U.S. Allies Sign Sweeping Trade Deal in Challenge to Trump

[demmiblue]

Source: NYT

SANTIAGO, Chile — A trade pact originally conceived by the United States to counter China’s growing economic might in Asia now has a new target: President Trump’s embrace of protectionism.

A group of 11 nations — including major United States allies like Japan, Canada and Australia — signed a broad trade deal on Thursday that challenges Mr. Trump’s view of trade as a zero-sum game filled with winners and losers.

Covering 500 million people on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the pact represents a new vision for global trade as the United States threatens to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on even its closest friends and neighbors.

Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from an earlier version of the agreement, then known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a year ago as one of his first acts in office. It will undeniably be weaker without the participation of the world’s biggest economy, but the resuscitated deal serves as a powerful sign of how countries that have previously counted on American leadership are now forging ahead without it.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/world/asia/us-trump-tpp-signed.html

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Link to tweet

[yallerdawg]

1. Now THIS is the very definition of...

American exceptionalism.

10 years we worked on it, developed it, promoted it - and then...

[bucolic_frolic]

2. It won't matter

Tariffs will price us out of the market anyway.

If you need something manufactured from steel or aluminum that's made overseas, or even here, might be a good time to put it on the shelf. Includes petty items on eBay from China ... they know they'll be able to raise prices.

[Farmer-Rick]

3. I wonder if they fixed the big problems with it?

In 2014, linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky warned that the TPP is "designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity."

Professor Robert Reich contends that the TPP is a "Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom."

My problem with the TPP were the secretive international tribunals that would decide cases brought by corporations and countries only. Unions and citizen groups had no standing in these courts.

"Investor-state dispute settlement — an integral part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal — allows companies to sue entire countries for costing them money when laws or regulations change. Cases are decided by extrajudicial tribunals composed of three corporate lawyers."

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/isds-lawsuit-financing-tpp_us_57c48e40e4b09cd22d91f660

[Martin Eden]

5. That's always been my concern as well

My problem with the TPP were the secretive international tribunals that would decide cases brought by corporations and countries only. Unions and citizen groups had no standing in these courts.

"Investor-state dispute settlement — an integral part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal — allows companies to sue entire countries for costing them money when laws or regulations change. Cases are decided by extrajudicial tribunals composed of three corporate lawyers."

Let's not fully endorse something just because Trump opposed it.

[yallerdawg]

6. "Secretive international tribunals."

This kind of over-hyped rhetoric is why we can't have nice things.

What rights are protected by ISDS under U.S. agreements?

In U.S. agreements, the investment rules enforced by ISDS provide investors in foreign countries basic protections from foreign government actions such as:

• Freedom from discrimination: An assurance that Americans doing business abroad will face a level playing field and will not be treated less favorably than local investors or competitors from third countries.

• Protection against uncompensated expropriation of property: An assurance that the property of investors will not be seized by the government without the payment of just compensation.

• Protection against denial of justice: An assurance that investors will not be denied justice in criminal, civil, or administrative adjudicatory proceedings.

• Right to transfer capital: An assurance that investors will be able to move capital relating to their investments freely, subject to safeguards to provide governments flexibility, including to respond to financial crises and to ensure the integrity and stability of the financial system.

https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2015/march/investor-state-dispute-settlement-isds

[Farmer-Rick]

7. Secretive is considered over-hyped rhetoric?

Their decisions can Not be appealed and Unions and citizen groups are not allowed to submit briefs protecting their interests or supporting decisions requiring the changes in regulations that the corporation is fighting.

I think that is pretty secretive when they are taking away our right to control trade at the local level and putting it the hands of some secretive international tribunal. Read the link it explains it.

Your link is merely the lobbyists prepared talking points whispered into the ears of trade representatives they have cozied up to. Ask the Unions how wonderful the TPP was/is. The wonders of the TPP were being touted by Dems in strong Union areas right before they lost to Trump.

[Politicub]

10. We shall see

If the naysayers were right.

[bronxiteforever]

4. The US only trades in dead elephants,lions etc now.

But we will always have coal

[Javaman]

8. all of this, because of the orange asshole, is not going to end well. nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. America First is quickly becoming America All Alone. Making America Go Alone.

[left-of-center2012]

11. Russia's getting it's wish

From the linked article:

"... countries that have previously counted on American leadership are now forging ahead without it."