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The Case for the TPP
It’s a measure of the lunacy of this election that neither candidate is robustly defending the TPP, and the task of making the case for it has been offshored, so to speak, to Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong:
His comments about Japan are noteworthy. If the agreement fails, he argues, US credibility will be severely undermined:
I think in terms of America’s engagement of the region, you have put a reputation on the line. It is the big thing which America is doing in the Asia Pacific with the Obama administration, consistently over many, many years of hard work and pushing. And your partners, your friends who have come to the table, who have negotiated, each one of them has overcome some domestic political objection, some sensitivity, some political cost to come to the table and make this deal.
And if, at the end, waiting at the altar, the bride doesn’t arrive, I think there are people who are going to be very hurt, not just emotionally but really damaged for a long time to come. Mr. Abe, for example, several of his predecessors thought seriously about and decided not to participate in the TPP. They came very close. They prepared the ground, they walked away. But Mr. Abe came through and decided to commit. Why? Because he wants to help. He wants his country to benefit and to open up its markets, and this is one way to do it.
It hurts your relationship with Japan, your security agreements with Japan. And the Japanese living in an uncertain world, depending on an American nuclear umbrella, will have to say: on trade, the Americans could not follow through; if it’s life and death, whom do I have to depend upon? It’s an absolutely serious calculation, which will not be said openly, but I have no doubt will be thought.
This is the one thing Obama really got right — but now we have not one, but two candidates running against free trade.
Have I mentioned recently how dispiriting I find this election?
Published in General
So to sum up:
You use terms like “Know-nothingism” and I am being Thin Skinned. I more or less quote Jonah Goldberg, and I am being Condescending. I have read Adam Smith.
Your whole support for TPP appears to be “NAFTA was great”.
I was for NAFTA because it was sold to me, and the benefits were talked about. This has not been.
250 words is more than enough to list some points about what this will do for me. Nope, you would rather be smug, instead of tell me what it will do for me. Let me bottom line it for you:
I have no faith that TPP is actually Free Trade. Therefore, I am against it.
To date there is no evidence the TPP lowers the barrier that allow Adam Smith’s specialization to occur and therein the problem.
Perhaps
Primarily the donors to and their lobbyist cabal.
You don’t trust anyone in office. See your words in the quote above. Yet, we live in a republican form of government. So ask yourself, how can you be persuaded?
You need to understand, those are not the words of someone who can be persuaded. And they are your opinion which I respect. I just disagree.
In a republican form of government you have to trust someone. Everyone is not stupid or dishonest. They are human – and subject to flaws or disagree with you. Someone who takes a disingenuous or impractical position claiming to be for free trade and then claims a free trade agreement can be reduced to one line is perhaps being condescending to many others, suggesting as Trump does that it is easy to make great deals.
Read. I said that from the beginning. No one is going to persuade someone who wants a one line trade agreement. Only they can do that.
I respect you and know that if you are interested, you will do that. I also know better than to try to persuade those who do not trust any elected officials – unfortunately each of us cannot negotiate the best deal for ourselves.
I can’t find anything but official fact sheets and infomercials and sales pitches about objectives on the one hand or anti trade articles, on the other. But I just don’t trust this Administration and thought we should wait until we have adults in key positions who we know are not hostile to markets nor embrace the regulatory state. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen. Maybe we need to drift back toward the GATT approach as difficult and slow as it is. Even NAFTA was an accident that came out of those global talks.
There are many writings about this. The Chinese adopted a three prong strategy to protect what they see as their natural geopolitical area of influence, remove the US, and secure their vital sea ways about 10 years ago. They see the “inner island chain” (Spratly’s to a few rocks in the Sea of Japan) and later the “outer island chain” (Aleutians to Indonesia) as their natural area of influence. They have decided that kinetic conflict is unreliable (see published Defense Dept. assessments). They are pursuing soft hegemony behind a veiled symmetrical and assymetrical military presence to counter the US influence and neutralize US military options.
The three prong strategy is loosely explained as: 1. the exercise of legal arguments (10 dash line claims in the South China Seas which was recently spurned by the World Court), 2. economic development and infiltration (Myranmar, Nepal, Pakistan) by local political control, and 3. opinion management through media influence. They are also seeking to neutralize Russia with whom they share a long land border.
The second point is the one worth noting and germane to the TPP. Here is an even handed summary of the concern – though there are better ones.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8b90350-3f46-11e5-b98b-87c7270955cf.html#axzz4HPBPMuKu
TPP was designed to counter the Chinese practice of cutting trade deals with each country – and Russia too.
We can know what is in the agreement, and many have done much work dissecting its various aspects. Here is a link to the CATO events podcasts. Scroll through the list there are numerous events devoted to explaining and arguing about the TPP and its merits.
I understand this. People don’t trust Obama and they don’t trust the GOP. And it requires a lot of digging and reading to get comfortable. Trade deals lower trade barriers – tariffs, regulations, rules. They do so unevenly at first.
But, trade deals are never just one sided – a point you cannot prove to anyone who has made up their mind. They do evolve. And many of the patches and fixes designed to sell the deals to each nation’s constituencies will pass with time.
After I entered the private sector, I shoveled around NAFTA quite a bit and found lots to hate and it affected me personally in my business. Our business lost tariff protection and got no quid pro quo as the Mexicans protected one of the most powerful families in Mexico and their business for 5 years – and then 5 more years.
But, we lived through it and thrived.
I hate that, outside of phenomenally wealthy trading islands like Hong Kong and Singapore, politicians never consider simply unilaterally eliminating trade barriers.
The UK, after Brexit, is at least kicking the idea around.
Thank you for this link.
Trade is complex. It is not a 144 letter tweet for Trump, a five minute rant for Rush, or some jingoism from Jim DeMint. The TPP is the most complex trade deal ever undertaken. It includes 12 countries. It aims to “slash” tariffs, not entirely do away will all tariffs. The member countries hope to foster a closer relationship on economic policies, regulation and strengthen relationships (read security agreements). As mentioned, some tariffs will continue, some will take years to lower or remove, and tariffs on US exports of manufactures and agricultural products will end almost immediately. Tariffs make all less well off.
If you are conservative and you oppose taxes or want them lowered, lowering tariffs on the stuff you buy and the stuff you sell is a good thing. But, there are the few sectors or products that are deemed sensitive and the competition with lower cost labor forces around the world who perform the least skilled tasks. The US has been very agile in adapting and thriving with trade agreements. And the problem of our middle class is not only a problem of trade – in fact trade has lowered the after tax cost of living.
Which it does by ensuring that any special deals given to China must be extended to all TPP parties? (FT article behind a paywall.) What do you mean by “local political control”?
Another reason to be wary of the side deals is the mindset of an administration that constantly beats the drum of white guilt and the idea that America is such a sinful country that she must be made to genuflect on the world stage.
If your own side goes into negotiations thinking America must pay for colonialism in the Philippines, war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, etc., then where do we pull the trust from?
Remember, NAFTA was negotiated by two nationalistic leaders from nominally conservative parties (Bush I & Mulroney) and their Mexican counterparts.
So sorry. I will try to find something not behind the wall. The best stuff usually is. This article, by the way, mentions China’s Asian Development Bank which was created to fund development projects and which now involves Germany, the U.K. and France – all hoping to get in on the action with China as the defacto leader.
“by” should have been “of” in my statement above. The Chinese have turned Myranmar into a semi-controlled client state despite their elections. They have influence over key players. They also built a pipeline to transport oil overland from a terminal offshore to China – avoiding the Straits of Malacca. And the Chinese are active in influencing Pakistan to secure a land route to get closer to the Middle East and station naval ships on the Arabian Sea. Chinese troops are in Kashmir.
China recently imported almost 8 million barrels of oil a day, about half from the ME. It also depends upon foreign copper, iron, soybeans, and certain coal. These require control of the sealanes. Land routes diversify risk. From the viewpoint of the Chinese, their geopolitical risk rests at sea.
EJ. and IWalton touch on this key point, when you add government, regulators, and elites to the mix, trade deals become targets of opportunity for “rent seekers” and “log rolling.”
I know this first hand, and from the back of that hand across my face. It made us better. It cost jobs. We got those back. It was hard. I cannot say we enjoyed it.
But, as conservatives we either play or we watch Donald Trump ease his way to defeat taking the Senate, the Court and maybe the House with him. We have to get into the trade game, play it well, and expect that many politicians, agreement terms and tride conditions will fail us in individual cases. And a few will please us.
In the end, free trade is a winner and it will migrate that way over time if we participate. But it is not “simple.”
Well we have our president’s awesome track record to go by.
Yes, you are right again.
But, we cannot leave the field. And we must get used to playing without the White House in our corner.
And there will always be humans on this planet who we trust, but not explicitly when it comes to driving our 1955 T-bird, ’57 Chevy or Porsche 911. And especially when it comes to voting in Washington…
That makes little sense. Who wants to play by rules that state your own government is against you?
What drives this faith of yours that a comprehensive 12-nation monstrosity negotiated in secret is better than 12 deals made separately? Or that ratification and rule initiation is paramount over public study of its long term effects?
I’m far more akin to Yossarianesque philosophy. I actually feel like Obama has personally tried to destroy my life. Sure he doesn’t know me but it’s personal.
I don’t think this is factually accurate. The list of Republican Candidates who had negative comments or opposed the deal, thus not robustly defending TPP, included: Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Huckabee, Santorum, Jindal, Paul, Chris Christie, Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham.
Trump is the most bombastic, but is not alone in failing to robustly defend the TPP
Not really something I believe, when you used the term “no-Knowthing-ism”. And when you implied I did not know how complex contracts are.
Those two things just do not line up.
I just got told it is all more complex than this, and that I am a know nothing for thinking that way.
LOL
So I have to pay money so I can learn about how the Most Complex Trade Deal in history will help me.
By the way, “The most complex” anything in history is always something that sounds bad. Complexity is a bad thing in any system I have ever been engaged in. Simple is always better.
I am not a cynic but a product of the 20th and 21st century. Like it or not, globalization has worked. I don’t believe my own government is against me. I do believe certain political factions disagree with me. That is my job to change their minds. But we cannot change the minds of others, only they can do that.
12 deals made independently might be fine too – but that is much more complex to arrange. When you have Japan and the US in the mix, they can apply pressure together and individually. Multiply this by many other members including Australia and Indonesia who are the oil and raw material suppliers to this consortium. It kind of makes sense from a negotiating point of view that 12 together can cut a better deal – but you are free to disagree.
As for study – we have studied it. And each person should as well.
It is already established in publicly available sources what it will do – slash tariffs on American manufacture and agricultural exports.
Apparently, we have to pass it to find out what is in it.
Sounds like something else really complex that did not work out.
How about, if China is making side deals, we do too. Free Trade.
End every last subsidy and tarrif protection in the United States to everyone all at once.
I have been told Free Trade is always a good thing no matter who gets hurt, so let’s do that, instead of a secret document that we all *know* will have carve outs for K Street.
Why is defending Japan America’s responsibility? And why would anyone with a lick of sense and knowledge of Japanese culture EVER believe that Japan would truly open their markets?
If this is what it takes to sell TPP now, its a sign that its going to lose.
Being against the TPP is not an argument against Globalization, but thanks for joining the crowd that name calls when there is any resistance.
What I am asking for is for someone to break down the TPP and tell me how it will help me. You are unable to do that, and send me to research for myself. That means you do not fully understand how it will help, and are forced to rely on others. That is always a giant red flashing light to me.
Any subject in politics can be simplified. This is not rocket science.
Finally, your government is against you. It wants to control your speech, it wants to control your faith, it wants to control your thoughts.
No one does not need to be informed and pay a price for information on cable, in newspapers and in subscriptions. I have always resented Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine for charging for their content.
But being informed has a price in time and money. It is part of being a citizen. One might even say it is a civic duty.
As I have said over and over, the WSJ has covered this subject in detail with many opinions written both for and against. If you just read those you will begin to grasp the TPP. Foreign Affairs, economic journals and other good sources have also commented with many more specifics as well.
Could you explain how 12 small deals is more complex than one big deal that has 12 countries agreeing to different things.
The US and Vietnam can come to a reasonable agreement with out the input of any other country. Or the US and Vietnam can only have a deal if 10 other countries agree to to the deal.
How is the first more complex?
It is not up to me to do massive research on every thing that comes down the pike. I do not have time. Much like being a CEO, I have people that I trust digest the details.
If this is such a good thing, you should be able to give me the digest. You cannot. Therefore, you do not yourself understand how it is a good thing. Therefore, if you, who is clearly so much better informed than I am, cannot sum up its greatness, it must not be that great.