Whither the TPP?

[cali]

I'm glad to report that the TPP is stalled. Thankfully, the U.S. and Japan are both obdurate on certain aspects. I'm not of a sizable number of people in both countries:

People in the United States and Japan are overwhelming opposed to the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP), according to a new survey.

On Wednesday the Pew Research Center released a major report on public opinion regarding international trade in numerous countries across the world. While support for trade is widespread globally, it was far more robust in emerging and developing countries than in developed ones. Even among the latter group, Japan and the United States were among the most downcast in their views of the benefits of global trade.

For example, just 19 percent of the world believes trade is destructive to employment in their country. However, no less than half of the American populace and 38 percent of Japanese respondents say that trade hurts jobs in their countries. Similarly, while only 21 percent of the world believes that trade lowers wages, this number rises to 47 percent in the United States and 37 percent in Japan. Just 10 percent of Japanese believe trade increases wages compared with 17 percent of Americans. Globally, those believing that trade increases wages outnumber those who believe the opposite by a two-to-one ratio.

These views put Japan and the United States starkly at odds with the other TPP countries surveyed by Pew, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Chile, Peru and Mexico.

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http://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-tpps-biggest-obstacles/

US President Barack Obama aimed to reach agreement on the controversial 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) by the time Asia-Pacific leaders met at APEC in Beijing in November.

That relied heavily on the outcome of bi-lateral talks between the United States and Japan, the world's first and third largest economies.

However latest talks in Washington last week ended in stalemate, with neither side able to come to an agreement on reducing trade barriers for sensitive goods like beef and pork.

The other 10 TPP countries, including New Zealand, are unwilling to make concessions until they see what the two big players offer first.

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http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/255707/tpp-deadline-moves-again

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For the TPP’s friends and foes alike though, the end now seems nigh. The TPP is in its fifth year of negotiations and this week, one of its last hopes of reaching a conclusion any time soon went over the cliff. For most of 2014, the stalled talks have been reliant on the US and Japan completing a bilateral pact that could then be taken back to the TPP bargaining table as the template for a range of mutual concessions by participating countries. Instead, the bilateral pact itself fell apart.

This latest failure has led some observers – such as Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter - to conclude that the TPP itself is now effectively dead in the water.

The stalemate in the US/Japan deal was over car exports and farm exports, with the latter being the main reason why New Zealand is in the TPP at all. Access to farm markets in Japan would be the rationale for us making concessions on other fronts. The detail of this week’s failure is instructive. For the umpteenth time, the failure reveals just how little the TPP has to do with “free” trade. If you want to see political and corporate self interest in action, check out the Japanese news service summary (link above) of the horse trading that was attempted:

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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1410/S00004/gordon-campbell-on-the-last-rites-for-the-tpp.htm