May 02, 2015
A NYT piece analyzing White House efforts to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) began with the sentence:
“When President Obama defends the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a far-reaching agreement to tear down trade barriers between the United States and 11 other nations, he often argues it would cure the ills inflicted on American workers by trade pacts of the past, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement.”
The problem with this sentence is that the TPP is not obviously, “a far-reaching agreement to tear down trade barriers.” The barriers to trade in most cases are already low. The main focus of the TPP is putting in place a new regulatory structure, which is likely to be very business friendly. The most obvious evidence of the business friendly nature of this structure is that the TPP would establish an extra-judicial legal system for enforcing the agreement. This system can only be used by foreign investors to sue governments; it is not open to governments, workers, or communities to sue foreign investors.
The deal also does much to increase barriers in the form of stronger patent and copyright protection. These barriers will raise prices and reduce trade.
For these reasons, it is a major distortion of reality to describe the TPP as “a far-reaching agreement to tear down trade barriers.” While the proponents of TPP may like to characterize the deal this way in order to appeal to the principle of “free trade,” it is not an accurate description of the agreement.
Comments