Why you’d want to bring it back from the dead is beyond me.
Also, despite all the hype and hoopla I want to know exactly what any revived TPP will do for us. Only two countries, Japan and New Zealand, have ratified the agreement.
Others have said they will but I’m unaware of anyone actually signing.
My reading of the TPP as regards Japan is that it is one-sided in its favour.
I’d also suggest the Japanese breathing life into the dead TPP is more about politics and power than trade and NZ getting involved in that scenario is extremely short-sighted.
And is Japan really suggesting it’s going to dismantle all its subsidies and protections? I don’t think so.
It would be great if we had the same trade deal with Japan as Australia does but I don’t see that happening.
It is also important to remember a major reason for the last TPP was to establish the United States in Asia as a counter to China.
The quote was “The TPP will provide a strategic hedge against the vast and growing weight of Chinese regional influence”.
Is Japan stepping into the TPP for the same reason? I suspect it is, which is another reason we shouldn’t be involved.
Why should we be part of an agreement aimed at curbing the influence of our biggest market, China? It doesn’t make sense.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he wants to keep the TPP as it stands, which is absurd as it means the American companies will benefit from the past negotiations even though the US has rejected the agreement.
That means the Americans would reap the benefits of the concessions NZ has already made on pharmaceuticals. Why would you?
That the large and exploitive American pharmaceutical companies can get benefits from NZ because of the TPP negotiations even though America hasn’t agreed to the deal tells me heaps about our negotiation skills, tactics and abilities.
My further frustration is that while we get a considerable amount of information and banner-waving on the TPP we read little on the Chinese-driven Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the RCEP.
I believe our future is better served by that agreement than the TPP.
It is also important to remember the original TPP was American-driven and to the considerable advantage of the American economy.
I don’t like the thought of corporations being able to take our government to court over a perceived move by us to disadvantage the corporate. That it will be done in an untested court in a foreign land makes the issue all the more absurd.
To now hear our Prime Minister Bill English telling me that any reformed TPP must be attractive to the US because it could join in future is ridiculous.
In the recent American presidential elections both the Republicans and the Democrats totally rejected the TPP. That is unlikely to change no matter what happens in American politics.
The Trump administration is also saying it wants to revisit the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA), which tells me free trade is definitely not on the American agenda either now or in the mid to long-term.
Why we’re even considering America when we have other options is beyond me.
I can’t see America ever being part of the agreement. The prestigious Harvard Business Review published an article under the heading Don’t Cry for the TPP. It said the TPP was a mistake and there was never anything there.
My strong opinion is that we let America pursue its political imbroglio while we concentrate on things for the good of NZ and New Zealanders. Wistfully hoping that sometime in the future we can encourage America back into the TPP is pointless. It isn’t going to happen.
My additional worry concerns timing. Some of the so-called concessions in the TPP don’t come into effect for 20 years and that is ridiculous.
The way America and the North Koreans are behaving we’ll have a nuclear war before we see any benefits of a one-sided and outdated trade pact.
So I am not keen on breathing life into the TPP.
I am strongly of the view we have better options, including the RCEP
Our Trade Minister Todd McLay opened the RCEP negotiations in Auckland last year saying the agreement could dwarf the TPP.
I agree and believe that the RCEP is where our future lies and not with the TPP which should remain dead and buried.
