Former World Trade Organisation (WTO) director-general, Supachai Panitchpakdi, has slammed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – the proposed regional trade deal between 12 Pacific Rim countries, including Australia – claiming that it represents a step backwards to the days before the WTO when the US and Europe controlled the global trading system to the detriment of other economies. From the New Zealand Herald:
“TTIP [Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] and TTP together could drive the world back into the old days before the WTO was conceived, a world trading system predominated by major trading nations, which was something I thought we tried to adjust with the more democratic participation of membership of the WTO”…
“TPP is US-centric… It leaves the question as to what would the rest of the membership of the TPP be able to contribute fairly to the outcome? My general basic principle on the two so-called mega-deals (TPP and TTIP) is that we have to be a bit cautious about the way we are practicing regionalism these days”…
Supachai Panitchpakdi’s opposition to the TPP follows the open letter posted last year by Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, which questioned negotiators’ secrecy and warned about “grave risks on all sorts of topics” posed by the TPP, as well as claiming that it contains “many of the worst features of the worst laws in the TPP countries, making needed reforms extremely difficult if not impossible”.
As regular readers will know, I am also a staunch critic of the TPP and fear that it would establish a US-style regulatory structure that would hand considerable power to US pharmaceutical and digital firms, limiting choice and raising prices for consumers in Australia.
Unfortunately for Australia, the Abbott Government continues to embrace the TPP with open arms. Trade Minister, Andrew Robb, had previously described the deal as a “platform for 21st-century trade rules”. And today in The AFR Robb has hailed the TPP as “ambitious” and “reducing protection”.
We should all be wary of the secretive sell-out that appears to be occurring under the TPP, which seeks to place US corporate interests ahead of our own.
