With negotiations done and dusted on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, attention has well and truly turned to whether member countries will ratify the agreement, thus bringing it into force.
In the US, opposition continues to mount, suggesting that the TPP faces a difficult time getting through Congress.
US Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, came out against the TPP, arguing that it is too favourable to powerful pharmaceutical companies and believeing that it didn’t “meet the high bar I have set”. While Clinton’s opposition could be viewed as mere politicking in the lead up to an election year, opposition is mounting across the board.
The powerful US pharmaceutical lobby is reportedly livid that the TPP did not secure better monopoly protections, whereas Big Tobacco and its representatives in Congress are furious that the industry has been carved-out of the investor-state dispute settlement provision, thus limiting its ability to take legal action against member states that regulate against the tobacco industry.
On the left, opponents to the TPP include organised labor and most environmental groups, whereas on the right, opponents include Donald Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, along with some Tea Party Republicans who are reluctant to give any victory to President Obama.
Now there are serious suggestions that the US will not attempt to ratify the TPP until after the November 2016 Presidential Election. From Politico:
Mike Sommers, chief of staff for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said at a Ripon Society meeting that Congress was unlikely to move on the massive trade package until a lame-duck session more than a year from now. Hazen Marshall, policy director for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was also at the session, agreed that a TPP vote was more likely to happen in a lame-duck session, and added that the White House was trying to work with congressional leaders on timing.
One attendee said the senior GOP staffers’ message was “TPP is dead until the lame duck”…
White House officials and pro-free trade groups and companies had hoped Congress would take up the measure by next summer, although that timetable now looks to be in jeopardy…
Back home, there are also obstacles. The Greens are opposed to the TPP, as are some cross-bench senators, like Nick Xenophon. Ultimately, ratification will depend upon whether Labor sides with the Coalition, which is likely following some feigned resistance.
But a lot depends on the actual text, which has not been made public. If there are significant gremlins lurking, and these get uncovered in time for the vote on ratification, then the TPP could still be rejected.
In any event, it is hard to imagine that the Australian parliament would ratify the TPP until it is certain that the US Congress will, which means that the deal is likely to remain in limbo for quite some time.
Given the dubious provisions surrounding intellectual property and investor-state dispute settlement, long may it remain so.
