Ever since Donald Trump won the November US Presidential Election it has been clear as day that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is ‘dead, buried and cremated’, with zero chance that the new President would do a 180-degree flip and suddenly support the pact.
But with some still holding-out hope that the TPP would be magically resurrected, one of President-Elect Trump’s advisors emphatically ruled-out reviving the pact, stating the following over the weekend:
“TPP is dead. I cannot stress that more strongly,” said the adviser, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly for the administration that takes office on Jan. 20.
“TPP, or a multilateral agreement that looks like TPP but is called something else, is emphatically dead.”
This inconvenient truth hasn’t stopped the Turnbull Government from continuing to push the case for the TPP, with Trade Minister Steve Ciobo over the weekend giving a speech to Japanese Minister, Shinzo Abe, urging members to ratify the deal. From The Australian:
Mr Ciobo said Australia “firmly believes the TPP holds significant benefits for all 12 countries that have signed up for it’’.
The TPP is expected to figure prominently in talks between Mr Abe and Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney later today in the most significant event in the Japanese Prime Minister’s flying trip to Australia…
Mr Ciobo said Australia and Japan would be strong advocates for the benefits of the deal…
He said he still believed all 12 signatories to the deal could ratify it…
There is no TPP without the US, Steve, so move on and stop wasting everyone’s time.
While you are at it, how about acknowledging some of the pitfalls that would have arisen from the TPP, such as unnecessarily strengthening intellectual property protections and enabling foreign corporations to sue national governments via Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions? These provisions are the antithesis of “free trade”.
It is fair to assume that the Turnbull Government knows this, which is why it refused point blank to allow the Productivity Commission (PC) to cast a critical eye over the TPP.
The PC has previously claimed that Australia’s trade negotiations have been “characterised by a lack of transparent and robust analysis, a vacuum consequently filled at times by misleading claims”, and has called on the “final text of an agreement to be rigorously analysed before signing”.
The PC has also frequently derided the efficiency losses associated with preferential FTAs, as well as the hidden protections embedded in deals like the TPP (e.g. extending patents and copyright protection).
And the PC has also explicitly requested that the government “seek to avoid the inclusion of Investors-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions in bilateral and regional trade agreements that grant foreign investors in Australia substantive or procedural rights greater than those enjoyed by Australian investors”.
Unfortunately, there is no acknowledgment from the Coalition of these issues, and certainly no indication that it will implement better processes towards future trade negotiations.
Instead, Steve Ciobo has signalled that the Coalition will continue its ad hoc, evidence free, approach and attempt to conclude more trade deals this electoral term, presumably for political rather than economic reasons, and without due regard for longer-term consequences.
And this comes despite some Coalition MPs recently calling for greater independent scrutiny of future trade deals.
