Is the TPP more likely to pass with a Republican-controlled Congress? Lori Wallach: The first thing that would happen is for Congress to grant President Obama trade promotion authority. This would allow Obama to sign the TPP before Congress signs the agreement … What would be required is for Republicans in Congress, who have attacked Obama as power hungry, must vote to voluntarily give him large swaths of power. This is an interesting problem for them and their own political base. It hard to run against Obama and his political power and then turn around and grant him authority to circumvent them. How does China feel about the TPP and how could it change policy toward China? China has been invited to join TPP on the condition that is willing to meet the current rules being negotiated. China, among a variety of developing countries, does not think the rules are suitable. To the extent U.S. corporations are being given space to dictate drug patents and mineral rights, China is not too keen about it. It is not like the TPP is the U.S.’ rules. It is the corporate expansive rules that would not work well for most of the people in TPP countries. It would expand the profit margin for corporations in those countries. What is more important than what China thinks about them is what people think in the member countries themselves. We are being told this is the big way to contain China. That is just a false paradigm. We have been told through every trade agreement that, regardless of the trade policy details, it would be good foreign policy. In the case of NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement], it was that immigration would tick up if NAFTA was not approved. As it turns out, we approved NAFTA, and immigration increased. The opposite of what was predicted happened. “‘The more parliamentarians and civil society actors have learned, the more they have said that [the TPP] is something they cannot support.’” —Lori Wallch director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch america.aljazeera/watch/shows/inside-story/articles/2014/11/10/what-does-a-transpacificpartnershipdealmeanforamericans.html#
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 04:52:46 +0000