December 25, 2013
The Washington Post just loves anything that is labeled as a free trade agreement. (I’m going to call my old car a “free trade agreement” and sell it to the Post for a fortune.) Today it ran a piece on the Trans-Pacific Partnership that had the sub-head:
“goal of talks with Pacific region is a freer flow of world commerce.”
While this is also asserted in the article itself, it is not true as the article makes clear. One of the main purposes of the deal is strengthening patent and copyright protection and other claims to intellectual property.
Note the word “protection.” This aspect of the deal is about obstructing the free flow of international commerce. These forms of protectionism will raise the price of many items by several thousand percent above their free market price. They will cause large amounts of resource to be wasted to legal suits, lobbying, marketing, and other forms of rent-seeking activity.
It is possible to argue for the merits of increased protection for intellectual property claims, but it is just flat wrong to describe this as creating a freer flow of international commerce. These forms of protection are 180 degrees at odds with free trade.
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