Canada OpEd: "... the loss of Clinton’s support is a major blow for the TPP."

[pampango]

Gary Lamphier: TPP trade deal looks dead on arrival

Recent events — the Liberals’ dramatic surge in the opinion polls to within striking distance of a majority victory in Monday’s federal election, and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s abrupt 11th-hour rejection of a deal she had long championed — have sharply upped the odds that the TPP will never see the light of day.

“It may be dead because of Hillary Clinton’s abandonment of the TPP. The only reason the TPP came about … was the idea of gaining access to the U.S. market, and gaining NAFTA-like access to the U.S. is something that got everyone’s attention,” says Carlo Dade, director of the centre for trade and investment policy at the Canada West Foundation.

“Hillary Clinton (as U.S. secretary of state) was the architect of the U.S. joining the TPP. It was the ‘Pacific pivot’ — the new U.S. foreign policy — and it was her doctrine. So for her to walk away from the agreement now really pulls the rug out from under it in the U.S.,” he says.

It’s not all bad news, Dade says. If the TPP dies, Canada will still enjoy favoured access to the U.S. under NAFTA. And that’s a deal the rest of the world would die to have. “On the other hand we miss out on being able to get into these growing markets around the Pacific, while people like the Aussies, who are already there, get further entrenched.”

http://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/gary-lamphier-tpp-trade-deal-looks-dead-on-arrival

[malaise]

1. The defeat of the RWs in the US and the move left by Dems

may be good for the Canadian election