Trans-Pacific Partnership
Overview
Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP for short, is a multilateral free trade agreement that is currently being negotiated by several American and Asian nations aimed at further liberalizing the economies of the Asia-Pacific region. In November 2013, the treaty became a subject of intense scrutiny in the news media and online after WikiLeaks published a complete draft of the proposed chapter on Intellectual Property (IP) rights, which contains several provisions relating to the enforcement of copyrights.
Background
The multilateral treaty currently being negotiated is a significantly expanded version of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPSEP), a free trade agreement that was formed among Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore in 2005. The proposed expansion of the TPP, which began after the United States agreed to enter the negotiation process in late 2008, includes Australia, Vietnam, Peru, Malaysia, Canada and Mexico (as of November 2013). Once signed by all members, the TPP will be the largest-scale free trade agreement ever formed, encompassing economies representing more than 40 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
currently in negotiations announced interest in membership
Notable Developments
U.S. Industry Memo Leak
In December 2010, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) published a leaked copy of the U.S. Business Coalition for TPP's list of industry demands on the IP chapter of the partnership negotiations, which urged the TPP to address several issues, namely expiration of temporary copies (ex: buffered memory or browser cache), circumvention of digital locks, length of copyright terms and statutory damages.
Darrell Issa's Release
On May 15th, 2012, U.S. congressman Darrell Issa released a copy of the U.S.-proposed intellectual property chapter via KeepTheWebOPEN,[3] while urging the U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to publicly release the latest text U.S. negotiators are seeking to include in the agreement.
WikiLeaks Release
On November 13th, 2013, WikiLeaks released a complete copy of the secretly negotiated draft text for the TPP's Intellectual Property rights chapter ( as proposed by the United States), which addresses a wide range of IP-protection measures ranging from trademark, copyright, patents and trade secrets to geographical indication, genetic resources and traditional knowledge. In the press release, WikiLeaks described the text as "the most controversial chapter of the TPP due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents."
Ratification in the United States
On June 24th, 2014, Congress passed the fast-track legislation granting the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative nearly unilateral authority to negotiate and finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The passage of the bill was described by the Washington Post as a major win that could become a milestone legacy in foreign policy for the Obama administration, while its critics and EFF responded to the news with much caution.
Final Agreement Is Reached
On October 5th, 2015, Michael B. Froman, the United States Trade Representative, announced that the United States, Japan, and 10 other Pacific Rim countries had come to a final agreement, and were sending the Trans-Pacific Partnership to their respective governing bodies to be ratified. In America, that meant that the agreement would have a 90-day period of examination by Congress before they allowed it to be ratified. Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and many other politicians of both the Republican and Democratic parties opposed the deal.
Criticisms
The TPP has drawn much criticism from digital rights advocates and regional interest groups for its lack of public transparency, potential infringement of civil liberties and national sovereignty, as well as preference of the U.S. intellectual property laws over others as the international norm. It has been also criticized by several humanitarian aid groups and NGOs for limiting access to affordable medicine in the developing world.
Donald Trump's TPP Position
During the 2016 presidential primaries, then-candidate Donald Trump opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, referring tot he deal as a "rape of our country" (video below).[15] On June 28th, 2016, at a campaign event in St. Clairsville, Ohio, he said, "The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country. That’s what it is, too. It’s a harsh word: It’s a rape of our country.”
Following his victory in the 2016 presidential campaign, on January 23rd, 2017, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the TPP.[16]
On February 16th, 2018, 25 GOP senators signed a letter to restart TPP trade talks, believing it would help the American economy.[17] They wrote, "We encourage you to work aggressively to secure reforms that would allow the United States to join the agreement. Increased economic engagement with the 11 nations currently in TPP has the potential to substantially improve the competitiveness of U.S. businesses, support millions of U.S. jobs, increase U.S. exports, increase wages, fully unleash America's energy potential, and benefit consumers."
Several months later, in April 2018, President Trump reportedly asked White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to investigate re-entering the deal.[18]
Senator Ben Sasse told reporters, "The president multiple times reaffirmed in general to all of us and looked right at Larry Kudlow and said, ‘Larry, go get it done.'"
That day, President Trump tweeted, [19] "Would only join TPP if the deal were substantially better than the deal offered to Pres. Obama. We already have BILATERAL deals with six of the eleven nations in TPP, and are working to make a deal with the biggest of those nations, Japan, who has hit us hard on trade for years!" The post (shown below) received more than 13,000 retweets and 58,000 likes in 24 hours.
Trump's comments about re-entering the TPP was discussed on several subreddits, receiving more than 1,000 points, respectively, in /r/TrumpCriticizesTrump,[20] /r/The_Donald, [21] /r/politics[22] and more.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Strategic_Economic_Partnership
[2] Electronic Frontiers Foundation – Don't Let Them Trade Away Our Internet Freedoms
[3] KeepTheWeb#Open – The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter
[4] Public Knowledge – ACTA the Sequel: The Transpacific Partnership Agreement
[5] Knowledge Ecology International – US Industry IP memo for the TPP negotiations leaked
[6] Reddit – The next ACTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, is under negotiation NOW and is even more restrictive.
[7] Reddit – Search Results for 'Transpacific Partnership'
[8] U.S. House of Representatives – Congressman Darrell Issa Releases the TPP IP Chapter
[9] Stop The Trap – You could have to pay a fine for simply clicking on the wrong link.
[10] WikiLeaks – Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
[11] Doctors Without Borders – INFOGRAPHICS: How Provisions in the TPP Will Hurt Access to Affordable Drugs
[12] Washington Post – Obama scores a major trade win, burnishing his foreign policy legacy
[13] EFF – The Senate Passes Fast Track--But We Can Still Prevent the TPP Train Wreck
[14] New York Times – Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Reached, but Faces Scrutiny in Congress
[15] Politico – Trump calls trade deal 'a rape of our country'
[16] CNN – Trump signs order withdrawing from TPP, reinstate 'Mexico City policy' on abortion
[17] The Washington Post – 25 GOP senators urge Trump to restart TPP trade talks, a deal he called a ‘disaster’
[18] The Guardian – Trump said to be reviewing Trans-Pacific Partnership in trade U-turn
[19] Twitter – @realDonaldTrump's Tweet
[20] Reddit – 'Just like I have warned from the beginning, Crooked Hillary Clinton will betray you on the TPP.' 26 Jul 2016
[21] Reddit – TRUMP TWEET: 'Would only join TPP if the deal were substantially better than the deal offered to Pres. Obama. We already have BILATERAL deals with six of the eleven nations in TPP, and are working to make a deal with the biggest of those nations, Japan, who has hit us hard on trade for years!'
[22] Reddit – Trump Wants Back Into the TPP. Not So Fast, Say Members.
![[Vinesauce] Vinny - Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Awareness](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hNL0mUdU65w/hqdefault.jpg "[Vinesauce] Vinny - Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) Awareness")
![Lessons from NAFTA for the Trans-Pacifc Partnership (TPP) Two Decades of High Costs for Mexico's Agriculture Economy, Families, and Environment While the North American Free Trade Agreement has had severe impacts offers particularly disturbing lessons for the developing countries involved experience under this 1994 trade Im NAFTA promised that the agricultural sector in Maxico would grow so much that illegal migration of rural peoples into the United States would t of the total active population has fallen from 19% to 13% and over 6 million rural have had little choice but to migrate without documents into the When proposed, NAFTA promised to make Mexico an export-oriented producer of agricultural products. In reality, Mexico has become a food compared to 13% in 1993 (the year before NAFTA was i NAFTA hos done nothing to alleviate gender disparities in a Women landowners, regardless of the size of the plot of hours on average per week than men (35 versus 35 hours), while earning work longer 9 pesos p/hr versus 7.8) Almost 2 million Mexican agricu mi Increas sed Poverty and Inequality Cooperation and Development (OECD) half of the According to official statistics, around 50,000 NAFTA has helped the ultra-rich n says that they do not have e died of malnutrition between 2006 and increase their wealth while ginalizing the working poor rate has s combined fortune of 144 billion USD. Carlos Slim's $77 billion fortune makes him the 2nd the ranks of the poor.(5) Impacts on Women and Families NAFTA boosted industrial development along the US-Mexico border to take advantage of lower tariffs on Mexican exports into the U.S. market. There are over 3,000 maquiladoras, employing around 1.3 million Meocons, 60% of which are women.(8} While many women are drawn to these jobs because of the lack of livelihoods in rural areas they often quickly decide to take the risk of seekinig work in the United States because of r wages and Child Lab Maquiladora Wages Domestic Work in Domestic Worker Mexico Wages Mexican women in More than 1.2 million 29% of all domestic s earn women in Mexico labor workers earn only children working in Mexico and NAFTA labor protections have 1/6 of the U.S. hourly rate and turnover is high, The women as domestic workers. about USS3 per day. This is the single largest Some 48% receive occupation of female between $3-6 and workers in the Mexican 51% report that they in the Immigrant women from Mexico and other Latin American countries now comprise the majority of domestic workers in the United States. Domestic service is one of the few occupations available to undocumented women, making this to on the Environment Millions of rural farmers have lost their livelihoods under NAFTA due to competition with large agribusiness companies, 25% of peasant plots have been abandoned over the past 20 years resulting in chemical erosion with a loss of soil fertility affecting 32.4 By loosening investment barriers, NAFTA has sodium cyanide (51,000 tons in just the last 5 silver. This has led to the million cubic meters of woater in communities where access to potable water is already of tons of toxic subslances have been dumped 44,000 tons of emissions of toxic substances dumped released in the last decade. Institute for As Washington's first progressive multi-issue think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS] has served as a policy and research resource for vi social justice movements for over four decades - from the anti-war and ci rights movements in the 1960s to the peace and global justice movements of the last decode. Manuel Pérez-Rocha, Global Economy Project Associate Fellow, Institute for Pollicy Studies and Max Gibbons, Interconnections Project/Advocacy Intern, Institute for Policy Studies Special thanks to Tiffany Williams and Sarah Anderson for all of their help and support ond to our colleagues at the ANEC {www.anec.org) and RMALC (www.rmalc.orgǐn US Deportment of Commerce (201 Breo of Ce Inatituto Macianal de Estadithin y Geepratia (2013).Sisterna de Cuertas Maciancles de Nesico. INEC: Consuhed on Sephember 25th ifras paro m 3Salos, Cerles 2006. "Betveen Unempleymast ond Insacurity is Neo-NAFTA Enters is Seceed Decoda e Narcy Koptur,"TLCAN:Un mar de promesas incanplidas.Itpwww.jarroda unan ma/2013/12/2on-lon H Official Data from CENEVAL Independent mecsurenent of poverty levels in Nexito hove more dranatic figares, Retrieved fro htp://ww.mekong/MITO5%20DEL%20TLCAN.pdf Ca loulohed by Nenuel Penz-Recha from INEGU/Consaha de Mortal dod Information rstriaved from http://www jomade.sronn/2014/03/19/aceomia/25ale Citizen's Trode Campaigs.20O1. The NAFTA Medel: a Rew Deal fer Wones in the Develeping World."Accessible et uplood 20 刃Mendoto, Christma 20 'Crossing Borders Women, Migrotion ond DometcBorkers of the Tens-Weai o Divide-Attest!e gt hitp:/deepblue lh umitheduaitstreanhandle 2027 42/62320/mendorox 1 pdfisequenoe 101 Briones, Jochan. 1993. 1999. 9 UCLA Women's L」335 "Parng the Pricefor NAFTA: NAFTA's E fett on Women cnd Children Farbes Martin, Suas.2003 Usined Noriaes Divisise for the Adeasconeet of Weree (DAW). "Wonen and Nigroriae. Bricees, Joshus. 1998-1999.9 XLA Wonen's LJ. 301. "Paying the Price for NAFTA NAFTA's EHecd on Warnes ard Children nan tab-archresult&terms-Briases, Joshsoyp Meedoro. Christina 2009-Crossing Barders Women Migrofien asd Domenic囂erken on theTexar-Meaico Divide deepblue la 2027 42/6252M/merdoro 1pdfsequence 10200170#010200170 16) Kerplow, Solomon, ilemor Colderon, Péaz-Rodha, and Trew. 2014.Inatitute for Palicy Studies, Slarre Club, Coundil af Conacians ealon Actioas Natwark on Fraa Trade."NAFTA 20 Yeers of Cats to Communna and the Environnast lbid](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/000/997/061/d49.png "Lessons from NAFTA for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Infograph")
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