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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

So annoying to see virtually 100% of the media play this "oh, no, look what the US missed out on!" angle, primarily because it's Trump that helped kill it. If it was Hillary, I imagine we wouldn't see this kind of response from the media at all.

It's even more frustrating seeing people who once opposed the TPP now support it - again, because Trump was against it, so that must be a bad thing, right?

First off, the TPP was non-democratic and it introduced a ton of bad stuff, like corporate sovereignty (which was just declared illegal/invalid by EU's top court, another sign of how undemocratic these things are). Second, the US didn't really miss out on much:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160112/07433333306/world...

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The new version leaves out some of the bad IP provisions, but leaves in the corporate sovereignty, so to that extent is still not good. Also, the TPP was basically dead in the water in the Senate before Trump took office. No one wanted it.

Clinton was vocally pro TPP and Trump's opposition to it is part of what socialized the Senate opposition in the first place. Under Obama or Clinton it would have passed for sure.

Clinton was vocally pro TPP through ~2012 but gradually flip-flopped during the run-up to the campaign and actively opposed it during the campaign. It's absolutely possible that she would have flip-flopped again if elected, but I don't think you can really say that with certainty.

2012: "This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements" [0]

2014: "Because TPP negotiations are still ongoing, it makes sense to reserve judgment until we can evaluate the final proposed agreement." [0]

2016: "I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages – including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I oppose it now, I’ll oppose it after the election, and I’ll oppose it as president." [1]

[0] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/trump-clinto...

> Clinton was vocally pro TPP through ~2012

It's worth recalling that Clinton was Obama's Secretary of State into 2013, and anything she said from 2009 til then is likely to reflect the position of the Administration rather than her personal views.

That isn't necessarily true. She is a thinking human being with the ability and in that job the profile and clout to form her own opinions. If she didn't agree with TPP she simply didn't consider it worth her job to push on the matter, which isn't much better than agreement with it. It's more likely, given her history as a pro-corporate, free-market conservative Democrat that she supported the TPP and her campaign rhetoric was a pile of lies.

Never the less, she is quoted as claiming "This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field".

She cannot denounce that. There is no way to say you support and believe in something with more vigor than that.

It'd be her version of saying she liked something before she didn't like something in the most convenient way.

> She cannot denounce that.

She can certainly denounce the outcome of a negotiation process that wasn't complete when she said that, or even when she left office as Secretary of State. The agreement drafted in 2015 and signed in 2016 may simply not reflect the thing she was talking about in 2012.

You can believe that. I think she is a true Globalist and it wasn't till Sanders and Trump changed people's attention and perspectives that she got her new religion.

I'm quite sure if there had been a female president Clinton, we'd have ratified the TPP as it stood at the end of 2016. Never say never, but I'm as Sure as one can without a crystal ball that we'd be in that mess of an agreement without Sanders and Trump.

> Clinton was vocally pro TPP

She flipped from pro to neutral between the time when she was involved in negotiations and the time the negotiations completed without her, and the whole way to solidly opposed later.

>Clinton was vocally pro TPP and Trump's opposition to it is part of what socialized the Senate opposition in the first place.

Actually Sen. Bob Menendez probably had more to do with it than Trump with the anti-slavery provision he put in and then tried to take out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tpp-malaysia-slavery_n...

The beginning of the end of that bill was when Obama started trying to take that clause out and opponents (quite fairly) denounced him for being soft on slavery.

Had Hillary not then changed her tune on the TPP she too could have been depicted as a "pro-slavery" candidate running against an "anti-slavery" candidate which would have been slightly awkward.

Obviously not, because if Obama could have gotten it passed, he would have done it before he left office. It was already sinking even before the summer conventions.

Frankly, America being out and removing their IP provisions is probably the biggest reason the agreement actually passed.

Why would we do anything to give multi-nationals more power?

They need reigned in. If Bernie and Trump are both against the TPP then it's a safe bet it's bad for the people.

Is corporate sovereignty the internet-meme-name for the dispute resolution mechanism or is it referring to some other provision?

Yes, it is. Apparently it came from https://twitter.com/jjkaraganis/status/391315705854836736 as per https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131024/11560725004/what-...

Probably. It is provocative but not entirely inaccurate.

International treaties typically have provisions for unilateral withdrawal. They don't subordinate countries. Given a withdrawal provision, they require ongoing commitment to mean anything.

> They don't subordinate countries.

aaand the people within them?

last I checked I cant make my country unilaterally withdraw from a treaty because I don't like being prosecuted by a foreign corporation via a proxy-kangaroo court..

That's really not all that different than any other law you might disagree with, without broad support you aren't going to get your way.

In practice you can expect the disputes to be narrow and not matter to most people...

This is some weird logic. A treaty is a kind of voluntary subordination and going into it with the plan to leaving it once it's rules are enforced is some strange politics.

It's a lot easier to change the rules before you join or not join at all.

That's not the logic I'm putting forth. People making noise about sovereignty frame things in terms of the treaty being an absolute, I'm just pointing out that it isn't an absolute and that the framing is silly.

I mean, I agree it is absurd to have to point out that countries will only stay party to treaties that are of some net benefit, but there you go.

But the discussion is about if it’s a net benefit. It’s much better to decide that before joining.

If the us joined tpp it would get those negatives. We already know that. If those aren’t acceptable they shouldn’t join.

It’s the name for unelected corporate trade lawyers whose decisions would result in changes to national laws previously defined by elected officials.

http://www.isdscorporateattacks.org

https://youtube.com/watch?v=M4-mlGRPmkU

"cannot" in the sense of "if they choose to stay in the treaty".

(I posted quite rapidly after you did and my post made more sense before you finished editing)

Yes, sorry for the change, was still editing. Leaving any agreement is one way to regain national choices lost/foregone due to the agreement. Each agreement can have a different process and consequences for termination. See current US discussion on NAFTA.

> So annoying to see virtually 100% of the media play this "oh, no, look what the US missed out on!" angle, primarily because it's Trump that helped kill it. If it was Hillary, I imagine we wouldn't see this kind of response from the media at all.

Well, Trump's tariffs coming at the same time as the ratification definitely (and explicitly, in much of the coverage I've seen) color the news coverage; but, more than that, sure, given the strength, still, of the neoliberal consensus, the response to rejecting a neoliberal trade deal probably does depend a lot on whether your history suggests that's a specially reasoned step in opposition to the specific deal rather than reflexive opposition to trade; Trump's certainly on the not-Nixon side of the “only Nixon could go to China” aphorism here.

I think the media's coverage of the Trump tariff's support the point.

We have a lot of tariff's. Obama used tariffs, Bush used tariffs. Did any president in recent history not use them?

But instead of the media discussing the pros and cons of the specific tariffs they just scream about how these tariffs are horrible because they are Trump's idea.

They are horrible because literally no one in government supported them, nor was there any sane reason behind them.

The TPP not being adopter by a wide group of nations is no doubt a good thing, considering how bad portions of it is.

That doesn't however mean that the US has a diminished international influence. It most certainly does.

On the upside without the US, maybe we'll have fewer terrible agreements showed down our throats.

Can the people who are downvoting this comment please explain why?

I didn't downvote it, but the reason I don't see it as worth responding to is the bundled assumptions and simplistic analysis.

According to the comment, everything has to be about Trump vs. Clinton; it couldn't possibly be that the IP provisions changed substantially for the better, or any number of other aspects of a complicated agreement.

It is also possible to be against something and have an opinion on how the situation was handled. That some of the IP restrictions were removed shows there was room for negotiation rather than just walking away in a huff.

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