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It's not that simple. Barriers to trade aren't just tariffs. Technical regulations, standards, etc. implemented by participating countries in different manners
by Bluestrike2 10y ago
It's not that simple. Barriers to trade aren't just tariffs. Technical regulations, standards, etc. implemented by participating countries in different manners all serve as barriers to trade. TPP specifically targets these barriers in an effort to make international trade more flexible. It's not about imposing specific restrictions; on the contrary, by and large, it's about looking at existing ones and figuring out just how in the hell you can simplify them and get them to match up better:
But trade discrimination in 2016 is different than it was in 1948, when the GATT made its debut, or even 1994, when NAFTA came into effect. The process of legislating national standards and regulations that can differ from global ones means that governments can block trade in ways the drafters of GATT could never have even imagined.
Those who believe in a rules-based global economy should cheer rather than condemn the fact that TPP runs thousands of pages. Its complexity reflects the fact that, like KORUS before it, the deal is going after high-hanging fruit. After all, the WTO has already picked the low-hanging fruit by disciplining most tariffs. [0]
0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/02/yes-the-tpp-agreement-is-over-5000-pages-long-heres-why-thats-a-good-thing/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/0...
- AnthonyMouse 10y agoThat sort of harmonization belongs in the IETF and its equivalents in other industries, not legally binding international trade agreements. It also seems like a quite impractical protectionist method for any major country, because foreign competitors will suffer an inconvenience complying with the regulation, but in most cases that won't actually keep them out of the country. And then your country's domestic industry will suffer the same inconvenience exporting their product when they have to comply with the conflicting regulations in the other country. Wasting resources like that is in the interest of no one, but because it's in the interest of no one, you don't need an international agreement about it, you only need the industry to each go to their respective governments with the same proposed standards and argue that they should each adopt the international industry standards because it will make it easier to export domestic products. And why would a country that didn't agree to that be willing to sign the trade agreement? (If your answer is "some kind of extrademocratic quid pro quo" then you've discovered why these agreements are much hated.)
- Natsu 10y agoThe worry over TPP isn't merely about trade policy. One of the main worries is that it could prevent copyright reform and otherwise erode our legal rights. You can find a good summary of the arguments against it here: https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
- sandworm101 10y agoTrump is a TV executive. He literally owns pieces of TV shows. One of his cabinet finances (bad) movies. Any copyright changes they make will be so MPAA-friendly that we will all be wishing for the TPP. Youtube's legal team is probably sweating bullets atm over potential changes to fair use rules.
- Natsu 10y agoI never said anything about Trump. If he proposes bad changes to copyright, I will protest them, too.