4 ms·
In case anyone is confused TTIP (along with NAFTA) is not a "free trade" agreement. A free trade agreement could be written on a post-it note and would be worde
by ancap 11y ago
In case anyone is confused TTIP (along with NAFTA) is not a "free trade" agreement. A free trade agreement could be written on a post-it note and would be worded something like:
"We agree to not get in the way of our citizens engaging in commerce with one another."
- kevinskii 11y agoCountries differ in how they regulate commerce. Reconciling those differences can be very complicated. You may disagree with TTIP or NAFTA, but it doesn't make sense to say that they're not free trade agreements because of their length.
- dragonwriter 11y agoThat's not so much a free trade agreement but a statement of intent around which a free trade agreement can be made. OTOH, any "free trade agreement" that's substantially more text than the US Constitution (which itself is a free trade agreement with lots of other things tacked on) should be looked at suspiciously -- because, whereas the US Constitution is free trade with common rules delegated to accountable common bodies, most bigger free trade agreements do have an element of free trade, but instead of having common rules set by a body accountable to the public of the whole trade area, they set all the common rules in stone at the start to favor particular parties, and either leave adjustments to a body whose members are un- (or only distantly, through multiple layers of indirection) accountable to the public, or to the process of revising the whole agreement typically requiring assent of all parties. So its "free" trade -- plus baked in advantage for certain powerful actors.