Elizabeth Warren ramping up opposition to Pacific trade deal | Hacker News Reader

Elizabeth Warren ramping up opposition to Pacific trade deal

thehill.com

30 pointswalterbell18 comments

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I find this whole thing incomprehensible.

Obama is for it, but Warren,Hillary,Trump,Stein are not for it.

Bernie supporters don't trust Hillary to be against it. McAuliffe said Hillary is actually for it.

Assange and Wikileaks say it will lead to the fascist rule of the oligarchy controlling every small part of our lives.

Then there the whole eff stance on it.https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

I find it all so mind boggling.

The best analysis comes from actual expert in international trade: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/opinion/krugman-no-big-dea...

I just can't believe Krugman because of a bunch of articles I've read about the secrecy involved. I don't understand how any one actually knows anything about it.

http://www.vox.com/cards/trans-pacific-partnership/what-is-t...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/04/ttip-t...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/04/13/tpp_trans...

What? The agreement was negotiated in secret, as is convention to prevent interference during negotiation. The full text has been available for a few months now. It's right here: https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/tran...

wow thanks.

I typically like Krugman but he has clearly not focusing on the real issues on TPP. I am in favor of free trade and don't find TPP in any real way supports that.

> I am in favor of free trade and don't find TPP in any real way supports that.

That's his argument.

Sorry I was a bozo in not being clear. I feel he (not only in this piece from 2014 but in pieces since) underweights / ignores the non-trade factors and the undemocratic process by which it emerged.

He touches on the corporatist issues but the strongest statement he can make is "doubtful". He sees the whole things through a perspective of political process wangling and not how it is on its own merits (or lack thereof).

While in general I'm not opposed to free trade, I think this is the right move because of what I've read about the TPP specifically. But I rarely read anything positive about it. Could someone who knows more about the TPP explain what the positives of the deal would be?

If you are an American:

    1. Political influence in a region of the world that China is increasingly exercising its influence
    2. Stronger labor and environmental enforcement for those that sign on
    3. IP protection among members that sign on
    4. Reduced tariffs

Well, one point is that if the US decides not to ratify it or takes too long, there is a competing agreement that China has proposed that would give greater trade freedom to China, and their proposal has far less in terms of ecological and human rights protections. Not to mention that it would mean that the US loses a bunch of leverage against China economically.

So ultimately we have a choice between losing human rights protections to China, or losing human rights protections to corporations. Thanks, Obama.

I don't know a ton about the TPP, but here's a supportive argument from a liberal perspective.

"The TPP’s new rules would achieve a high-water mark in global efforts to abolish child labor and gender discrimination, protect collective bargaining worldwide, curb trade in endangered species and conserve critical marine resources."

https://theconversation.com/why-progressives-should-rescue-t...

Do we know how well those laws will be enforced? I've never understood how it's intellectually consistent to have strong labour protections and free trade with places that are grossly unequal with regards to those protections.

This title would benefit from using Warren's full name. I initially thought perhaps they meant Warren Buffet.

how often do people use first names like that?

In HN titles, not rarely.

People with peerages traditionally sign with only one name. I think that's what happened here with Elizabeth, Countess Warren. She did inherit the title from Earl Warren, right?

(The real answer here is that The Hill is for political insiders so as soon as you saw the words Warren and TPP, they assumed you knew the subject.)

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