Well, I don't see anything in the recents or recommended and I think this is a big deal.
In summary the TPP trade meeting in Maui has broken up without an agreement OR any scheduled date for resumption of talks.
There are lots of very good reasons to hate TPP beginning (but not ending) with its sovreignity stealing (and unconstitutional too if Marbury v. Madison is any guide) Investor State Dispute Settlements but the particular sticking points seem to be New Zealand's dairy industry (a huge part of their economy) and Mexico's automobile manufacturing (under NAFTA most North American car companies have moved production to Mexico).
The lack of any future meeting is a serious problem for the proposed deal. While the notification requirements attached to the Trade Promotion Authority already dictate that consideration in the House and Senate will fall squarely in the early Presidential Primary season, Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, is facing re-election October 19th.
Also Malaysia, recently raised from Tier 3 to Tier 2 and a bit on the State Department list of countries actively engaged in human traffic (that's slavery for the diplo-speak impaired) because of their 'E' for effort in reducing prosecutions (not actual slavery mind you, just enforcing the laws against it), has a big problem with removing the preferential treatment of native Malays that permeates their culture and economy. And then there's that little $700 Million embezzlement scandal that has already cost the Malaysian Vice PM and AG their jobs.
I don't know, does 3/4 of a Billion dollars seem like a lot of money to you?
Now there is actually a fair amount of coverage if you don't get all your news from the Sunday gasbags and Cable including these pieces from The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Reuters, and Politico, but the one I like best is this analysis by Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism.
The TPP is a long-standing project of the global elites. I believe — as do Yves and others at NC — that the fundamental purpose of the TPP puts our national sovereignty at risk; the “lost profits” to be compensated for under ISDS are, after all, not a side effect of state regulation of markets, but essential to it; the regulation of cigarettes is a prime example of how government can protect their people by taking profits away from bad actors. Making sure that corporations lose profits from marketing and selling cancer sticks is a very good way to make them stop doing it. Policies like the Tobin Tax are another example; if, as two links today argue, 99% of trading is pointless, why not tax that industry out of existence? And if a government cannot do that because it faces ginormous fines[4] from the (rigged, corrupt) ISDS system, is it really sovereign?
So what to do if you wish the United States people to retain their sovereignty? I think it’s useful to conceptualize the TPP fight — both for and against — as a war. In war, there are three levels of abstraction. Starting at the highest level:
1) War: One salient feature of war — I mean, besides killing lots of people — is that war can take years. Citizens, as well as activists, need to conceptualize the war for sovereignty, and against global elites, on that time frame. Americans can accept, apparently, that a baseball team can take years to rebuild, but have a hard time transferring that idea to politics, for some reason. The elite has all the time in the world, and can manipulate both financial and political time. Activists and citizens need to accept this, and roll with it. (Eyes on Trade has done this superbly; ditto Wikileaks; but American citizens are not yet engaged, en masse.)
2) Campaign: Campaigns take place in multiple theatres and multiple fronts, on different terrain, with different leadership, and troops and materiel of differing qualities. American citizens, especially, really need to stop thinking of the Beltway, the Washington political class, and electoral politics (and petition drives, etc.) as the only campaign that matters. Remember: TPP must be decided unanimously. Wikileaks rushed aid to the Five Eyes with the ISDS leaks, to New Zealand and Malaysia with the SOE leaks, and to Japan with the NSA bugging leaks (aid to the citizens of those countries, that is; not the negotiators trying to sell them out). We need to do likewise.
3) Battle: One battle is not a campaign is not a war. I sensed, rightly or wrongly, a falling off of reader interest in TPP when the administration managed to ram Fast Track through Congress. That was a defeat (and may yet prove costly, in Fast Track applies to both TTiP and TISA). Nevertheless, the anti-TPP/pro-sovereignty forces seriously damaged the administration; for Obama and Froman, it was a Pyrrhic victory, and for us, I would argue, it made the victory in the next battle, in Maui, possible. First, the credibility of the United States negotiators was put at risk, because it wasn’t clear that the U.S. could deliver on the deal; and second, politicians were encouraged to check with their own citizens. The moral: Don’t get discouraged or lose interest when a single battle is lost; in baseball, to lose a game or even a series is not the same as a losing season.
That said, the good guys won a big battle in Maui. Let’s break out the champers, because winning should taste sweet. And let’s hope — and plan — for victory in this campaign, and that we end the war with victory. Meanwhile, every delay helps, and if there’s no Ministerial agreement on TPP this month, it’s going to be much more difficult in the Fall.
Readers know I very rarely wave pom-poms… But “Yay!”
His piece is a linky bucket of goodness and much larger and more detailed than this trivial post, I strongly urge you to
read it in its entirety.
My attention has been drawn to some other worthwhile and interesting diaries that I feel I ought to link-
TPP-TTIP-TISA -ISDS & "Democracy" by e2247
400 Maui activists say no to TPP. Talks end without agreement by Karen from Maui
The largest muni bond default in U.S. history is happening right now by gjohnsit