Now that the dust has settled, and the initial barrage of spruik has died down, some genuine questions are being asked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, which was signed on Monday evening Australian time.
Over at Fairfax, Michael West has described the TPP as a “triumph of image over substance” and akin to “buying a used car over the phone”, given the deal’s secrecy and the spin surrounding its benefits:
…rarely such an outpouring of admiration for a deal, whose details yet remain a secret…
If this is such a great deal, why are they hiding it? There is, among other things, a four-letter answer to this question: ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement). ISDS is a mechanism for corporations to sue governments…
US corporations are the biggest litigants, having brought some 127 cases thus far against sovereign government decisions which they claim have damaged their financial interests…
The reality is this TPP free trade deal is as much about free trade as it is about entrenching the interests of large multinational corporations.
It is no secret that, while the citizens of the 12 signatory nations remain in the dark about the detail of the regional free trade pact, multinationals and their lobbyists had a large hand in shaping it…
Washington has largely been bought off. Washington is driving the TPP process.Washington kow-tows to corporate interests, and Canberra, in turn, kow-tows to Washington’s interests. Australians therefore can have little comfort that the detail in the TPP will turn in their favour…
…signing up to the TPP is a bit like buying a used car over the phone with no detail as to the state of the vehicle or the clicks on the odometer, but with glowing assurances from the dealer that “she’s a beauty”.
Over at Inside Story, economics professor, John Quiggin, has described the TPP as a “one-way ratchet” that is the “wrong way to manage our international trade and investment”:
The negotiations were conducted in secret and the final text remains secret. What we have are two kinds of leaks: deliberate leaks from government officials, seeking to put the most favourable spin on the deal, and the unauthorised leaks of negotiating drafts, obtained and published by WikiLeaks.
Still, it’s already clear that, considered as a trade deal, this agreement is very small beer. Australia has long since removed import quotas and reduced tariffs to the very low levels consistent with a standard tax system. Our approach to these deals has been to make concessions on non-trade issues in the hope of gaining access to markets for our agricultural products – a strategy that has yielded only minimal dividends…
The ISDS provisions entitle a corporation based in a member country to sue a signatory government for actions it regards as unfair. The case is not settled in national courts, but by arbitrators in corporate-friendly private courts. Governments have been sued for raising minimum wages, for bans on the export of dangerous chemicals, for restrictions on open-cut mining…
The big benefit will be for Australian corporations which can base themselves in the United States and then, effectively, place themselves above Australian law…
Deals of this kind are, quite simply, the wrong way to manage our international trade and investment. As we did with tariffs and quotas, we should unilaterally scrap any restrictions we judge to be not in our national interest, and leave it to others to do the same. Accepting bad policies as a way of encouraging other countries to improve theirs is not only a bad idea in theory; it is a proven failure in practice.
Meanwhile the Greens’ spokesman on trade, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, has called on the Government to refer the TPP text to Productivity Commission for assessment, arguing that the public had the right to hear the “full story”:
“The Parliament and the public need to be given all the information so they can make up their own minds about the pros and cons of these deals,” he said.
“If the TPP really is the ‘foundation stone for future prosperity’ that Malcolm Turnbull says it is then he should have no fear in putting it up for proper scrutiny.”
Senator Whish-Wilson said concerns over the controversial deal had previously been raised by the Treasury, which stated the benefits of free trade agreements had been “oversold”.
Even US Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, has come out against the TPP, arguing that it is too favourable to powerful pharmaceutical companies:
“We had to had a trade agreement that would create good American jobs, raise wages and advance our national security”…
“[But] I’m worried that the pharmaceutical companies may have gotten more benefits and patients and consumers fewer. I think that there are still a lot of unanswered questions…”
“We’ve learned a lot about trade agreements in the past years. Sometimes they look great on paper…”
“As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it… I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set”…
That’s a damning assessment from America’s President in-waiting.
As I noted yesterday, until the full TPP text has been released to the public and fully scrutinised, including by the Productivity Commission, we won’t know whether the deal is truly in Australia’s best interest.
We simply cannot rely on the Government’s assurances and spin from business groups and the media, given Australia’s poor record on trade with the US.
