By Star Fox
Negotiators of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) announced Friday that they had failed to finalize the deal after several days of talks in Hawaii.
Curtis Ellis of World Net Daily reports:
Negotiations stalled when national governments failed to accede to corporatist demands to open their borders and allow “people, goods, capital and information to flow freely through the zone,” as Japanese Trade Minister Akira Amari described TPP’s goals at a news conference Friday evening.
*****
Striking a deal over how long to protect data used to develop biologic drugs was described as the biggest source of frustration by a source from a non-U.S. negotiating nation.
U.S. drug manufacturers want 12 years, but Australia wants five. A compromise of seven or eight years is seen as a possible compromise.
“The US was on one side of the issue, while practically every other country were on the other side,” the source told Associated Press.
Division between the U.S. and Japan over cars and New Zealand’s reluctance to set terms on dairy also played a role in the halting of finalization, reports ABC Australia.
The talks in Hawaii were expected to bring about the finalization of the economic regulatory deal which spans 12 nations. This would have satisfied the Obama Administration who had pressed Congress earlier in the summer to delegate their ability to amend treaties to the President for quick ratification.
As Curtis Ellis of WND concludes, the negotiations are likely now to stretch into the upcoming presidential election.
“The failure to reach an agreement assures TPP will be an issue in next year’s presidential contest. Insurgent candidates Donald Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left oppose the deal, pressing establishment candidates to take a stand on a pact that is deeply unpopular with voters across the political spectrum,” Ellis writes.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership has been described as the largest economic regulatory deal to come under negotiation. The deal involves the nations of Brunei, Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam, encompassing 40 percent of global GDP.
The TPP has come under harsh scrutiny due to the level of secrecy surrounding the deal. Members of the U.S. Congress have been threatened with reprisal if they speak publicly about the treaty’s contents.
What’s also extremely concerning is the fact that members of Congress must enter a private room in the basement of the capital, where they must surrender their belongings while totally absent of legal assistance in order to review some of the text in the treaty.
Some have even argued that the TPP has very little to do with trade.
Star Fox is a U.S. based journalist who contributes to Eyesopenreport.com. His works have been published by recognizable alternative new sites like GlobalResearch.ca, ActivistPost.com and Intellihub.com. Follow @StarFoxReport
The great Hawaiian godess Pele put her foot down and said “not on my island, you FAKAS!”
Or… What an O-BUMMER!!! Ba-dom-pshh. Yeah I know that’s lame. Whatever.
TPP is ridiculous. I can only speak from Malaysian perspective but surely the same reasons are applicable to other countries. (1) TPP content is shrouded in secrecy, we don’t know what we’re going into, (2) we don’t trust our government, they will listen more to industrial lobbyists rather than real people, (3) Western countries will still be protective of their agriculture industry, there is no way we can penetrate their market, and (4) our companies lack the competitiveness and market scale, we’ll be gobbled by American and Japanese big companies under TPP regime. In short, the whole TPP thing is a complete farce. Why can’t America just threaten us with nuke and say, ‘Don’t trade with China and let American companies come in and rape your country?’. That’ll be much easier to understand.
Great comment, the only part I’d disagree with is the implication that the USA – or about 95% of US citizens – won’t be getting raped just as thoroughly. TPP is about corporate sovereignty, and the “right” of corporations to profit at the expense of nations, peoples, the earth, and life itself.
You mean to say, “The right of the wealthy to rule over the poor.”
Any deal that is that secret should not be allowed to pass. Sounds like a power grab of our rights and sovereignty by the multi-national pukes whose only loyalty is to profit. I can not be good for the 99% or why else is it secret?”
Yep, and if it’s about creating jobs, why did Congress try to take $700 million from Medicare to pay for re-training people who lost jobs because of TPP?
TPP / TPIP / TISA – all negotiated in secret. All good for the very few at the expense of everyone else.
The countries are finally reading the fine print which the American public was prevented from? this is economic rape & pillage of the small countries by big mafia, good luck folks….
Whoopie, Whoopie, whoopie, best news i’ve heard all month