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The United States is isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations

151 points by Amadou 13y ago

jayfuerstenberg 13y ago
Thank you for dragging the TPP treaty into the light Wikileaks! Humanity may very well owe you for this.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Practicing your overstatements?
  - Daishiman 13y ago
    Not for the people who would end up dying of Chagas because they can't afford medicine.
  - jayfuerstenberg 13y ago
    In what way? Politics need to be open in order for a healthy democracy to thrive.
r0h1n 13y ago
Is there no end to what the US Govt will do for large lobby groups? Here the US seems to be opposing the rights of Lat-Am countries to use emergency measures to protect their citizens against "Chagas disease" because that would deny its pharma companies a lucrative & desperate market. >> Take the following snippet, from Article QQ.A.5: >> (a) The obligations of this Chapter do not and should not prevent a Party from taking measures to protect public health by promoting access to medicines for all, in particular concerning cases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, [US oppose: chagas] and other epidemics as well as circumstances of extreme urgency or national emergency. >> Here, "[US oppose: chagas]" indicates the word "chagas" is disputed, with the United States opposing its inclusion in the treaty. This is a reference to Chagas disease, a form of trypanosomiasis, a parasitic disease primarily affecting Latin America. U.S. opposition can probably be attributed to pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.
- lukeschlather 13y ago
  > Is there no end to what the US Govt will do for large lobby groups? Clearly, from the snippet you reference, the US Govt is striking a compromise. If there were no end, the US would oppose the whole section, not just the inclusion of chagas.
  - r0h1n 13y ago
    This is rich. So developing countries ought to be happy because the US does not oppose all their efforts to control large-scale public epidemics using emergency measures, but only some. Pray tell me, how is this a "compromise" for anyone other than US pharma companies angry at being denied the ability to milk poorer governments? Please remember: this exemption isn't for all medication or treatment, but for "HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other epidemics as well as circumstances of extreme urgency or national emergency"
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >* If there were no end, the US would oppose the whole section, not just the inclusion of chagas.* What benevolence!
- lylebarrere 13y ago
  Most of the US position has been set by large lobby groups. They're the only one who have been allowed access to the negotiations or draft text until this leek.
- cma 13y ago
  The listed diseases were listed as exempt no matter what; any other disease in an emergency was listed as exempt. Therefore with the us wording patent-knockoff chagas cures would be allowed in a chagas emergency. Still, we need a better way to fund drug research. These treaties should be doing things like cooperative payments towards research. But that wouldn't be "free trade" so the ayn rand/milton friedman/greenspan zealots would have a fit =(
  - r0h1n 13y ago
lylebarrere 13y ago
This is probably more high level academic analysis than the TPP has had in the previous two years of negotiations, and it shows why open access to the treaty can provide great benefit to both the people negotiating it and the people who will be governed by it.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  Great point!
rodgerd 13y ago
There are a number of options for the US. It could, for example, not be involved in the trade talks (it wasn't originally); it could make demands that crash them; it could make ludicrous demands and have them acceeded to; or it could negotiate as a partner to the other members. I suspect that the only two outcomes that are regarded as succesful is a multilateral treaty on US terms, or no multilateral treaty at all. The last thing the US wants is a multilateral treaty between East Asian and Pacific nations, which the US regards as its back yard.
mindstab 13y ago
Not really surprising. A lot of "big" nations from G8 and other places you'd expect to see are plain missing from this mess, and those left, while many are smaller, even they aren't thrilled at being pushed into this clearly US benefiting gig. The US' international cohesive power is on the wane and this is great demonstration.
WildUtah 13y ago
United States and Japan are relatively isolated in their negotiating positions. This could bode poorly for the United States as it seeks to shape the TPP to its liking. Actually this bodes well for the USA. The greatest enemy of the USA on these IP issues is the powerful and moneyed insider lobbies that want to destroy our freedom for a few more dollars. If the US negotiators who are controlled by those interests might be frustrated, that's the best news the American people could get.
- dba7dba 13y ago
  In another word, US lobby industry has met its greatest challenge so far and it's called other nations? I wonder how US lobby firms will deal with foreign nations...
- malandrew 13y ago
  It would be nice if the news stopped using the term "The United States" for all these sorts of stories and instead qualified them more precisely. e.g. "US special interest groups representing the intellectual property lobby isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations"
  - agravier 13y ago
    It would also be good to to that for other countries as well, of course.
  - gdy 13y ago
    If not for the fact that these groups act with consent of the government elected by the people of the United States.
    - sp332 13y ago
      Actually, Congress hasn't been allowed to see the treaty either.
Pitarou 13y ago
I think the distinctive feature about Japan and the US is that both governments are (through very different mechanisms) under the sway of their own internal pressure groups. This makes them unable to take a reasonable bargaining stance. Perhaps this is a symptom of Japan's and America's waning power? In the past, they could afford to take less reasonable stances because they were dominant in their respective spheres, so their political classes had no incentive to clean things up.
nl 13y ago
Ignoring for a second the subject matter, I think it's fantastic to see network analysis used in a (non-academic) major publication. It is about time the insights that can give are made available to a wider audience. I'd love to see the techniques Bret Victor uses in his "Ladder of Abstraction"[1] essay applied here especially if they were combined with the beauty of the NY Times "Snowfall" visualisations[2]. Anyway, well done Washington Post! [1] http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction [2] http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunne...
mtgx 13y ago
I imagine that after SOPA and ACTA, those other countries didn't listen to every US request anymore, and were embolden to have their own requests.
xarball 13y ago
JESUS CHRIST their layout is annoying! I'm sorry I couldn't even read the article because there's so much CSS garbage on that page!
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
What's wrong with being alone in pushing an issue? Is this middle school?
forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
When you do business with the US, you see it very clearly: The US is a world on their own. So big that they don't need to establish connections as they already have the connections between their States, some of them(most of them) bigger than Chile or New Zealand.
coldtea 13y ago
>The United States is isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations School bully and his group of 30 rugby playing pals is isolated on negotating taking the lunch boxes of nerds.
CalRobert 13y ago
I really look forward to the day the rest of the world doesn't give a crap about whatever the US does. A decadent hegemony in decline that doesn't even realize how infantile it looks.
quattrofan 13y ago
So now we know why this is being done in secret, so the US can push morally indefensible positions such as that over Chagas disease on behalf of big pharma.
vorg 13y ago
> This graph indicates that the core overlap of negotiating positions currently includes New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, and Malaysia, although the direct connection between New Zealand and Singapore is weaker than the others. Maybe that's because the 12-country TPP, initiated in 2010, is an expanded version of the 4-country TPSEP (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) agreement from 5 yrs earlier among Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, and Brunei. Their overlapping negotiating positions were cemented 5 years earlier than the other 8 countries. > Counting up sole-country proposals, we might have expected the United States to take first place; in reality, it turns out to be Canada, with the United States and Japan following well behind. Of course, this chart doesn’t tell us what Canada is proposing or opposing on its own. It could well be that Canada is the sole party capable of opposing controversial provisions. Maybe this is because the most recent countries to join the negotiations were Japan (March 2013), Canada, and Mexico (both October 2012). The article doesn't mention this fact, instead speculates "It could well be that Canada is the sole party capable of opposing controversial provisions". I would expect better from the Washington Post.
erikig 13y ago
I was somewhat disappointed by the articles inherent bias towards the US. There is no reason why the US should place its strong IP laws and history of pharmaceutical innovation in jeopardy during the opening salvos of an international treaty negotiations.
- bobbydavid 13y ago
  This brings up an interesting question. what is the BATNA of these countries. That is, what is their recourse if nobody can agree?
Eye_of_Mordor 13y ago
Irony: increased openness for a president who promised change.

151 points by Amadou 13y ago

jayfuerstenberg 13y ago

Thank you for dragging the TPP treaty into the light Wikileaks! Humanity may very well owe you for this.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Practicing your overstatements?
- Daishiman 13y ago
  Not for the people who would end up dying of Chagas because they can't afford medicine.
- jayfuerstenberg 13y ago
  In what way? Politics need to be open in order for a healthy democracy to thrive.

r0h1n 13y ago

Is there no end to what the US Govt will do for large lobby groups? Here the US seems to be opposing the rights of Lat-Am countries to use emergency measures to protect their citizens against "Chagas disease" because that would deny its pharma companies a lucrative & desperate market. >> Take the following snippet, from Article QQ.A.5: >> (a) The obligations of this Chapter do not and should not prevent a Party from taking measures to protect public health by promoting access to medicines for all, in particular concerning cases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, [US oppose: chagas] and other epidemics as well as circumstances of extreme urgency or national emergency. >> Here, "[US oppose: chagas]" indicates the word "chagas" is disputed, with the United States opposing its inclusion in the treaty. This is a reference to Chagas disease, a form of trypanosomiasis, a parasitic disease primarily affecting Latin America. U.S. opposition can probably be attributed to pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.

lukeschlather 13y ago
> Is there no end to what the US Govt will do for large lobby groups? Clearly, from the snippet you reference, the US Govt is striking a compromise. If there were no end, the US would oppose the whole section, not just the inclusion of chagas.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  This is rich. So developing countries ought to be happy because the US does not oppose all their efforts to control large-scale public epidemics using emergency measures, but only some. Pray tell me, how is this a "compromise" for anyone other than US pharma companies angry at being denied the ability to milk poorer governments? Please remember: this exemption isn't for all medication or treatment, but for "HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other epidemics as well as circumstances of extreme urgency or national emergency"
- coldtea 13y ago
  >* If there were no end, the US would oppose the whole section, not just the inclusion of chagas.* What benevolence!
lylebarrere 13y ago
Most of the US position has been set by large lobby groups. They're the only one who have been allowed access to the negotiations or draft text until this leek.
cma 13y ago
The listed diseases were listed as exempt no matter what; any other disease in an emergency was listed as exempt. Therefore with the us wording patent-knockoff chagas cures would be allowed in a chagas emergency. Still, we need a better way to fund drug research. These treaties should be doing things like cooperative payments towards research. But that wouldn't be "free trade" so the ayn rand/milton friedman/greenspan zealots would have a fit =(
- r0h1n 13y ago

lylebarrere 13y ago

This is probably more high level academic analysis than the TPP has had in the previous two years of negotiations, and it shows why open access to the treaty can provide great benefit to both the people negotiating it and the people who will be governed by it.

r0h1n 13y ago
Great point!

rodgerd 13y ago

There are a number of options for the US. It could, for example, not be involved in the trade talks (it wasn't originally); it could make demands that crash them; it could make ludicrous demands and have them acceeded to; or it could negotiate as a partner to the other members. I suspect that the only two outcomes that are regarded as succesful is a multilateral treaty on US terms, or no multilateral treaty at all. The last thing the US wants is a multilateral treaty between East Asian and Pacific nations, which the US regards as its back yard.

mindstab 13y ago

Not really surprising. A lot of "big" nations from G8 and other places you'd expect to see are plain missing from this mess, and those left, while many are smaller, even they aren't thrilled at being pushed into this clearly US benefiting gig. The US' international cohesive power is on the wane and this is great demonstration.

WildUtah 13y ago

United States and Japan are relatively isolated in their negotiating positions. This could bode poorly for the United States as it seeks to shape the TPP to its liking. Actually this bodes well for the USA. The greatest enemy of the USA on these IP issues is the powerful and moneyed insider lobbies that want to destroy our freedom for a few more dollars. If the US negotiators who are controlled by those interests might be frustrated, that's the best news the American people could get.

dba7dba 13y ago
In another word, US lobby industry has met its greatest challenge so far and it's called other nations? I wonder how US lobby firms will deal with foreign nations...
malandrew 13y ago
It would be nice if the news stopped using the term "The United States" for all these sorts of stories and instead qualified them more precisely. e.g. "US special interest groups representing the intellectual property lobby isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations"
- agravier 13y ago
  It would also be good to to that for other countries as well, of course.
- gdy 13y ago
  If not for the fact that these groups act with consent of the government elected by the people of the United States.
  - sp332 13y ago
    Actually, Congress hasn't been allowed to see the treaty either.

Pitarou 13y ago

I think the distinctive feature about Japan and the US is that both governments are (through very different mechanisms) under the sway of their own internal pressure groups. This makes them unable to take a reasonable bargaining stance. Perhaps this is a symptom of Japan's and America's waning power? In the past, they could afford to take less reasonable stances because they were dominant in their respective spheres, so their political classes had no incentive to clean things up.

nl 13y ago

Ignoring for a second the subject matter, I think it's fantastic to see network analysis used in a (non-academic) major publication. It is about time the insights that can give are made available to a wider audience. I'd love to see the techniques Bret Victor uses in his "Ladder of Abstraction"[1] essay applied here especially if they were combined with the beauty of the NY Times "Snowfall" visualisations[2]. Anyway, well done Washington Post! [1] http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction http://worrydream.com/#!2/LadderOfAbstraction [2] http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunnel-creek http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/#/?part=tunne...

mtgx 13y ago

I imagine that after SOPA and ACTA, those other countries didn't listen to every US request anymore, and were embolden to have their own requests.

xarball 13y ago

JESUS CHRIST their layout is annoying! I'm sorry I couldn't even read the article because there's so much CSS garbage on that page!

alexeisadeski3 13y ago

What's wrong with being alone in pushing an issue? Is this middle school?

forgottenpaswrd 13y ago

When you do business with the US, you see it very clearly: The US is a world on their own. So big that they don't need to establish connections as they already have the connections between their States, some of them(most of them) bigger than Chile or New Zealand.

coldtea 13y ago

>The United States is isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations School bully and his group of 30 rugby playing pals is isolated on negotating taking the lunch boxes of nerds.

CalRobert 13y ago

I really look forward to the day the rest of the world doesn't give a crap about whatever the US does. A decadent hegemony in decline that doesn't even realize how infantile it looks.

quattrofan 13y ago

So now we know why this is being done in secret, so the US can push morally indefensible positions such as that over Chagas disease on behalf of big pharma.

vorg 13y ago

> This graph indicates that the core overlap of negotiating positions currently includes New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, and Malaysia, although the direct connection between New Zealand and Singapore is weaker than the others. Maybe that's because the 12-country TPP, initiated in 2010, is an expanded version of the 4-country TPSEP (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) agreement from 5 yrs earlier among Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, and Brunei. Their overlapping negotiating positions were cemented 5 years earlier than the other 8 countries. > Counting up sole-country proposals, we might have expected the United States to take first place; in reality, it turns out to be Canada, with the United States and Japan following well behind. Of course, this chart doesn’t tell us what Canada is proposing or opposing on its own. It could well be that Canada is the sole party capable of opposing controversial provisions. Maybe this is because the most recent countries to join the negotiations were Japan (March 2013), Canada, and Mexico (both October 2012). The article doesn't mention this fact, instead speculates "It could well be that Canada is the sole party capable of opposing controversial provisions". I would expect better from the Washington Post.

erikig 13y ago

I was somewhat disappointed by the articles inherent bias towards the US. There is no reason why the US should place its strong IP laws and history of pharmaceutical innovation in jeopardy during the opening salvos of an international treaty negotiations.

bobbydavid 13y ago
This brings up an interesting question. what is the BATNA of these countries. That is, what is their recourse if nobody can agree?

Eye_of_Mordor 13y ago

Irony: increased openness for a president who promised change.