Oh fuck it never occurred to me that Biden might try to bring back the TPP. I feel like this issue got memory-holed but I can't emphasize enough that anti-TPP and anti-NAFTA sentiment - a distorted form of anti-globalization articulated as opposition to "globalism" by the alt-right - was one of those key issues that allowed Trump to win the rust belt in 2016.
Trans-pacific intellectual property enforcement agreement dressed up as a trade deal. Criminal penalties for copyright infringement, expanded pharmaceutical patents, private Donzinger-esque courts for enforcement of same, etc. Also lowered a couple tariffs by just enough to get every lib to repeat robot-like "THERE ARE GAINS FROM TRADE" and sing its praises.
Other important features of the TPP that made it odious: it would have accelerated a race to the bottom w.r.t. standards for workplace and consumer safety, environmental regulations, etc. such that every member country would face pressure to lower said standards to match whichever country has the lowest standards. Similar to NAFTA, TPP would allow private corporations to sue member states whose legislative bodies attempted to pass laws improving such conditions through a corporate-owned and -run international court. In NAFTA's case, this has meant that in practice, usually Mexico would get sued for not allowing US and Canadian companies to increase exploitation/negative externalities, and not the other way around (although in theory the same thing could be done to limit democratic rights in the US by international companies on the same basis, which is one of the reasons so many rust belt lumpen bitterly opposed it and gravitated in clusters towards either Bernie or Trump in 2016).
Similar to the EU, NAFTA has placed and TPP would have placed additional imperialist limitations on the democratic rights of member states (especially non-imperial-core states) to make decisions about their own economies. Corporate lawyers wrote TPP like it was a wish list for their bosses, and it showed. If Trump hadn't Clinton had won in 2016 it probably would've been ratified instead of the redundant USMCA which is just NAFTA wearing a Groucho Marx mask. The failure of the US to ratify TPP (which, ironically enough, was the only one of 12 member states not to ratify it) also stopped the similar TTIP from getting off the ground, which would have been the Atlantic equivalent (basically NAFTA + EU members and UK).
Oh fuck it never occurred to me that Biden might try to bring back the TPP. I feel like this issue got memory-holed but I can't emphasize enough that anti-TPP and anti-NAFTA sentiment - a distorted form of anti-globalization articulated as opposition to "globalism" by the alt-right - was one of those key issues that allowed Trump to win the rust belt in 2016.
EDIT: fixed crucial typo
What’s the TTP?
(It's TPP)
Trans-pacific intellectual property enforcement agreement dressed up as a trade deal. Criminal penalties for copyright infringement, expanded pharmaceutical patents, private Donzinger-esque courts for enforcement of same, etc. Also lowered a couple tariffs by just enough to get every lib to repeat robot-like "THERE ARE GAINS FROM TRADE" and sing its praises.
Other important features of the TPP that made it odious: it would have accelerated a race to the bottom w.r.t. standards for workplace and consumer safety, environmental regulations, etc. such that every member country would face pressure to lower said standards to match whichever country has the lowest standards. Similar to NAFTA, TPP would allow private corporations to sue member states whose legislative bodies attempted to pass laws improving such conditions through a corporate-owned and -run international court. In NAFTA's case, this has meant that in practice, usually Mexico would get sued for not allowing US and Canadian companies to increase exploitation/negative externalities, and not the other way around (although in theory the same thing could be done to limit democratic rights in the US by international companies on the same basis, which is one of the reasons so many rust belt lumpen bitterly opposed it and gravitated in clusters towards either Bernie or Trump in 2016).
Similar to the EU, NAFTA has placed and TPP would have placed additional imperialist limitations on the democratic rights of member states (especially non-imperial-core states) to make decisions about their own economies. Corporate lawyers wrote TPP like it was a wish list for their bosses, and it showed. If
Trump hadn'tClinton had won in 2016 it probably would've been ratified instead of the redundant USMCA which is just NAFTA wearing a Groucho Marx mask. The failure of the US to ratify TPP (which, ironically enough, was the only one of 12 member states not to ratify it) also stopped the similar TTIP from getting off the ground, which would have been the Atlantic equivalent (basically NAFTA + EU members and UK).pacific nafta