TPP was a communications and messaging failure on parts of governments. Other than being a sprawling agreement touching on multiple unrelated topics largely developed in secret, the US government in particular did little to convincingly persuade the populace about TPP's advantages. The anti-globalization folks predictably seized on those aspects while a different debate about the expansion of copyrights (i.e. the harmonization of copyright protections with those of the US) was raging in the tech sphere.
A gulf began to widen between the administration and those opposing TPP, and quality independent analysis was much more difficult to come by than fearmongering. A few corporations spoke out in favor of TPP [1], but given their vested interest, they made a poor case of swaying average people. Meanwhile, even mainstream news coverage of TPP tended negative. Hillary Clinton notably had modify her messaging on TPP [2] to be seen as a viable candidate, despite endorsing it before.
I so much hope that one of these countries will quickly change local laws to reduce copyright length to old levels (like 25 years after the life of the author) and start legally distributing (or even producing) movies featuring Mickey Mouse and other Disney "properties".
Not a fan of Trump but this is a good thing. See this exert from John Oliver on the effect of such trade deals; https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8
And that's the existing trade deals, TPP would have made it much worse. There is a reason why democratically elected governments need to protect their sovereignty. The scope of the legal provisions along with the requirement to use easily corruptible mediation is superfluous to free trade.
In addition, I don't understand those that think boxing out Russia and China from the rest of Europe and Asia is a good thing.
>I don't understand those that think boxing out Russia and China from the rest of Europe and Asia is a good thing.
The idea is that if you can connect the economies of small regional powers (Korea, Japan, Vietnam or Poland, Romania, Hungary) more than they're connected to the regional hegemon, and you connect those powers to the US, then you will have a balance of power in the region that makes war impossible.
TPP was a trade agreement ruined by a long series of provisions sharply biased towards the USA and certain US industries. So as a New Zealander I'm really happy to see the back of it. Meanwhile we already have an FTA with China (and many other countries) and our trade both ways is booming.
Perhaps we can start again with a much cleaner, people friendly TPP that excludes the US and includes China.
This is essentially the resignation of the US in the Pacific. The TPP was intended to bind the smaller countries in the Pacific closer to the US and away from China. Generally, the election of Trump is the resignation of the US in the battle to remain the global hegemon. We live in interesting times. I just hope it won't become too interesting.
It will take decades to undo the damage from this latest bout of isolationism and protectionism. There was a wealth of FUD surrounding TPP, obscuring the benefits and over-inflating the effects of the more controversial issues like intellectual property rules. A number of TPP criticisms would lead one to believe that intellectual property rules were the main element of the agreement.
Instead of pushing to deal with those criticisms, the entire deal gets scrapped. And along with it, we now have an isolationist push against NAFTA and international trade in general. It'll be interesting to see the damage that's wrought in a vain attempt to somehow stack the deck in favor of "America First."
Sadly, it'll take much longer to fix than it did to screw up in the first place.
In order from best to worst, the possible outcomes were:
1. Fix the many problems with TPP, then pass it
2. Scrap TPP entirely
3. Pass TPP as it was
You say "Instead of pushing to deal with those criticisms, the entire deal gets scrapped.", but this is the real FUD. There was a huge outcry to fix TPP's problems-- that got completely ignored by the USTR, which didn't even try to pretend it had the people's interests in mind. If there were any chance that public criticism of TPP actually could have improved it, I would've preferred that solution, but it was made plain from the beginning that that wasn't going to happen and that we were not welcome at the discussion table.
> Sadly, it'll take much longer to fix than it did to screw up in the first place.
Agreed. The first step, and the hardest, will be for the people pushing for trade deals to start giving a shit about anyone other than corporations and billionaires. Reconciliation and public approval of trade deals can come after that
> There was a wealth of FUD surrounding TPP, obscuring the benefits and over-inflating the effects of the more controversial issues like intellectual property rules. A number of TPP criticisms would lead one to believe that intellectual property rules were the main element of the agreement.
If it had such incredible benefits, perhaps people should have talked about those. Ideally with quotes of the text, and discussions about the deltas to the current situation. And even then, that's an argument for passing the good provisions, not for accepting a package deal containing numerous downsides. Of course, all of that becomes much harder to do while trying to operate in secret.
Yes, but the issue was, that it was to be taken as either all or none, and the intellectual property section, as per what was leaked on wikileaks was kind of ridiculous.
"It will take decades to undo the damage from this latest bout of isolationism and protectionism."
I take issue with the assumption that these two things are either equal or synonymous, and that the latter has or will cause damage. To boil the argument down, national sovereignty is the real issue at hand, and there is plenty of nuance to be had in the discussion. Such flippant dismissal of protectionism as bad and equating it with isolationism reeks of irrationality and a lack of understanding of the bigger geopolitical and geoeconomic picture.
It's a position I see taken very often these days, but it's not one that stands up to scrutiny in my experience. I would like to say I do understand where it comes from though. It's easy to assume protectionism = isolationism, and therefor rejection of any globally focused trade agreement ergo becomes another form of isolationism, and hence from that perspective it makes sense, but even a base line academic analysis would show much more room for nuanced discussion of the subject.
Of course, that's assuming that your goal is debate or discussion conducive to finding truth in the first place, which I suspect isn't the case.
I'm very confused. When the TPP first leaked as a series of secret talks, everyone on HN was seemingly up in arms about the trade deal. Then it went through, and HN shifted to being very pro TPP. Now it's withdrawn, and now the HN mentality is back to voting for comments that are against the TPP. What is the prevailing opinion here?
The prevailing opinion isn't always the one most written or voted. There is an activation cost to spreading your opinion, and writing is often the act of last resort (ie, no definitively positive action is available).
In the previous situation all that agreed with the TPP need do nothing, as it looked sure to pass, so the argument was not worth having for them. The anti-TPP had very few positive actions available to them so it largely fell to writing.
Now the anti-TPP position has prevailed those against the TPP see little reason to debate it, yet those who were for it are left with nothing but writing.
HN isn't one person, so I think you can blame the varied reactions on the origin and perspective of the article that the comment thread is hanging on, the relative quality of the arguments made in the particular comment being upvoted or downvoted, and the state of activity of particular groups either supporting or opposing TPP at that moment. The opposition nominally won at the point where Clinton renounced her support while Trump was an unstoppable juggernaut. After this final blow, the thread is largely centrist mourning and a bit of Trump-boosting because of his follow-through on a universally (in the US) popular promise.
I'm curious to see if the markets react to this. In the grand scheme of things, one trade deal shouldn't move the markets that much -- but the reasoning behind this withdrawal from the TPP is nothing at all approaching any of the real reasons one might be opposed to it -- the cause for this withdrawal is pure unfiltered sabre-rattling protectionism. "Let the trade wars commence and America intends to 'win'." The level of stupid behind that notion is nigh on incomprehensible -- and yet -- here we are.
What is the best summary of the TPP? It was done in such secrecy that it occurs to me that this may be the only good thing that comes from a Trump presidency.
I wouldn't expect US participance in either unless they're heavily slanted in favor of US interests.
That's what I would assume. It's hard to tell because right now the Trump administration approach to trade and pretty much everything is solely sloganeering, but the initial actions appear to support the assumptions that Trump is an isolationist and wants to disengage from much of current and future national accords.
I oppose the TPP though not for the reasons given by the Trump administration, who I also oppose, so this exit is bittersweet.
Many here love to hate on any and all international trade deals. The problem with is that withdrawing from such negotiations does not stop them. Canada, china, europe, japan, the uk and everyone else will still be meeting and inking deals. Not every deal is great for everyone, but those who sit on the sidelines never win at anything.
If everyone withdraws from them it does stop them.
And by not participating, the bad things the US (i.e. Hollywood) wanted don't end up in there. And the bad things other countries wanted won't apply in the US. And the treaties can't be used for domestic policy laundering in the US.
The problem with these deals is that free trade is generally good but these deals aren't free trade. They're not about eliminating restrictions, they're about imposing them. Which we can do perfectly well on our own via our democratically elected governments, if we want to, and not if we don't.
Well said. By shunning TPP instead of bringing it back to the table for renegotiation, this administration has set the tone for American/European economic involvement in Asia for decades to come. The consequences of this will be severe, and will materialize in the form of harm to the poorest segments of our population.
TPP was a threat to the sovereignty of the United States. It would have encoded in a multilateral trade agreement, representing huge amounts of economic activity, massive regulatory requirements, enforcement courts, and processes for further multilateral regulation. It would have made the cost of changing those regulations unbearable for any future administration.
We almost had the regulatory state imposed at an international level. Good riddance.
It's nice to see I'm not completely alone on HN in defending the concept of national sovereignty these days, because often it can be a very lonely field to argue about.
Having spent a lot of my time since getting out of the military trying to understand the bigger geostrategic picture, I am fairly confident in saying the national sovereignty is one of the most important, and most under-discussed, issues of our time as we progress towards an increasingly global economy. The global economy itself is here, and I am not disputing that the world needs more cooperation on international issues such as global climate change, but far too often I see these arguments being used to then turn around and use those issues to advocate overthrowing the idea of sovereignty, which I find is logically fallacious reasoning, callous, naive, and can only imagine such touting comes from the ivory tower of intellectuals, academics and other insulated peoples who haven't experienced the stark reality of this world when the sovereignty of nation states is violated.
In short, those who call for an end of nationalism fail to understand the proper and right role of sovereignty in the apllication of the rule of law, and in the ability for the people to affect their government.
My question for those who propose national sovereignty as being an outdated concept, I have one question:
What would you propose to replace the nation-state with once you toppled it down?
So you're aware, you're being downvoted for "liberal internationalism". I'm completely a liberal internationalist, and I opposed TPP- for a lot of the reasons you described! This is a class issue, not a partisan issue.
[+] [-] niftich|9 years ago|reply
A gulf began to widen between the administration and those opposing TPP, and quality independent analysis was much more difficult to come by than fearmongering. A few corporations spoke out in favor of TPP [1], but given their vested interest, they made a poor case of swaying average people. Meanwhile, even mainstream news coverage of TPP tended negative. Hillary Clinton notably had modify her messaging on TPP [2] to be seen as a viable candidate, despite endorsing it before.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446 [2] http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-called-trans-pacific-p...
[+] [-] Maarten88|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|9 years ago|reply
Mind you, 50 years would still be an improvement.
[+] [-] cderwin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lern_too_spel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggame|9 years ago|reply
And that's the existing trade deals, TPP would have made it much worse. There is a reason why democratically elected governments need to protect their sovereignty. The scope of the legal provisions along with the requirement to use easily corruptible mediation is superfluous to free trade.
In addition, I don't understand those that think boxing out Russia and China from the rest of Europe and Asia is a good thing.
[+] [-] chiaro|9 years ago|reply
> sovereignty
Buzzword. A nation is always free to enter and leave contracts for mutual benefit.
> In addition, I don't understand those that think boxing out Russia and China from the rest of Europe and Asia is a good thing.
Vastly preferable to being boxed out of Europe and Asia by the aforementioned powers. Don't be naive.
[+] [-] kerbalspacepro|9 years ago|reply
The idea is that if you can connect the economies of small regional powers (Korea, Japan, Vietnam or Poland, Romania, Hungary) more than they're connected to the regional hegemon, and you connect those powers to the US, then you will have a balance of power in the region that makes war impossible.
[+] [-] lancewiggs|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps we can start again with a much cleaner, people friendly TPP that excludes the US and includes China.
[+] [-] tormeh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bluestrike2|9 years ago|reply
Instead of pushing to deal with those criticisms, the entire deal gets scrapped. And along with it, we now have an isolationist push against NAFTA and international trade in general. It'll be interesting to see the damage that's wrought in a vain attempt to somehow stack the deck in favor of "America First."
Sadly, it'll take much longer to fix than it did to screw up in the first place.
[+] [-] Analemma_|9 years ago|reply
1. Fix the many problems with TPP, then pass it
2. Scrap TPP entirely
3. Pass TPP as it was
You say "Instead of pushing to deal with those criticisms, the entire deal gets scrapped.", but this is the real FUD. There was a huge outcry to fix TPP's problems-- that got completely ignored by the USTR, which didn't even try to pretend it had the people's interests in mind. If there were any chance that public criticism of TPP actually could have improved it, I would've preferred that solution, but it was made plain from the beginning that that wasn't going to happen and that we were not welcome at the discussion table.
> Sadly, it'll take much longer to fix than it did to screw up in the first place.
Agreed. The first step, and the hardest, will be for the people pushing for trade deals to start giving a shit about anyone other than corporations and billionaires. Reconciliation and public approval of trade deals can come after that
[+] [-] JoshTriplett|9 years ago|reply
If it had such incredible benefits, perhaps people should have talked about those. Ideally with quotes of the text, and discussions about the deltas to the current situation. And even then, that's an argument for passing the good provisions, not for accepting a package deal containing numerous downsides. Of course, all of that becomes much harder to do while trying to operate in secret.
[+] [-] jaboutboul|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arca_vorago|9 years ago|reply
I take issue with the assumption that these two things are either equal or synonymous, and that the latter has or will cause damage. To boil the argument down, national sovereignty is the real issue at hand, and there is plenty of nuance to be had in the discussion. Such flippant dismissal of protectionism as bad and equating it with isolationism reeks of irrationality and a lack of understanding of the bigger geopolitical and geoeconomic picture.
It's a position I see taken very often these days, but it's not one that stands up to scrutiny in my experience. I would like to say I do understand where it comes from though. It's easy to assume protectionism = isolationism, and therefor rejection of any globally focused trade agreement ergo becomes another form of isolationism, and hence from that perspective it makes sense, but even a base line academic analysis would show much more room for nuanced discussion of the subject.
Of course, that's assuming that your goal is debate or discussion conducive to finding truth in the first place, which I suspect isn't the case.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] orangecat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaboutboul|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] acconrad|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Normal_gaussian|9 years ago|reply
In the previous situation all that agreed with the TPP need do nothing, as it looked sure to pass, so the argument was not worth having for them. The anti-TPP had very few positive actions available to them so it largely fell to writing.
Now the anti-TPP position has prevailed those against the TPP see little reason to debate it, yet those who were for it are left with nothing but writing.
[+] [-] pessimizer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] breatheoften|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris_wot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiaro|9 years ago|reply
The Australian government has decent chapter summaries too though, I'd encourage reading those:
http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/tpp/summaries/Pages/summ...
Chapters you may be interested in:
Investment (the controversial ISDS provisions are in this chapter)
Intellectual Property
Labour
Environment
[+] [-] jakeogh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] candiodari|9 years ago|reply
Why the change ?
[+] [-] paulus_magnus2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leke|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wavefunction|9 years ago|reply
That's what I would assume. It's hard to tell because right now the Trump administration approach to trade and pretty much everything is solely sloganeering, but the initial actions appear to support the assumptions that Trump is an isolationist and wants to disengage from much of current and future national accords.
I oppose the TPP though not for the reasons given by the Trump administration, who I also oppose, so this exit is bittersweet.
[+] [-] philliphaydon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandworm101|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|9 years ago|reply
And by not participating, the bad things the US (i.e. Hollywood) wanted don't end up in there. And the bad things other countries wanted won't apply in the US. And the treaties can't be used for domestic policy laundering in the US.
The problem with these deals is that free trade is generally good but these deals aren't free trade. They're not about eliminating restrictions, they're about imposing them. Which we can do perfectly well on our own via our democratically elected governments, if we want to, and not if we don't.
[+] [-] woodruffw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] travmatt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] shmerl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notpc|9 years ago|reply
We almost had the regulatory state imposed at an international level. Good riddance.
[+] [-] arca_vorago|9 years ago|reply
Having spent a lot of my time since getting out of the military trying to understand the bigger geostrategic picture, I am fairly confident in saying the national sovereignty is one of the most important, and most under-discussed, issues of our time as we progress towards an increasingly global economy. The global economy itself is here, and I am not disputing that the world needs more cooperation on international issues such as global climate change, but far too often I see these arguments being used to then turn around and use those issues to advocate overthrowing the idea of sovereignty, which I find is logically fallacious reasoning, callous, naive, and can only imagine such touting comes from the ivory tower of intellectuals, academics and other insulated peoples who haven't experienced the stark reality of this world when the sovereignty of nation states is violated.
In short, those who call for an end of nationalism fail to understand the proper and right role of sovereignty in the apllication of the rule of law, and in the ability for the people to affect their government.
My question for those who propose national sovereignty as being an outdated concept, I have one question:
What would you propose to replace the nation-state with once you toppled it down?
[+] [-] Analemma_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meesterdude|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] general_ai|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]