As the 12 countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) attempt to conclude their deal in the coming weeks, the bitter public debate on this ambitious free trade deal is being fuelled more by heat than light.
Indeed, while selective leaks from the closed-door bargaining suggest sharp divisions among negotiators, recent intervention by the ill-tempered United States Congress means the whole deal could fall apart in Washington.
There’s a growing body of opinion among politicians, officials and skilled observers that the TPP, which would minimize almost all tariffs and restrictions among countries representing a third of world trade, 40% of global gross domestic product and almost 800 million people, is a leap too far.
Smaller, more pragmatic agreements, less ambitious in their economic and regulatory scope, would have more chance of getting up and running than the monolithic TPP, say the skeptics.
The TPP is the child of just such a bijou agreement. In 2005, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore concluded the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement.
However, these five always envisaged that their club would be open to others. Early in 2008 the U.S. said it wanted to start talks, and a few months later Australia, Vietnam and Peru put their hands up.
In the last couple of years, Canada, Japan, Malaysia and Mexico have also joined the negotiations.
There’s a lengthening list of other countries that have expressed an interest in joining. So far, these are India, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Costa Rica, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia.
Notably absent from both lists is China, and there’s a strong sense that the TPP is part of a Washington strategy for containment of China. That has prompted several countries – Japan’s reluctant agreement to join the talks stands out – to conclude it’s better to be on the TPP bandwagon than underneath its wheels.
Inevitably, the U.S. has driven the TPP negotiating agenda, but what has framed the public debate has been leaks of draft documents.
A preliminary chapter on investment was leaked in June 2012. This was highly controversial, especially in Australia, because it appeared to give corporations the right to demand compensation from governments whose policies adversely affect the market for their products.
A draft of a chapter on intellectual property rights was published by WikiLeaks on November 13 last year, and on January 15 WikiLeaks published another draft chapter, this one on the environment.
Little attention has been paid to the reality that these are draft documents, subject to negotiation and therefore perhaps substantially different from the final product.
The whole climate of secrecy in which the 1,500 officials involved in the negotiations have been operating has given extra piquancy to these fragmentary leaks and generated a climate of paranoia among critics of the whole TPP process and objectives.
The draft chapter on intellectual property has been pilloried for allegedly giving undue protection to innovations developed by U.S. corporations. Some alarmists have even predicted calamitous repercussions for public health services in TPP member states because of what they claim will be restrictions on the production of generic drugs.
In contrast to too many restrictions seen in the intellectual property document, the draft on the environment is being widely interpreted as not restrictive enough. There are, say critics, far too many loopholes allowing ways out for governments and companies for whom environmental protection comes second to economic imperatives.
All this may now be academic. On January 9, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives that would give the administration of President Barack Obama the authority to strike a TPP deal while preventing Congress from demanding certain provisions be renegotiated. Congress’ role would simply be to turn thumbs up or down on a completed deal.
Already members of Congress are lining up to stick their own conditions on the “fast track” bill.
None of the other 11 countries in the TPP talks is going to sign on the line if Obama does not get fast-track powers. Even if he does – by no means certain with this Congress – the attached conditions may be so unappetizing that the 11 decide smaller clubs would be better. •
TPP opposition grounded more in emotion than reason
Objection to the Trans-Pacific Partnership is as highly charged and emotional in Canada as in any of the 12 countries negotiating this massive free trade deal.
The extent of those objections is neatly summed up in one extended sentence published by the Council of Canadians, an organization, it should be noted, with a hair trigger when perceived threats to sovereignty are sighted.
The TPP “could lead to the dismantling of Canada’s important supply management regimes for dairy, poultry and egg production; the race-to-the-bottom potential in a proposed regulatory harmonization chapter; extreme intellectual-property protections for big drug companies that would limit access to life-saving medicines; investor-state provisions that would allow companies to sue governments over rules to protect the environment; government procurement restrictions and copyright rules that undermine Internet freedom.”
However, the inference that the TPP is a special threat to Canadian sovereignty and is a greater impediment to the freedom of action of the Ottawa and provincial governments than, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or the recent Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, doesn’t hold water, say supporters of the new pact.
The Ottawa government, echoed by numerous business associations, says the TPP, like NAFTA and the EU CETA, will “deepen Canada’s trade relationships with dynamic and fast-growing markets.”
Writing recently on the online site iPolitics (www.iPolitics.ca), former Ottawa diplomat and Time Warner’s vice-president for Asia Pacific public policy, Hugh Stephens, said there is nothing exceptional in the TPP among free trade agreements.
“The point of trade agreements is that governments agree to limit their powers to legislate in discriminatory ways against foreign entities in return for reciprocal benefits,” Stephens wrote. “At the end of the day, if they don’t want to comply with the obligations they’ve taken on, they have the option of paying the price by losing reciprocal benefits – or withdrawing from the agreement.”
