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Trump executive order pulls out of TPP trade deal

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R

RinsFury

Member
Hellraizer said:
1uACLDo.jpg


"No need to read it, just sign right here puppet"
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It fills me with disgust seeing that orange tinted fascist sitting at the same desk that President Obama used to use. He doesn't even deserve to breath the same air.
 
K

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
Gamer @ Heart said:
Blind hatred for Trump has made some of you forget the TPP is not a good thing anyway.
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Is it not equally blind hatred that has Trump rescinding the deal with an executive order on day 1, without fully evaluating the consequences of doing so or having a better replacement ready to go? Is TPP really that bad that it requires abusing exec power to get rid of it?
 
A

antibolo

Banned
So what does that entail for the other countries still part of TPP? Better or worse?

(And by "other countries" I really mean Canada)
 
I

IdreamofHIME

Member
The 1st and only good thing Trump will do in his 4 years.
A stain on Obama's presidency, still don't know why he shoe horned himself into it and chased it like he did.
 
S

shawnbuddy

Member
I hate Trump, but Bernie would have done the same. Not sure about Hillary. She probably would have let it go ahead, maybe with some token tweaks.
 
J

Jeels

Member
And with that, we've handed the future of international trade control to China.

First step towards the US no longer being the dominant global player.
 
J

joshcryer

it's ok, you're all right now
TPP was just geopolitics extending US influence into that area of the world. Ironically, the court systems it would've put in place would've guaranteed* that the US would win every case. Now? Whatever agreements China sets up (they're working on one with China now) will be in their more crony systems.

(* The US never lost an ISDS case and never would, because they take place in US courts using US jurisprudence.)

The scare mongering about TPP was very very effective, though. Shockingly so.
 
A

Abinash117

Member
The Silver said:
What's the deal with Barry stanning so hard for that thing anyway, what was good reasoning?
Click to expand...

Obama wanted the US to have more influence in Asia. The TPP while not prefect, would help set standards in the region and limit Chinese influence. The trade deal would also benefit some industries by opening up the region to our goods, while not so much for others. The one with the most focus has has been IP laws, it would have enforced those laws in the region has well. Since China does not have good IP laws, China would have to play ball eventually. TPP was has pushing for higher standards for workers and for the environment, I think.

Now China can have much more greater influence on the region than the US and other countries can, that is not always a completely good thing. If the US wants to do trade in that region it would have to play by China's rules.


Trump and many other politicians including, Bernie are against China, but they do not appear to have a concrete plan and some cases, an actual goal, to deal with China. Setting up trade deals makes it much easier to force Chin to have better standards. However, what would happen if China has more dominance in the region? They set the rules, and do not have to change their own, so human rights violations, and some business practices they can get away with more easier. The US or other countries will have even less leverage to challenge China to confront those issues.
 
J

jstripes

Banned
I'm not that sad. TTP would have been terrible for Canada, and it would have spread unreasonable America-style copyright laws all over the place.
 
A

antibolo

Banned
jstripes said:
I'm not that sad. TTP would have been terrible for Canada, and it would have spread unreasonable America-style copyright laws all over the place.
Click to expand...

I'm confused, does the US pulling out of TPP mean it's terminated? Or do we still carry on without the US?

I'm having real trouble finding non-US-centric info about this right now.
 
Nikodemos

Nikodemos

Member
antibolo said:
I'm confused, does the US pulling out of TPP mean it's terminated? Or do we still carry on without the US?

I'm having real trouble finding non-US-centric info about this right now.
Click to expand...
The US was its biggest promoter and driving force. It's kinda hard for a train to run without a locomotive.
 
S

Sulik2

Member
antibolo said:
I'm confused, does the US pulling out of TPP mean it's terminated? Or do we still carry on without the US?

I'm having real trouble finding non-US-centric info about this right now.
Click to expand...

And it was the USA's copyright law and awful prescription drug prices that would have been exported. They would probably need to recreate another trade agreement that doesn't involve the USA if the other countries still want to go forward.
 
R

Robdraggoo

Member
antibolo said:
I'm confused, does the US pulling out of TPP mean it's terminated? Or do we still carry on without the US?
Click to expand...
I believe there are penalties for trading with non tpp countries. And being one of the largest trading countries in the world where whole economies are in the US hands, it's probably dead across the board.

However, the tpp is a Republican wet dream trade policy. Trump is pulling out, and then they are just going to reintroduce the exact same thing, under a different name and trump will say it's the greatest deal ever made.
 
K

KRod-57

Banned
I generally like the idea of lower tariffs and expanding free trade, but these recent trade agreements work more as organized trade than free trade. They're negotiated in secret by a collection of private corporations, which to me serves no other purpose than to give themselves legal advantages in the market, and to expand their monopoly rights (intellectual properties) on an international scale. Then you have the corporate tribunals tied to these agreements which allows the corporations involved in the negotiations to interfere with national sovereignty and sue tax payers for passing certain legislation.

Backing out of TPP is something I agree with, but I do not agree with Trump's notion that we should be raising our tariffs in other areas.
 
I

Iksenpets

Banned
antibolo said:
I'm confused, does the US pulling out of TPP mean it's terminated? Or do we still carry on without the US?

I'm having real trouble finding non-US-centric info about this right now.
Click to expand...

The rest of the countries could, in theory, ratify it, but no one's probably going to bother without US involvement. China has indicated that they'll try to make a similar deal with the rest of the countries if the US pulls out (though I would assume with much less in the way of labor and environmental protection, and without any of America's heavy-handed IP protections), so I would expect to see at least some of them jump on that.

MisterShine said:
Considering how openly antagonist the Trump administration has been with them, and cozy with the ROC, this is more like the silver lining to a fairly dark cloud.
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This is true, but also indicative of how weird and incoherent Trump's foreign policy is. He turns superhawk over Taiwan, while ceding the rest of Asia to them without a second thought.
 
Nikodemos

Nikodemos

Member
antibolo said:
Which is why I'm only further confused. A TPP without the US sounds even worse. Or maybe not??

I guess I should just wait and see.
Click to expand...
A TPP without the US would be pointless.

Robdraggoo said:
However, the tpp is a Republican wet dream trade policy. Trump is pulling out, and then they are just going to reintroduce the exact same thing, under a different name and trump will say it's the greatest deal ever made.
Click to expand...
Mark my words. It's gonna be the best. Period.
 
I

Iksenpets

Banned
antibolo said:
I'm confused, does the US pulling out of TPP mean it's terminated? Or do we still carry on without the US?

I'm having real trouble finding non-US-centric info about this right now.
Click to expand...

It only comes into effect if a certain percentage of countries ratify it, I believe. Without the US, they could technically still push it through if everyone got on board, but 99% chance no one's going to bother.
 
J

jstripes

Banned
KRod-57 said:
I generally like the idea of lower tariffs and expanding free trade, but these recent trade agreements work more as organized trade than free trade. They're negotiated in secret by a collection of private corporations, which to me serves no other purpose than to give themselves legal advantages in the market, and to expand their monopoly rights (intellectual properties) on an international scale. Then you have the corporate tribunals tied to these agreements which allows the corporations involved in the negotiations to interfere with national sovereignty and sue tax payers for passing certain legislation.

Backing out of TPP is something I agree with, but I do not agree with Trump's notion that we should be raising our tariffs in other areas.
Click to expand...

Ya, the ability of corporations to sue governments was kind of a scary prospect. It would, for example, give the tobacco giants the ability to launch lawsuits against countries that try to promote smoking prevention campaigns.
 
Nikodemos

Nikodemos

Member
necrosis said:
i'm glad it's dead, even if this course of action is being pursued for entirely the wrong reasons
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In principle, the TPP was a decent-to-good idea.

In practice, however, Barry's near-fanatical stanning of corporate interests and his hypocrisy regarding foisting US corporations on foreigners turned it into a pretty bitter pill for everybody involved that wasn't a US company.

That said, the GOPers will probably bring it back under another form, probably more watered down - and with a considerable amount of the protectionist stuff Barry wanted struck out still present.
 
Costa Kid

Costa Kid

Member
Somebody should create a list at the end of the week of the amount of things trump has dismantled in his first week as president lol.
 
M

Mr.Mike

Member
KRod-57 said:
I generally like the idea of lower tariffs and expanding free trade, but these recent trade agreements work more as organized trade than free trade. They're negotiated in secret by a collection of private corporations, which to me serves no other purpose than to give themselves legal advantages in the market, and to expand their monopoly rights (intellectual properties) on an international scale. Then you have the corporate tribunals tied to these agreements which allows the corporations involved in the negotiations to interfere with national sovereignty and sue tax payers for passing certain legislation.

Backing out of TPP is something I agree with, but I do not agree with Trump's notion that we should be raising our tariffs in other areas.
Click to expand...

Trade deals aren't negotiated in secret for the sake of generating content for the conspiracy industry.

https://np.reddit.com/r/unitedkingd...d_reads_the_paper_everyday_and_hasnt/cq9w6y2/

I'm going to rehash an old comment I did about secrecy in trade negotiations here, so some of the stuff might not align exactly with TTIP (in particular, I wrote this about the TPP which involves more negotiating parties)
Two Level Game Theory
2LG is pretty much the authoritative theory on success in international negotiation. As you can see from a quick google scholar search, the theory has been cited in academic works over six thousand times, so it's not some crack-pot minor theory no one has ever heard of. For those that are curious, there's a link to it here if you'd like to give it a more thorough browse. It will provide a much more and precise explanation than the one that I hope to give, and it's only thirty pages so it's not very long. I very much recommend all of you read it.
What 2LG essentially stipulates is that there are two levels of playing field in international negotiation; the domestic, and the international. In the domestic playing field, groups are formed to apply pressure on the government to adopt favourable policies (these groups may be anything, from companies and NGOs, to public or party opinion - the important thing is not to just consider them to be organized, clearly delineated groups), whilst politicians seek to get the power to push the agreement through by building consensus amongst the groups. The international playing field, however, is where the national governments want to alleviate their domestic constituents concerns, whilst at the same time ensuring that the development of the policies of other parties in the negotiation does not adversely affect their constituencies and power bases.
One of the clearest ways to represent this is through ‘win-sets'. A win-set is the full spectrum of acceptable outcomes to the party in question. Thus, in a two level game, the possible win-set for the international negotiation is in large part dependant on the range of acceptable outcomes in the level 2 negotiation; that is, the larger each of the negotiating parties level 2 win-set is, the more likely they'll overlap with the other parties in a place where both sides are satisfied with an agreement. Perhaps the best way for you guys to visualize it is through a Venn Diagram, except imagine that there are 12 actors and they all have to overlap in one spot.
Now, the reason the negotiations are conducted in secret is to keep each of these Venn Diagram bubble countries as large as possible. Each time one of their possible negotiating is constrained, they get smaller, and thus less likely to overlap with all of the 11 other actors potentially leading to deadlock or abandonment of the agreement. This can be especially troubling if the negotiations were done in public, with every individual, every company, every lobbyist, knowing at each stage what is being discussed and what has been provisionally agreed to.
Minimizing lobbying.
Thus, for negotiations to be succesful win-sets need to be maximized, which means minimizing the influence of vested interests during the negotiation process. Imagine the following scenario.
The party governing a country gets a lot of its funding from a certain demographic, say dairy farmers. Dairy farmers have access to the text (under this public text proposal of the Greens), and see there's something they don't like there. Maybe dairy tariffs will be lowered. Maybe their export subsidies will be cancelled. Maybe they'll lose Protected Designation of Origin status. Whatever, they don't like it. So the Dairy Union Lobby launches a massive advertising campaign trying to scare the shit out of Joe Public about the new treaty, whilst simultaneously threatening the ruling party about how they're going to fund the opposition if this goes through.
So, ruling party of course says that that clause can no longer be part of the treaty. Except imagine this multiplied amongst every industry sector of every country negotiating. It'd be an absolute clusterfuck, twelve countries all drawing red-lines over certain issues would lead to a treaty with absolutely zero teeth, and everyone would wonder what the fuss was about because it would really amount to nothing.
And I'd also like to preempt the comments of "but the corporations are already heavily involved". Those aren't corporations that are hammering out the deals. What actually happens it that a number of different industry specialists are part of consultative groups (for example one on agriculture, one on chemicals, one on pharmaceuticals), as are consumer rights groups, environmental groups, and others. There's nothing clandestine or shady about it, but if you're coming up with a deal that's going to change tens of billions of dollars in trade, then you definitely want to get a sense of how it would effect various stakeholders, and those stakeholders give input on those elements of a treaty. Joe Citizen generally doesn't have the knowledge, nor the expertise, nor the specialization, to be able to have a meaningful input into how a given provision would affect environmental standards, or consumer standards, or the steel industry, or the chemical industry. But just as representatives of key sectors are given some access, so too are consumer rights groups, environmental groups, and the like. Groups like the Consumers Union, and for the environment, the Center for International Environmental Law (and CIEL is world renowned organization) are part of the group as well, are they to be viewed the same way? They're all under strict NDAs and security clearances. If they talk to people about it, they're going to prison for a long time, as well as paying a huge fine. It makes sense to have representatives of those most affected taking part.
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Also, these treaties would be useless if they weren't enforceable. Concerns about companies suing governments for lost profits are usually overblown. Companies can sue governments not because legislation reduces their profits, but because legislation unfairly targets foreign companies with stronger regulations than domestic companies, or perhaps because foreign governments are failing to introduce stronger regulations that were required by the treaty (and the TPP did require stronger environmental and labour standards than are currently in place in many of the participating countries), unfairly giving the companies competitors in that country an advantage. Unfairly because the country had signed a trade treaty, and if they really want to put in place such legislation they are free to withdraw from the treaty (which I suppose the US is doing).

EDIT: Also "free trade" has always been a huge stretch for the trade deals it's usually applied to. Crucially, the movement of labour remains very restricted, but also the movement of everything else isn't every really all that "free" either. The European single market is the closest thing that exists in the world. ( This is also why it's laughable when Brexiters say they want access to the European market without open borders for immigration).
 
I

Iksenpets

Banned
Mr.Mike said:
Trade deals aren't negotiated in secret for the sake of generating content for the conspiracy industry.

https://np.reddit.com/r/unitedkingd...d_reads_the_paper_everyday_and_hasnt/cq9w6y2/



Also, these treaties would be useless if they weren't enforceable. Concerns about companies suing governments for lost profits are usually overblown. Companies can sue governments not because legislation reduces their profits, but because legislation unfairly targets foreign companies with stronger regulations than domestic companies, or perhaps because foreign governments are failing to introduce stronger regulations that were required by the treaty (and the TPP did require stronger environmental and labour standards than are currently in place in many of the participating countries), unfairly giving the companies competitors in that country an advantage. Unfairly because the country had signed a trade treaty, and if they really want to put in place such legislation they are free to withdraw from the treaty (which I suppose the US is doing).
Click to expand...

Right, and everyone here has been living under systems like this for most of their lives. The TPP wasn't really creating anything new, it was just applying systems that already exist to new groups of issues with a new group of countries.
 
Nikodemos

Nikodemos

Member
To Far Away Times said:
Wasn't the TPP rumored to have contained SOPA/PIPA bullshit in it?
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It wasn't a rumour.

Though all that stuff was put in specifically to target Chinese gov't-sponsored industrial espionage, not necessarily to fuck up consumer rights (albeit, admittedly, that was a secondary outcome).
 
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