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Comment by paulofmandown | Hacker News Reader

I'm not that into the TPP from what I've read of it, but doesn't bailing on it just open the door for China to take the leadership role and dictate commerce norms for those still involved?

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TPP included some things that were just flat out bad, like the "Investor State Dispute System" (a.k.a. Corporate Sovereignty) and exporting the USA's draconian "Intellectual Property" regime as one of those corporate norms. Both of those things make ordinary citizen's lives worse, at least in the very short term, and almost certainly in the longer term.

The TPP seemed to be more about free flow of capital, rather than free trade as such. Free trade is probably a good thing, but the TPP didn't include free movement of labor, which is certainly a good part of free trade.

The TPP was more "Globalism for me, but not for thee" from the multinationals.

Yes, but the funny end result of this is that bilateral trade deals will likely include similar or even more draconian restrictions w/r/t corporate sovereignty and IP laws as the policies being put forth are US-standard.

Which might not be true. If the deal doesn't benefit the country, guess what will happen? Just don't sign it. Most of the TPP countries didn't have a bilateral agreement with US at this moment, so it is the status quo.

And since Trump's government is backtracking to protectionism, manufacturing jobs will less likely be delegated to countries like Vietnam, and countries like Japan doesn't have its back from US to confront China(Abe must be scratching his head right now, lol), I think it is much less appealing for those countries to hand over domestic control over regulations in exchange for something lesser.

I generally agree - I think the net result is just no trade deals, not bilateral trade deals.

Yes, that's true. But now people are aware of multinationals slipping sops to themselves into trade treaties. Every single bilateral agreement gets voted on in Senate for treaties, and both houses (?) for laws. Stakeholders like the bulk of the populace can be heard multiple times, once on each deal on these issues. One, fast-track vote on TPP where McConnell could stifle all debate procedurally is kind of a farce when nobody but multinationals negotiated it.

Probably. The question is whether or not the US can still negotiate a better trade deal on our terms, but China will definitely seize this chance to propose their own less-drama version for other Pacific countries.

The results of Trump's actions WRT TPP are a couple years down the road. By dismantling the TPP now he reaps the political benefits, leaving the negatives for later. This allows him to expand on his agenda.

Which is how it should be. Why a trade deal whose members are mostly Asian countries, excluded the largest economy in that area, and who in fact being the biggest trade partners of those countries? China should be in the center of such deal, not being excluded from it.

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