move to Mars. I can't fathom how anyone can accept calling ISDS "national security" as anything but pure, black-tar hogwash.
> I cannot understand why otherwise smart people continue to let "national security" dissuade all common sense in everything.
As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" It is important to remember an unfortunately large subset of the people making those arguments - including far too many people here at HN - are profiting from the status quo.
I am less worried about the people making the stupid "with us or against us" ultimatum (at least those people are predictable). The problem is the far larger group that still refuses to believe that surveillance as a business model even exists, or that the "public-private-partnerships"[1] are anything other than regulatory capture.
Once you realize who the "nationals" are that need to be secured, the TPP/TTIP - and all the other efforts to undermine democracy and replace it with corporate sovereignty - make sense. It is the same thing we saw in Jewel v. NSA, when the government's legal council gave the Freudian slip of the century, claiming that it was important to keep the use of section 215 secrete, because of the need to protect "THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THIS COMPANY"[2].
As for the ISDS, everybody in the negotiation room needs to remember the advice of Londo and G'kar to their junior assistants as they leave them to handle important negotiations on their own: "Just don't give away the homeworld!"[3]
[1] or whatever the latest buzzword-compliant rebranding of fascism is called
All trade deals are about national security. That is why they are negotiated by governments.
Rich trading nations are secure. They can afford a great military, and nations that trade heavily with each other are less likely to attack one another.
Trade relationships are major components of spheres of influence. Look at what's happening in Ukraine--that whole thing started with a disagreement over trade relationships. Will the Ukraine's economy grow closer with western Europe, or with Russia? That question fractured that nation. This illustrates the strategic importance of trade deals.
Especially the "China is out to destroy us" argument. It's funny how each time there is a heated debate in USA, China suddenly looks it is going to invade USA soon ? Even worse, China might join the TPP in the next future. So enough of "but but China..." bull.
The TPP is a excellent deal for multinational corporations,no question, they wrote the deal, whether it's good for your job or your small business here in USA is a different story. People should be able to see the deal right now, because it will have a lot of direct consequences on their lives. Or Obama doesn't trust people's common sense? or he wants that legacy at any cost?
Chas Freeman's arguments are always such a joy to read. He is like the Freeman Dyson of politics. I don't always agree with him, but I love the willingness to take viewpoints that piss off both parties.
Chas Freeman is 100% spot on in this article and provides a sound rebuttal to the portions of the TPP that we've been able to see.
The reason that he is able to so effectively dismantle the economic arguments is because the real intention of the TPP is not for economic benefit of the United States; it is to set up a supra-national framework for supra-national corporations to override national sovereignty.
Compared to the money and power at stake, the cost to buy the political establishment in DC is next to nothing, and so they do it. Ripping the TPP apart as failed policy is good, and I'm all for that... but the problem can really only be solved by hacking at the root, which is the fact that our governments and the rule of law have been hijacked by entities that have no soul to save and no body to incarcerate.
24 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 62.1 ms ] threadEven the countries who would possibly be signing on to this must be insulted by it. That's not a good place to start.
Nobody else in the world cares about US interests, except insofar as it enriches them and/or prevents them from getting beat up and/or cornholed by friendly, drunk, sometimes generous, often abusive Uncle Sam.
And even when someone tries to make someone responsible, they just say: "Well it's an EU thing. We tried to stop it, but the other countries wanted it". EU in turn points to the individual countries and say: "It's up to the parliament in each member country to interpret and implement the rules". It's the perfect system for not taking responsibility and still have the flexibility to do what ever you want.
China also has presence in the South China Sea where 2/3rds of all trade go through, it is the reason they are adding new islands there as well. CNN recently had this in the news but it is ultimately protection for the trade routes through the South China Sea.
They have also been diplomatically setting up station in Yemen [2] and Somalia [3] along the Suez Canal trade route. So at major points of the water based trade routes, China is owning them or taking control of them.
China is also building a massive trade route through Pakistan to the Gwadar and Karachi ports in Iran and Pakistan, very close to Iraq + India and near Afghanistan[4]. Completely within Pakistan/Iran, it is another route around the South China sea into/near the Persian Gulf.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 left China with huge advantages in exports and currency tools due to large currency purchases in other countries, that are smart for them and bad for the US in terms of running trade in Asia and currency values. We have slipped a bit, largely this is due to short term thinking and overt control of trade partners, while China is very long term. We are giving up alot in the TPP because we never really have, we have to convince countries to trade with us for our advantages and theirs, over what China is offering.
Trade agreements aren't always bad. But the problem in the US now, due to the control of them, they are usually bad for the workers and great for corporations. The problem with the TPP is that corporate riders have attached on in ways that are solely focused in greed, over the workers of the US and protections for US.
You could argue that China lent us the money to get into debt to them to allow them to do this while we were bogged down with wars, unwinnable wars, with force in the Middle East around the same areas.
We forgot how to benefit countries and even our own now. We need more Marshall Plan type liberation through economic advantages for all countries involved (including us) to be a better option for trading partners. China is winning the game, that is why this is fast tracked but it is also bad for the US internally but the other option is losing more trade dominance. Noone wants to join the mean person's team when there is a more friendly option that is mutually beneficial, or to pick sides.
The Yale article on the new Chinese Silk Road (One Belt, One Road initiative) mentions a fundamental problem in our reasoning in this snippet:
Will supporting China's One Belt, One Road, compromise core universal values and high environmental and labor standards? These are key areas where the US can show leadership and remain a keystone of the 21st century global economic architecture. But a keystone must work with other stones rather than stand alone.
It is a pretty easy sell for the Chinese to these countries like Pakistan, Iran etc with us right on their doorstep and without a good economic mutually beneficial plan for the places we 'liberated'. Iraq and Afghanistan should have been nation building as the main goal, but it appears we created chaos a decade later. Force doesn't always work but better quality of life always works, always brings more money. We should leave places in a state like Japan or South Korea, not how we left Iraq/Afghanistan/etc. Now China is also getting defense/military power to contain these areas.
This is a massive world change. We can't change it with force this time, China is everyone's biggest trade partner including ours. It would be better to work it out with them than exclude them. We have to benefit the US and other countries with trade, not take everyone down. China is doing the opp...
I don't understand why we can't just say the real reason for the TPP publicly, China is winning world trade, then discuss the trade agreements more in the open. Let people know how it will affect them, give groups time to setup alternate paths for work/options. Secrecy is a short term thought path, we need long term planning and we need to give people a heads up.
The general populace can't really vote on it anyways and our opinion doesn't impact decisions like this unless it is a corporate or wealth influence [1]
Congress is acting like a manager that 'protects' you from problems that ends up causing more problems. Then one day, protected you so good the company shut down the division or similar. Informed people always fair better, they can plan better, they can survive better.
[1] https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/ (video describes the study that only money has an effect on what is passed)
I don't want to come off as hyperbolic, but these provisions can seriously undermine any future legislation and nation might want to undertake in order to protect their resources or population.
That's not the way that U.S. law works; our laws are based on measurable standards that apply equally to all companies regardless of who owns them. That's why the U.S. has never lost an ISDS case in the decades they have already been in force.
You do recognize the irony inherent in claiming you wouldn't care so much about deals negotiated in secret, so long as they don't include horrible provision X that was included during these secret negotiations, and you only know that because the secrecy was violated and the information was released, right?
The U.S. government is among the least corrupt and most transparent in the world. Foreign nations and investors trust that they will be treated predictably and fairly by the U.S. government. The same cannot be said for China.
The U.S. economy is incredible innovative, which drives growth in a trading relationship. China today is rich because they have been the manufacturer, not originator, of major innovations. They can (and IMO will) develop a similar level of innovation themselves, but they have a long way to go because of the next point.
The single biggest long-term strategic advantage of the U.S. is our protections for citizen rights like expression, assembly, lobbying, etc. This is why we have one of the most innovative economies in the world. People are free to say what they think, invent new ideas and products, and influence the government to support them.
The U.S. is seen as less militarily and territorially agressive than China. No nation in the Pacific Rim today worries that the U.S. will invade them or seize islands, with the possible exception of always-paranoid North Korea. Many nations have that worry about China.
People like to say that China is playing chess and the U.S. is playing checkers. They said the same thing about the USSR, about Japan, about Putin, etc. The thing about long-term plans is that work great until they don't--then new thinking is required. The U.S. is among the best in the world at surfacing and applying new thinking.
Important Edit:
The TPP is a multilateral agreement, so it's not just about the U.S. vs China. The U.S. is by far the largest economy in the agreement, and I live there so that is what I focused on above. But the intention is for all the TPP nations to improve their trade and relationships with one another.
"The White House’s efforts to portray the treaty as critical to national security simply underscores its inability to make a case for the agreement on the basis of economic benefits."
If you can't make a cogent argument, just flail your hands about and yell "National Security!" You wouldn't dare try to impede national security!
Those two words are what remain of Bush's "you're either with us, or against us" brand of patriotism, but it has a choke hold on the U.S. I cannot understand why otherwise smart people continue to let "national security" dissuade all common sense in everything.
Edit: "Investor-State Dispute Settlements" make me want to throw up my hands and move to Mars. I can't fathom how anyone can accept calling ISDS "national security" as anything but pure, black-tar hogwash.
As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" It is important to remember an unfortunately large subset of the people making those arguments - including far too many people here at HN - are profiting from the status quo.
I am less worried about the people making the stupid "with us or against us" ultimatum (at least those people are predictable). The problem is the far larger group that still refuses to believe that surveillance as a business model even exists, or that the "public-private-partnerships"[1] are anything other than regulatory capture.
Once you realize who the "nationals" are that need to be secured, the TPP/TTIP - and all the other efforts to undermine democracy and replace it with corporate sovereignty - make sense. It is the same thing we saw in Jewel v. NSA, when the government's legal council gave the Freudian slip of the century, claiming that it was important to keep the use of section 215 secrete, because of the need to protect "THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THIS COMPANY"[2].
As for the ISDS, everybody in the negotiation room needs to remember the advice of Londo and G'kar to their junior assistants as they leave them to handle important negotiations on their own: "Just don't give away the homeworld!"[3]
[1] or whatever the latest buzzword-compliant rebranding of fascism is called
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140813/23203228207/unsea...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62EaD85zX7o
If you don't control, then you'll be forced to gasp negotiate! There will be gasp unexpected risks (and possibly unexpected gains)!
Rich trading nations are secure. They can afford a great military, and nations that trade heavily with each other are less likely to attack one another.
Trade relationships are major components of spheres of influence. Look at what's happening in Ukraine--that whole thing started with a disagreement over trade relationships. Will the Ukraine's economy grow closer with western Europe, or with Russia? That question fractured that nation. This illustrates the strategic importance of trade deals.
The TPP is a excellent deal for multinational corporations,no question, they wrote the deal, whether it's good for your job or your small business here in USA is a different story. People should be able to see the deal right now, because it will have a lot of direct consequences on their lives. Or Obama doesn't trust people's common sense? or he wants that legacy at any cost?
The reason that he is able to so effectively dismantle the economic arguments is because the real intention of the TPP is not for economic benefit of the United States; it is to set up a supra-national framework for supra-national corporations to override national sovereignty.
Compared to the money and power at stake, the cost to buy the political establishment in DC is next to nothing, and so they do it. Ripping the TPP apart as failed policy is good, and I'm all for that... but the problem can really only be solved by hacking at the root, which is the fact that our governments and the rule of law have been hijacked by entities that have no soul to save and no body to incarcerate.