March 09, 2018
Well, it is the era of Donald Trump in Washington, but this turning reality on its head pre-dated Trump. Anyhow, the Washington Post was in its full trade deal promotion mode when it announced the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by the other eleven countries who had been negotiating the pact with the United States.
The headline of the piece tells readers, “as Trump imposes tariffs, allies sign on to free-trade pact — without US” The first sentence proclaims:
“As the Trump administration took another step away from free trade on Thursday, 11 nations bordering the Pacific Ocean made an equally loud statement in favor of free trade.”
The piece reads largely like an editorial in favor of the TPP. It includes no comments from critics of the pact and ignores the fact that the TPP did little to actually reduce trade barriers since most of these were already low. The United States already had trade pacts with six of the other eleven countries in the pact.
The TPP was mostly about locking in a business-friendly structure of regulation, including special tribunals (investor–state dispute settlement tribunals) which would only be open to foreign investors. These tribunals would effectively override US or state and local laws, imposing penalties for actions that the tribunal ruled to be in violation of the TPP.
A major thrust of the deal was also longer and stronger patent and copyright protections, with higher prices for prescription drugs being a major goal. This is of course 180 degrees at odds with free trade, but apparently, the paper likes the beneficiaries of these protections, so it simply turns reality on its head to promote them.
Comments