Talks for Pacific Trade Deal Stall at a Critical Step
Source: New York Times
LAHAINA, Hawaii Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations were headed toward failure Friday, with difficult talks on the largest regional trade agreement ever breaking down over protections for pharmaceutical companies and access to agriculture markets on both sides of the Pacific.
Negotiators will return to their home countries to obtain high-level signoffs for a small number of final sticking points on the agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with bilateral talks reconvening soon.
But the breakdown is a setback for the Obama administration, which had promoted the talks here as the final round ahead of an accord that would bind 40 percent of the worlds economy under a new set of rules for commerce.
President Obamas trade push had been buoyed by Congresss narrow passage in June of fast track trade negotiating powers, and American negotiators had hoped other countries could come together once Congress had given up the right to amend any final agreement.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/business/tpp-trade-talks-us-pacific-nations.html?_r=0
djean111
(14,255 posts)fbc
(1,668 posts)Oh wait, no, that's us. We are the bad guys.
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)Auggie
(31,240 posts)YES! We need debate on this, and what better venue is there than Presidential debates?
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)I'd read reports that petitions, letters, calls, emails were running as high as 100 to one against fast track & these T agreements.Yet all Repubs along with enough Wall Street Dems pushed through fast track & set up approval of the following T agreements.
I know I won't be voting again for my Rep Scott Peters. I wouldn't vote for Feinstein ever again either, but I heard she's not running again.
And wow if Ron Wyden were my senator, I'd sure be looking for another Dem to support in 2016. Wyden was the lynchpin Democratic turncoat and enabler of this surrender of our sovereignty to global corporate, unchallengeable kangaroo courts.
ruffburr
(1,190 posts)This deal collapses under its own weight, Would save the world not to mention the U.S.
admonish
(57 posts)....admittedly, not 'merican citizens so much but definitely american based multinationals...especially big pharma and the dirty industrials...the reason obama supports this, imo, is because it will move the american economy forward as a whole....downward pressure on wages is there with or without this deal and upward pressure from the poorer countries is there as well...my opinion is that north american wages will rebound only when the poorer countries get theirs
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)Monk06
(7,675 posts)industries from competition and avoiding environmental and consumer regulations in other countries.
In other words it's about trade protectionism the opposite of what it is called.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)are the only ones who can stop this unless our congress finally understands how bad this really is.
villager
(26,001 posts)May these talks collapse and swirl into the gutter of history....
irisblue
(33,059 posts)Scruffy1
(3,257 posts)JackInGreen
(2,975 posts)Left for dead and picked by vultures.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)So US pharmaceutical corporations are strangling the TPP in it's crib with their unabated greed!?!
That's the sweetest irony I've encountered in a l-o-o-o-n-g time
beltanefauve
(1,784 posts)And only three were in favor of the TTP.
Two of those seemed like they were written by lobbyists or paid shills.
snot
(10,549 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)eridani
(51,907 posts)davidpdx
(22,000 posts)DCBob
(24,689 posts)Sounds like a negotiating tactic and also posturing to send a message to their constituents that they are trying to get the best deal possible.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)'agreements'from all the trade deals.
If that's the only part holding the deal back.
lark
(23,199 posts)Whoohoo for destroying the pharmacy companies wet dreams of raising prices all over the world and ending the days of quick generic version. Whoohoo for no corporate courts overriding local labor and environmental laws.
to Australia
lark
(23,199 posts)Big pharma is not going to give up and neither are the other multinationals. It's just so good to get some happy news for a change on this topic that I just wanted to celebrate for a moment.