‘Free trade’ in trouble in the United States

 

  The United States

  Current Bilateral/Multilateral FTA's

  Proposed/Suspended Bilateral/Multilateral FTA's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_trade_agreements

As free trade reaches a crossroads in the US, developing countries have to rethink their own trade realities for their own development interests.

“FREE trade” seems to be in deep trouble in the United States, with serious implications for the rest of the world.

Opposition to free trade or trade agreements emerged as a big theme among the leading American presidential candidates.

Donald Trump attacked cheap imports especially from China and threatened to raise tariffs. Hillary Clinton criticised the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) which she once championed, and Bernie Sanders’ opposition to free trade agreements (FTAs) helped him win in many states before the New York primary.

That trade became such a hot topic in the campaigns reflects a strong anti-free trade sentiment on the ground.

Almost six million jobs were lost in the US manufacturing sector from 1999 to 2011.

Wages have remained stagnant while the incomes of the top one per cent of Americans have shot up.

Rightly or wrongly, many Americans blame these problems on US trade policy and FTAs.

The downside of trade agreements have been highlighted by economists like Joseph Stiglitz and by unions and NGOs. But the benefits of “free trade” have been touted by almost all mainstream economists and journalists.

Recently, however, the establishment media have published many articles on the collapse of popular support for free trade in the US:

> Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary, noted that “a revolt against global integration is under way in the West”. The main reason is a sense “that it is a project carried out by elites for elites with little consideration for the interests of ordinary people”.

> The Economist, with a cover sub-titled “America turns against free trade”, lamented how mainstream politicians are pouring fuel on the anti-free trade fire. While maintaining that free trade still deserves full support, it cites studies showing that the losses from free trade are more concentrated and longer-lasting than had been assumed.

> Financial Times columnist Phillip Steven’s article “US politics is closing the door on free trade” quotes Washington observers saying that there is no chance of the next president or Congress, of whatever colour, backing the TPPA. The backlash against free trade is deep as the middle classes have seen scant evidence of the gains once promised for past trade deals.

> In a blog on the Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip’s article The Case for Free Trade is Weaker Than You Think concludes that if workers lose their jobs to imports and central banks can’t bolster domestic spending enough to re-employ them, a country may be worse off and keeping imports out can make it better off.

Orthodox economists argue that free trade is beneficial because consumers enjoy cheaper goods. They recognise that companies that can’t compete with imports close and workers get retrenched. But they assume that there will be new businesses generated by exports and the retrenched workers will shift there, so that overall there will be higher productivity and no net job loss.

However, new research, some of which is cited by the articles above, shows that this positive adjustment can take longer than anticipated or may not take place at all.

Thus, trade liberalisation can cause net losses under certain conditions. The gains from having cheaper goods and more exports could be more than offset by loss of local businesses, job retrenchments and stagnant wages.

There are serious implications of this shift against free trade in the US.

The TPPA may be threatened as Congress approval is required and this is now less likely to happen during Obama’s term.

Under a new president and Congress, it is not clear there will be enough support.

If the US does not ratify the TPPA, the whole deal may be off as the other countries do not see the point of joining without the US.

US scepticism on the benefits of free trade has also now affected the multilateral arena. At the World Trade Organisation, the US is now refusing attempts to complete the Doha Round.

More US protectionism is now likely. Trump has threatened to slap high tariffs on Chinese goods. Even if this crude method is not used, the US can increasingly use less direct methods such as anti-dumping actions. Affected countries will then retaliate, resulting in a spiral.

This turn of events is ironic.

For decades, the West has put high pressure on developing countries, even the poorest among them, to liberalise their trade.

A few countries, mainly Asian, staged their liberalisation carefully and benefited from industrialised exports which could pay for their increased imports.

However, countries with a weak capacity, especially in Africa, saw the collapse of their industries and farms as cheap imports replaced local products.

Many development-oriented economists and groups were right to caution poorer countries against sudden import liberalisation and pointed to the fallacy of the theory that free trade is always good, but the damage was already done.

Ironically, it is now the US establishment that is facing people’s opposition to the free trade logic.

It should be noted that the developed countries have not really practised free trade. Their high-cost agriculture sector is kept afloat by extremely high subsidies, which enable them to keep out imports and, worse, to sell their subsidised farm products to the rest of the world at artificially low prices.

Eliminating these subsidies or reducing them sharply was the top priority at the WTO’s Doha Agenda. But this is being jettisoned by the insistence of developed countries that the Doha Round is dead.

In the bilateral and plurilateral FTAs like the TPPA, the US and Europe have also kept the agriculture subsidy issue off the table.

Thus, the developed countries succeeded in maintaining trade rules that allow them to continue their protectionist practices.

Finally, if the US itself is having growing doubts about the benefits of “free trade”, less powerful countries should have a more realistic assessment of trade liberalisation.

As free trade and trade policy reaches a crossroads in the US and the rest of the West, developing countries have to rethink their own trade realities and make their own trade policies for their own development interests.


By Martin Khor

Martin Khor (director@southcentre.org) is executive director of the South Centre. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

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Reconsider TPPA in public interest

Use the next two years to think about the TPPA and its many implications for present as well as future generations of Malaysians.

LAST week, Malaysia’s Parliament authorised the government to sign and ratify the 6350-page Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). Thankfully, as the Minister has emphasised, countries will not need to ratify the deal for about two years, and can withdraw after that, though neither option will be costless. Hence, it is important to use the next two years to have a careful consideration of the TPPA and its many implications for present as well as future generations of Malaysians.

Who gains how much?

Most people think the TTPA is about greater growth from freer trade. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even the overly optimistic computable general equilibrium (CGE) projections, made on methodologically moot grounds, recognise that more trade does not mean more growth. After all, freer trade not only means more exports, but also more imports. Without adequate compensatory mechanisms, nothing guarantees that all will benefit.

The net gains for growth from increased trade are difficult to estimate reliably, and depend very much on crucial assumptions made for modelling. Even the CGE models used for TPPA advocacy acknowledge limited net economic benefits from trade liberalisation. Hence, while the TPPA will result in greater trade, there is no reliable basis for assuming that increased trade will improve economic welfare for all.

More production for export will partly replace production for domestic markets. Exports are less labour-intensive and use more imported inputs than production for domestic markets. Businesses become more competitive by cutting labour costs, negatively affecting income distribution, thus further weakening domestic demand.

Both the USA and Malaysia are among the world’s most open economies, with little more trade to be gained by further reducing tariffs. The TPPA does not address many non-tariff barriers, e.g. the campaign against Malaysian palm oil.

The only US government study of the TPP’s growth effects did not see much growth from increased trade. The World Bank and Peterson Institute studies claimed more significant growth gains from large, but dubious projected increases in foreign direct investment (FDI). But there is no evidence that FDI reliably increases tax revenue, especially with the generous tax incentives offered by the authorities.

Cheap labour

As a middle income country, it will be difficult for Malaysia to compete successfully with Vietnam and other such developing economies on the basis of labour costs for the labour-intensive primary commodity and export-oriented manufacturing envisaged by the TPPA. All this is likely to work to keep Malaysia stuck in the middle income trap.

Yet, despite the exaggerated claims of its advocates, the TPPA provisions for the trade in goods are probably its least dangerous aspects. For example, TPPA provisions for further liberalisation of financial services will undermine national prudential regulation, exposing Malaysia to greater vulnerability from abroad, as if we have not learnt from the 1997-98 Southeast Asian financial crisis as well as the 2008-09 financial meltdown and ensuing protracted Great Recession.

Partnership?

Many ostensible provisions and safeguards in the TPPA have asymmetric implications. For instance, compared to Malaysia, the US federal government has much less scope for discretionary spending compared to its state governments which are, in many instances, larger than many other TPPA economies. Thus, exempting state governments from TPPA provisions, e.g. on government procurement, will have very different implications in the two countries.

Instead of trade, for Malaysia, the TPPA is mainly about greatly strengthening investor rights, including intellectual property rights (IPRs). But stronger IPRs hardly promote research. Instead, most contemporary IPR regimes actually impede innovation, besides undermining public health and consumer welfare by limiting competition and raising prices. The TPPA will thus allow ‘Big Pharma’ longer monopolies on patented medicines, keep cheaper generics off the market, and block the development and availability of similar new medicines.

Corporate interests

The collective drafting of the 6350 pages of the TPPA was ‘assisted’ by over five hundred official corporate advisers to the US Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman, greatly strengthening foreign investor rights at the expense of Malaysian business and public interests.

The TPPA’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system obliges governments to compensate foreign investors for the loss of expected profits in binding private arbitration, even when profits are made by causing public harm.

US corporate interests claim that ISDS is necessary to protect property rights where the rule of law and credible courts are lacking. But instead of reforms to improve the judiciary’s performance and reputation, the TTPA will expose Malaysia to new risks and liabilities.

ISDS provisions make it hard for governments to fulfil their basic obligations such as to protect their citizens’ health and safety, to ensure economic development and stability, and to safeguard the environment.

For example, the world’s most widely used herbicide has been declared by the WHO to be carcinogenic. By banning such toxic materials, with the ISDS, the government would be liable to compensate its manufacturers not to harm our people, instead of forcing them to compensate those already harmed! Thus, the ISDS may even deter the government from banning the substance, putting people at risk.

Multilateralism

Like many other recent bilateral and plurilateral economic agreements, the TPPA has less to do with freeing trade, but instead advances the interests of powerful foreign business interests.

Concluding the TPPA before the mid-December Nairobi World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial was then used by USTR Froman to try to kill the WTO Doha Round of trade negotiations, apparently also in line with the current European Commission commissioner’s preferences. The negotiation had begun in late 2001, after 9/11, with the promise of rectifying the anti-development and food security outcomes of the previous Uruguay Round following the Seattle WTO ministerial failure.

In spite of their denials, Asean members joining the TPPA have also effectively undermined existing commitments to the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA) and Asean Economic Community (AEC).

The main US motivation for the TPPA has been to exclude China. At his State of the Union address, President Obama triumphantly announced, “With TPP, China does not set the rules in that region, we do”.

After being blocked from greater commensurate influence in the Washington-based Bretton Woods institutions, broad support for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), even from traditional US allies, was a major embarrassment to the US.

Neutrality

The political re-alignment also abandons the late Tun Razak’s commitment to make Asean a ‘zone of peace, freedom and neutrality’ (ZOPFAN), an irony for the host of the last Asean summit.

One may understand why Vietnam, at war with the US until four decades ago, is keen to join the TPPA, to strengthen its hand viz a viz China, but it too will be compelled to pay a high economic price for Uncle Sam’s ‘protection’.

Yet, despite its own problems with China, Philippine President Benigno Aquino Jr chose not to participate in the negotiations. Pre- and post-military coup Thailand, with an economy even more open than Malaysia’s, also chose to stay away. Why?

Singapore’s existing bilateral economic arrangements with the US go much further than the TPPA in line with its own unique strategic considerations. Of course, no serving government leader is going to offend the US by rejecting the TPPA outright.

Misgivings

Already, some other, mainly European governments have privately expressed their dismay at the TPPA provisions as it will weaken their own negotiating positions for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It is the US which has secured ‘first-mover’ advantage. It is unclear to most observers what great advantage Malaysia secured beyond some NEP ‘carve-outs’.

Since negotiations ended in Atlanta in October 2015, the minister in the new centrist Liberal Party Canadian government, an experienced former Financial Times editor, has already called for reconsideration of the TPPA provisions.

Australia and New Zealand, the public and parliamentarians are outraged about the onerous investment provisions of the TPPA after a 2016 World Bank report projected paltry gains for them.

Despite touting the TPP in Asia as his main foreign policy priority for 2016, Obama only spent 28 seconds of his hour-long State of the Union address on it, triumphantly announcing, "With TPP, China does not set the rules in that region, we do" (China excluded), making clearly the main US motivation while realising its widespread unpopularity with the American public, including his Democratic Party base. Even the libertarian Cato Institute has denounced the TPP as the tool of corporate lobbyists.

Caution needed

More careful consideration through more informed public discussion of the TPPA's many provisions can only help the nation.

According to a mid-2015 Pew Research survey, the strongest support for the TPP is in Vietnam, where 89% of the public backed it, while the weakest support was in Malaysia (38%) and the US (49%). The greatest outright opposition was in Canada (31%), Australia (30%) and the US (29%).

Malaysians (14%) were the least supportive of closer economic relations with the US while the most support for deeper economic ties with China was in Australia (50%) and South Korea (47%). Large numbers of Malaysians (43%) and Chileans (35%) wanted stronger commercial relations with both China and the US.

The greatest opposition to the US defence pivot was in Malaysia, where 54% believed it is bad because it could lead to conflict with China.

TPPA not costless

If the TPPA is simply a trade deal, there would be less grounds for concern. Unfortunately, its other provisions will undermine Malaysian development prospects and the public interest in the longer term, with diminished ability for the Government, Parliament and the public to set things right.

Many well-intentioned Malaysians opposed to abuses of various kinds, support the TPPA, hoping that it will somehow eliminate corruption, improve governance and address other problems in the country. Unfortunately, this is merely wishful thinking. The TPPA is not a costless ‘hop-on, hop-off’ option, as some think.

By Dr Jomo Kwane Sunddaram

> Dr Jomo Kwame Sundaram was an Assistant Secretary-General in the United Nations system from 2005 to 2015 and received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for advancing the frontiers of economic thought. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.


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TPPA debate will continue although concluded

Video: http://t.cn/RyEoAkLv http://english.cntv.cn/2015/10/09/VIDE1444344482352696.shtml



FINALLY, the negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement have concluded. But that’s not the end of the story.

It will be many more days before the text is made public. Until then, there will still be so many questions unanswered.

Enough is known, from media reports and some leaked texts and analyses, to make some preliminary comments.

Firstly, trade is only one part of the TPPA. As important, or more important, are other issues including investment, intellectual property, government procurement, state-owned enterprises, labour and environment.

These other issues are at the heart of the country’s socio-economic structures and policies.

On these issues, the TPPA may have problematic elements for Malaysia. The Malaysian negotiating team has been fighting to lessen the adverse impacts of the main proposals.

It says it won concessions. But what these are, whether they are enough, and the effects are still not clear. What is clear is that “policy space” (a country’s freedom to formulate its own policies) would be very significantly narrowed as a result of the TPPA.

On intellectual property, the blow is perhaps the most obvious. Most patents filed in Malaysia are owned by foreigners. So when patent laws are made stronger, it will benefit foreigners who are the patent holders.

The enhanced monopoly given to patent holders will have adverse effects on Malaysian consumers who will have to pay higher prices and Malaysian companies which cannot make or import generic versions during the patent term.

The renowned medical group, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), condemned the TPPA as the “worst trade agreement for access to medicines”. Patients and treatment providers in developing countries will be the TPPA’s big losers as it will raise the prices of medicines by extending the monopolies enjoyed by the big drug companies and further delaying price-reducing generic competition, according to MSF.

The term of the patent may be lengthened (by adding time taken to register the medicine or approve the patent). Data exclusivity is to be granted for five years (or possibly for more than that, for the new drugs known as biologics), during which the generic companies are not allowed to rely on the test data of the originator firm.

On investment, the TPPA opens the road for foreign companies to be treated as well or better than locals, thus giving them rights of entry and ownership, and free transfer of funds, while prohibiting the host state from imposing performance requirements such as local content, technology transfer and joint ventures.

The TPPA also contains the investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS), which enables foreign investors to sue the Government in an international tribunal.

Changes in government policies can lead to claims that this is unfair treatment and the foreign investor can ask for compensation for loss of expected future profits.

According to press reports, the TPPA has some safeguards such as diluting the ability of companies to make frivolous claims. Exactly what these are, is not known. The ISDS in any case remains intact as a powerful tool for foreign investors and puts Malaysia in a defensive position.

On government procurement, the space that Malaysia has had to make policies on how the Government does its procurement will be curbed. The preferences given to locals will now give way to national treatment for foreign companies.

Malaysia has been negotiating for more exceptions in terms of the “threshold” of level of expenditure or project value where preferences for locals can still be given, and an exception for bumiputra policy. Details of the final agreement are still not known.

On state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the TPPA will impose disciplines and rules on how these SOEs operate, the subsidies they can or cannot get, and their need to be non-discriminatory when purchasing materials (they cannot give preference to local companies).

The advocates of the SOE chapter seem to want to curb the advantages that SOEs may have, and enable the foreign companies to more effectively compete and take some of their market share. Malaysia has also been fighting for exceptions for some of its SOEs. The final outcome of this is not yet known.

Investment policy, government procurement, SOEs and access to medicines are right at the heart of Malaysia’s political economy and socio-economic structures.

Policies that have been at the centre of the country’s economic and political development have now to be defended as exceptions and flexibilities, and there is a limit to what the other TPPA partners will accept.

The chapters on these issues are bitter pills to swallow and the debate will continue on whether they are worth swallowing.

The direct trade aspects of the TPPA should have such enormous benefit that they more than offset the disadvantages of the other issues. Otherwise, why join the TPPA?

However, Malaysia’s tariffs are on average higher than those of the United States, the main country with whom we do not yet have a Free Trade Agreement.

If tariffs go to zero through the TPPA, Malaysia will thus have to cut its tariffs by more than the US. Whilst we may gain extra exports through the TPPA, we will also have to import more. There is no guarantee that the TPPA will lead to a better trade balance, and there could be an opposite result.

The debate on the TPPA will intensify now that the negotiations have ended. The text should be made available as soon as possible, so that the discussions can be based on the agreement itself. After the TPPA, it will take another two years for the agreement to be ratified and come into force.

Thus, the TPPA is not a “done deal” and the real debate may only be beginning now. It is unfortunate that till now the text is not available.

BY MARTIN KHOR

Martin Khor (director@southcentre.org) is executive director of the South Centre. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

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KUALA LUMPUR: United Nations assistant director-general and coordinator for economic and social development, food and agriculture organisation, Dr Jomo Kwame Sundaram (pix) has called on the government not to join the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) as it provides little benefit for Malaysia.



“I am extremely disappointed. I think it is going to affect, not only the Malaysian business community, but also Malaysian consumers and citizens adversely,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Khazanah Megatrend Forum 2015 .

On Monday, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) said the recently concluded TPPA negotiations had agreed to take into consideration almost all of Malaysia’s concerns and sensitivities such as government procurement, state-owned enterprises and bumiputra issues.

The TPP is a trade agreement initiative involving 12 countries namely Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam.

Miti said the TPPA will be presented to parliament once the complete and official text of the agreement is prepared.

Bloomberg reported that Malaysia’s state-owned enterprises may suffer from the deal, which calls for equal access to government procurement even though electronics, chemical products, palm oil and rubber exporters benefit from it.

Jomo said that the TPPA is politically motivated, in that it is an attempt by the US to try and isolate China, with minimum trade advantages for Malaysia.

“For example, if Malaysia produces solar panels it can’t be sold in the US and elsewhere. These are all contravening the bilateral agreements. You cannot expect the TPPA to overcome that,” he explained.

On intellectual property rights, Jomo said that the most significant implication is the cost of medication.

“They have exclusive rights and have been depriving people from the benefits of this. This is scandalous and inhumane, it cannot explain why Malaysia agreed to this,” he said.

In a statement late on Monday however, Miti had reiterated that the TPPA should not hinder the public’s access to affordable drugs and healthcare, while ensuring the necessary incentives for pharmaceutical innovators to produce new drugs and medicines.

Even though there will be “small” benefits, Jomo said the government should look at it as a whole, especially from the cost perspective.

He also said foreign complainants will have more legal resources for dispute settlement through new arbitration panels compared with those from developing countries.

“Even in the negotiations, they (developing countries) are not very well prepared, and everyone knows most of the developing countries just accepted what was given to them. It was the developed countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Japan that were insisting on it and the US compromised to them,” he added.

Meanwhile, Miti secretary-general Tan Sri Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria stressed that the full text of the TPPA will be made available to the public soon.

“We’ve nothing to hide, at the end of the day, the important thing is we want to be sure this works for Malaysia,” she said.

She does not foresee the TPPA taking effect in the next two years considering it has to be approved by every participating country

“ It will be a long process, maybe two years or more, I don’t know,” she added.

A cost benefit analysis commissioned by Miti to determine the attractiveness of the deal is yet to be completed.

TPPA cost benefit analysis still pending

Should have been finalised earlier for the sake of public understanding



PETALING JAYA: The cost benefit analysis on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) should have been finalised and released earlier for the sake of public understanding, Bantah TPPA group chairman Mohd Nizam Mahshar said in a statement yesterday.

Commenting on the conclusion of the TPPA negotiations, he said the cost benefit analysis should have been finalised and released earlier, to provide the public and interested parties with a greater understanding of the TPPA and its implications.

The release of the cost benefit analysis has been delayed for months.

“Until now, it has not been released and we only have three months from the official date of the negotiation’s conclusion to the date that it has to be signed,” he added.

International Trade and Industry Minister, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said in a Facebook posting yesterday that the contents of the TPPA deal will be made public next month and presented to parliament for debate within the next two months.

The minister said it would also include the completed cost benefit analysis.

“This does not mean a thing. Even though debated by parliamentarians, the agreement cannot be amended,” Mohd Nizam said. “From this day to the next 90 days Malaysia has only two choices, either to take the TPPA agreement as a whole or to reject it completely. We still have a say if we choose to speak up,” he added.

Nizam said despite the conclusion of the negotiations, the group is maintaining its position that the TPPA deal will not benefit the country’s trade or economic health.

He said the possible impact includes restrictions of policy space, intrusions on legal and political sovereignty, huge impact to small and medium enterprises and infant industry, access to affordable medicine, as well as intellectual property effects to knowledge and information institutions and industries.

Meanwhile, the recently formed coalition party Parti Amanah Negara said it hoped all comments from the public will be considered seriously.

“We also hope all necessary action will be taken and the debate will not merely be an exercise in ‘public relations’,” its communication director Khalid Abd Samad said in a statement.

He added that the minister previously had acknowledged that there were several concerns regarding the TPPA, saying among the concerns in the agreement is that it seeks to ensure free competition with minimal government control or intervention.

“This will only result in stronger companies overcoming all others and dominating the market,” Khalid said, explaining that local companies, which are much smaller than the United States multinational companies and other member countries will not be able to compete and therefore become sidelined.

Commenting on the intellectual property rights issue, Khalid said it would have a direct impact specifically on the price of medicine, and enforcement of intellectual property rights would cause higher prices of medicine.

“Even though this may be good for the pharmaceutical companies, it will certainly have a negative effect on the population as a whole,” Khalid added, saying that the party is worried that the deal will only bring short-term benefits, while increasing the country’s dependency on specific sources of revenue.

Meanwhile, Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute’s Centre for public policy studies chairman Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam said the Ministry of International Trade and Industry should hold several town hall meetings to explain the TPPA deal to the public.

“We cannot afford to leave important national agreements and treaties only to politicians to decide, as they may have their own political deals to settle. We all have to actively participate in the debate outside parliament as well,” he added. - The Sunbiz

TPP cannot ‘isolate China’ - Chinese economy increasingly open, inclusive: economist

The US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement will not isolate China or seriously hurt the Chinese economy, experts said Wednesday, adding it could lead the world's second-largest economy to reach similar deals with other nations, after a deal was reached on the TPP earlier this week.

Amid widespread online pessimism over the trade pact among 12 Pacific Rim nations that some believe deliberately excluded China, Chinese economists said such anxieties have been overblown.

Huang Wei, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the TPP will affect China, but will have a "minimal negative impact" on the Chinese economy in the long run because of the economy's size and its irreplaceable role in regional and global markets.

Huang believes the TPP creates more of a "psychological effect" on China that the country has been left out by its neighbors and trading partners from such a significant trade agreement. "But don't turn pale just at the mention of a tiger," she told the Global Times on Wednesday.

She said, if anything, the trade accord will push China to further engage with regional and global economies and pursue more trade agreements with countries in Asia and around the world, which will help the Chinese economy grow and better compete globally.

Chen Fengying, an expert at the Institute of World Economics Studies under the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, also believes that the TPP will not isolate China from the regional economy and could even be beneficial.

"Given the important role China plays in regional and global economics, a single agreement won't isolate China," Chen told the Global Times Wednesday. She added that if the TPP can help build a more open and prosperous Asia, it will be conducive for the Chinese economy.

Both Huang and Chen's comments come after trade ministers from the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, and New Zealand reached a deal.

After days of negotiations on the details of the deal in Atlanta, US officials announced Monday that an agreement had been reached, ending years of talks, though the deal still needs to go through the legislative process of each country before it can be signed and implemented.

Prevailing issues

Some posts on popular social media platforms in China suggested Wednesday that China's own issues in areas such as intellectual property protection, environmental standards and currency policies prevented it from being included in the deal, while others said the US is trying to single out China and counter China because the US feels its economic and political dominance is being threatened.

Experts said understanding the TPP's impact should not only be based on the "US conspiracy theory" or the "China-deserves-it" angle.

Zhang Jianping, a foreign trade expert at the National Development and Reform Commission, told the Economic Daily that China lags behind in meeting the TPP's requirements, such as environmental, finance and labor standards. It will take a long time for China to reach those standards, and that is why China held back in joining the TPP, he said.

Chen also said that intellectual property protection, environmental standards and other factors might have been reasons why China did not sit at the negotiating table, but such a move has pushed China to improve in such areas, as it holds numerous trade talks with countries in Asia and beyond, including TPP member-nations.

China engages world

China has reached separate free trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, and Singapore, who are also involved in the TPP, while continuing talks with the US, Japan and other countries on free-trade deals.

China is also engaged in regional multilateral trade talks, such as the Free-Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia.

All these efforts and other projects such as the "Belt and Road" initiative and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) show the Chinese economy is moving toward being more open and inclusive, Chen said. It will help the country to maintain its increasing influence over regional and global trade, she added.

Chen also said she believes these trade deals are not mutually exclusive, saying they can complement each other by building a more open and fair regional economy in the Asia-Pacific.

China's Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday that China is open to any trade agreement "compatible" with rules established by the World Trade Organization, and that is conducive to the regional economic integration of the Asia-Pacific region.- Global Times

Only trade growth will define merits of TPP


Labourers work at a garment factory in Sai Dong, outside Hanoi, Vietnam. [Photo/Agencies]

At a critical moment when trade is set to grow less than the global economy for the first time in the last four decades, there is no reason not to welcome the ambitious pact that 12 Pacific Rim countries reached on Monday to create the largest free trade area of the world.

That is why China's Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is one of the key free trade agreements for the region and China is open to any mechanism that follows the rules of the World Trade Organization and can boost the economic integration of the Asia-Pacific.

As a top global trading power that has hugely contributed to and benefited from the global trade growth for the last two decades, China sincerely hopes the TPP pact and other free trade arrangements in the region can strengthen each other and boost trade, investment and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific, to benefit not just the region but also the rest of the world.

It is also the common wish of the international community that, as a long-term driving force, the current slow pace of global trade growth should be revived through deeper and wider reforms of the international trade system to fuel a sustainable global recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.

The appealing promise that the TPP may reshape industries and liberalize commerce in 40 percent of the world's economy has understandably given rise to praise such as the "most ambitious trade pact in a generation".

Yet the real implications of the TPP deal are far from clear since it has been largely negotiated under a blanket of secrecy to facilitate give-and-take among the signatories.

The power of a successful trade deal is to maximize as much as possible each participant's comparative advantages in global trade while minimizing predictable political opposition from various domestic vested interests.

Nevertheless, even before the five-year marathon talks have secured a really workable arrangement, US President Barack Obama hastened to paint the pact as a way of stopping China from writing the rules of the global economy in an illusion that he may easily win over the domestic political support he expects.

However, if the deal is based on the political priority of one partner, rather than the shared benefit of all partners, it would be hard to believe that it can ensure free market trade as it is being touted.

The world needs a trade-boosting deal. The United States has a huge onus to prove the merits of the TPP.  - China Daily

Punish "currency manipulators", among TPPA issues in Obama's trips to Asia?

The United States President visit to Malaysia is an opportunity to review TPPA issues, including a Congress proposal to punish countries that are 'currency manipulators.

UNITED States President Barack Obama will be in Malaysia soon. Among the issues on his agenda will be the current status of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

It is an opportunity to clarify with the President himself what the chances are that the TPPA will be approved by Congress, once a deal is reached.

Of concern is that the Congress will only pass the TPPA if it has a clause disciplining countries that are “currency manipulators”.

This concern is especially serious since a recent influential report cited Malaysia as one of the two TPPA countries that qualified as “currency manipulators.”

As Obama will be coming from Tokyo, he will presumably share the latest news on the US-Japan negotiations, which have been a major blockage to the TPPA’s progress.

Japan does not want to fully open up five “sacred” farm products (rice, wheat, sugar, beef and pork and dairy products) under the TPPA, but could reach a private deal allowing the US to sell more to Japan by enabling a certain volume of American products to enter at zero or lower tariffs.

Whether such a bilateral deal (reported last week in a Japanese newspaper) will be at the expense of other TPPA members should of course be analysed and be part of the negotiations.

If the US and Japan reach an agreement, the TPPA talks are expected to be “unblocked” and countries will be under pressure to quickly reach an overall deal on all issues.

Obama can then be expected to nudge Malaysia to go forward. But Malaysia has found that there are several problems to a quick deal.

Last week, International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed briefed civil society groups, reportedly telling them that Malaysia is standing firm in its position on tobacco control, intellectual property and medicines, disciplines on state-owned enterprises and government procurement, investor-state dispute, bumiputra rights, and that the TPPA should not affect the Constitution nor federal-state relations.

There is another important matter. What if the US agrees to a final TPPA deal. Can it stand by such a deal, since it is Congress that has jurisdiction over trade policy?

Obama is trying to get “fast track authority” from Congress, but many members of the House and Senate do not want to give that to him.

This means the Congress can decide to alter parts of the TPPA, and what was agreed to after years of painful negotiation will then unravel.

Why then should the other countries table their “bottom line” in the TPPA when what is agreed to can be opened up again by Congress? Senior officials in some countries have said they won’t agree to sign the TPPA unless the US President obtains fast-track authority.

Powerful Congress members have also proposed that as part of the TPPA, the US be allowed to punish countries that manipulate their currency — to give themselves a trade advantage.

Claiming to be backed by a clear majority, they are insisting that the TPPA contain disciplinary actions against currency manipulators, including that tariffs can be raised against the offending countries’ products.

Inside US Trade reported that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democrat House Member Sander Levin warned they would vote against the TPPA when it comes before them unless it contains enforceable provisions to combat currency manipulation by foreign governments.

A major problem with this Congress’ proposal is how “currency manipulators” are defined. Many developing countries consider the US itself to be a manipulator because the trillions of dollars it has placed in the banking system through its easy-money policy has depressed the value of the dollar to remain at low levels and raised the country’s export competitiveness.

But that’s not how the Americans define manipulation. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute, a main intellectual force behind the Congress move, proposes three tests to determine a currency manipulator: the country possess excessive official foreign currency assets (more than six months of import value); it has acquired significant additional amounts of official foreign assets, implying substantial intervention, over a recent period of six months; and it has a substantial current account surplus.

Based on these criteria, Bergsten concludes, in a Financial Times article, that: “Only two countries now involved in the trade pact negotiations – Malaysia and Singapore – have been recent manipulators.”

He proposes that those who fail these tests should face stiff penalties: They should lose the wider market access obtained via the TPPA; countervailing duties should be permitted against their exports subsidised by deliberate undervaluation; and “sweeping import surcharges” could also be authorised.

On top of this, the trade pact should also authorise “countervailing currency intervention”, through which it could offset the manipulators’ purchases of its currency by buying equal amounts of theirs.

Bergsten’s ideas are extreme, but they have been cited by Congressman Levin when he made his proposal.

Can the TPPA countries agree to having a currency manipulation chapter in the agreement? If so, the TPPA will contain a very dangerous element and it will also set a dangerous precedent for other future agreements.

In any case, it is worthwhile for Malaysia to pay close attention to this issue, and bring it up with Obama, since it is one of the two countries fingered by Bergsten as being “currency manipulators.”

Bergsten’s astounding charge that Malaysia is a currency manipulator should also be answered.

Contributed by Global Trends by Martin Khor

Related posts:

• Investor treaties in trouble

• TPPA negotiations hot up in early 2014

• Winds of change blowing in Asia

• Looming danger on contrast and competition of economic models 

•   The hypocrisy of some nations

• Western hegemony & violence: ousting democratically elected leaders in Ukraine and elsewhere!

• Double standards on Ukraine and Crimea
• TPP affecting health policies? 

Obama's secretive TPPA is driven by self-interest, patents and trade protectionism leading to costly medicines...

Barack Obama’s response to public criticism on the US trade deals with Europe and Asia-Pacific is less than convincing.

UNITED States President Barack Obama will soon be making a trip to Asian countries, including Malaysia. The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) will be on his agenda, just as the Trans­atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was a priority during his trip to Europe last week.

The TTIP is the agreement the US and European Union are negotiating — a counter­part to the TPPA that the US is negotiating with 11 Asian and Pacific countries, including Malaysia.

At a live-TV press conference in the Netherlands, Obama responded to strong public criticism against the TTIP and TTPA.

There is no point worrying about the provisions having effects on consumer and environmental protection until the deal is done, he said. Consumer and environmental protection would in fact be strengthened by trade deals.

“I spent my whole political life fighting for consumer protection,” he said, adding there is no ground for worries that companies can take action to weaken consumer and environmental protection.

The President’s comments on the TTIP presumably apply also to the TPPA since both contain similar provisions, and the criticisms from US and other lawmakers and NGOs also apply to both. Consumer and health groups have indeed been vocal in their criticisms and protests against the TPPA and TTIP.

They include Public Citizen, an organisation of America’s leading consumer advocate Ralph Nader, and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Nobel Prize winning medical group.

In Malaysia, groups representing consumers, patients, health and the environment, including the Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysian Council for Tobacco Cont­rol, the Malaysian Aids Council and several patients’ organisations, have been actively campaigning against the TPPA.

Obama’s response will not assure the critics. His first point, that there is no point worrying until the deal is done, will hit a raw nerve.

Lawmakers, including in the US Congress, and NGOs in countries involved in the two trade deals, have been disgruntled that the talks are held in secret and that they don’t have access to the texts.

The secrecy of the negotiations, the inability of the public to give feedback, and the lack of legitimacy of the process, is one of the maj­­or criticisms against these two trade deals.

Nevertheless, there is enough information, from leaked chapters, and from provisions in existing US free trade agreements, for the public to have a good idea what the trade deals entail. Obama’s advice that there is no point worrying until the final texts are revealed is likely to earn scorn rather than an assurance.

Second, the critics have good reasons to be worried or outraged.

These agreements would make it very difficult or even impossible for patients and government health authorities to have access to the much cheaper generic versions of the medicines, because of the tighter patent reg­ime the US is proposing in the TPPA.

As a result, millions of patients could be deprived of life-saving drugs since they, and their governments, cannot afford to buy the branded products.

According to MSF, the first generation of HIV drugs have come down in price by 99% over the last decade, from US$10,000 (RM33,000) per person per year in 2000 to roughly US$60 (RM196) today.

This is due to generic production in India, Brazil and Thailand, where these drugs were not patented.

This dramatic price drop enabled HIV/AIDS treatment to be scaled up for over six million people in developing countries.

According to MSF, the US proposals in the TPPA would cause many problems.

These would include extending the term of the patents beyond the already lengthy 20 years, the provision of “data exclusivity” (which will require generic companies to undertake their own costly clinical trials), and widening the scope of what medicines are patentable.

In Malaysia, several patient and medical groups in 2012 issued a joint statement opposing the US proposals, which they say will reduce access to medicines.

“We categorically oppose US demands for longer and stronger patents on medicines and medical technologies that are essential to save Malaysian lives,” said leaders of six groups.

The groups involved include the National Cancer Society Malay­sia, Breast Cancer Wel-fare Association, Malaysian AIDS Council, Malaysian Treatment Access and Advocacy, Malaysian Thoracic Society and Malaysian Mental Health Association.

They said that cancers require affordable chemotherapy medicines.

HIV second line medicines like Kaletra are required to save lives, and are often out of reach to persons living with HIV.

Many other conditions depend on generic medicines, such as cancer, tuberculosis, malaria and diabetes. They asked that the US proposals be rejected.

But it is not only medicines that are affected. Consumers of information, media and books too will be affected by tighter copyright laws that are likely to result in more expensive use of information materials and the Internet.

Health groups such as the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control point out that measures to control cigarette sales, such as requiring plain packaging, will be threatened as the tobacco companies can sue the governments for affecting their revenues.

Under an investor-state dispute system (ISDS) in the TPPA, foreign investors can sue governments in an international tribunal, on grounds that their future revenues are affected by new policies.

Many cases against governments for their health and environmental policies have been already brought by companies under free trade agreements that contain this ISDS, and other bilateral investment treaties.

A tobacco firm has sued Australia and Uruguay for their plain-packaging policy.

A Swedish company made a US$2bil (RM6.5bil) claim against the German government for its policy to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Germany has told the European Commission to exclude the ISDS mechanism in the TTIP, and the Commission has suspended negotiations with the US on ISDS.

In the TPPA, however, the ISDS is still the lynchpin of the whole agreement, as it is a strong enforcement mechanism that hangs over the heads of governments that naturally do not like being sued by companies in an international tribunal for millions or billions of dollars.

Thus, Obama’s assurances that there should be no worries about companies taking action on governments for their consumer and environmental policies ring hollow when many such actions have already been taken under existing US FTAs and other treaties.

Contributed by Global Trends Martin Khor The Star/Asia News Network

The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own. 

Related posts:

1.  Investor treaties in trouble
2.  TPPA negotiations hot up in early 2014
   3. Winds of change blowing in Asia
   4. Looming danger on contrast and competition of economic models
   5. An eventful week on the TPPA
   6. TPP affecting health policies?
   7. ASEAN plans world's largest trading bloc in Asia, RCEP ...

TPPA negotiations hot up in early 2014

Due to the United States political calendar and congressional politics, the TPPA negotiations will heat up the first few months of the new year. 

ONE of the major developments in the new year will be the negotiations and in fact the fate of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), which has stirred a lot of interest and controversy not only in Malaysia but also in the United States, whose government is its prime mover.

The first half of 2014 will be decisive because the US will hold mid-term congressional elections in November, and that nation’s attention will focus on that after mid-year.

Since free trade agreements are so controversial and in fact unpopular among the public in that country, the TPPA and other FTAs will be hard for the US president and his administration to champion near the election period.

This may explain why the US is in such a hurry to finish the TPPA negotiations as soon as possible. It had placed a deadline of end of 2013, but that has passed without success.
Indeed, the ministerial meeting in Singapore in the first half of December revealed many outstanding differences.

So, the negotiations will become even more intense in the next few months, with a possible ministerial meeting in February.

Malaysia is one of the significant countries that have raised several concerns about the proposals by the US.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak himself, at a meeting in Bali last October, highlighted government procurement, state owned enterprises, investor-state dispute system and intellectual property as some of the issues that may infringe on sovereignty, implying that there should be careful consideration and caution during negotiations.

The US Trade Representative Michael Froman visited Malaysia a number of times to meet with some ministers and parliamentarians. He reportedly assured them of the United States’ understanding of Malaysia’s concerns, which he implied would be taken into account.

Malaysians are thus waiting to see how much flexibility will be given to accommodate the concerns of the public and the Government.

For instance, Malaysia formally proposed a comprehensive “carve-out” (exclusion from disciplines in the TPPA chapters) for tobacco control measures, a move that was advocated by health groups and the Health Ministry, and which has won warm congratulations from the public and media around the world, including in a New York Times editorial.

According to media reports, Malaysia has also opposed proposals for tight intellectual property rules that for instance extend the present terms for patents for medicines and asked for high thresholds for government procurement, and exemption for its bumiputra policies, while also challenging the proposed disciplines on state owned enterprises and the investor-state dispute system.

On goods market access, Malaysia will also find difficulties with the proposed ban on export duties. Recently the association of palm oil refining companies warned that their operations would be threatened if the TPPA forces the country to abolish its long-standing export tax on crude palm oil.

A ban would also cause the Government to lose around RM2bil annually in revenue, which would be a serious blow to efforts to reduce the budget deficit.

The question is whether Malaysia’s demands will be met. Even if compromise or flexibility is offered, it is crucial to examine how genuine or adequate they are. Often, the only “flexibility” is a longer period granted to implement the specific rule in question. That is not really much use.

Even if an exemption is given, it may be limited or useless. For example, in an early version of the investment chapter, available on the Internet, there is a clause that nothing in the chapter prevents the countries from undertaking health and environmental policies. But it also says provided those policies are consistent with the chapter, thereby negating the apparent space provided for exclusion.

Thus the devil is really in the details, as the saying goes. And the details have to be carefully scrutinised, because it is an old negotiating tactic to show a spirit of understanding and compromise politically but remain steadfast and uncompromising in the legal texts, and it is the latter that counts.

Another key point is that the US negotiators and government have little room to provide compromises, even if they want to. That is because it is the congress that has the real power over trade matters, including the TPPA.

Last week, some members of Congress introduced a Bill to provide the US President with fast-track authority, which means that a trade agreement like the TPPA can only be adopted or rejected by congress, but cannot be amended by it.

Without this fast-track authority, there is no confidence among other countries that what the US negotiators agree to or sign will be agreed to by congress, which can reject certain parts of the TPPA and demand changes.

As a condition for giving the fast-track authority, advocates are asking the US government to take a strong stand on issues.

This puts pressure on the US negotiators not to compromise, even if they wanted to.

For example, the Bill says that on state owned enterprises the US should seek commitments that eliminate unfair competition favouring SOEs doing commercial activity and ensure that their practices are based solely on commercial considerations.

Government policies and the SOE practices would have to abide by eliminating discrimination and market-distorting subsidies.

The US is already proposing that SOEs cannot discriminate when they buy and sell goods and services, and that they cannot receive any advantages such as cheaper loans or land and business from the government.

This would, for instance, imply SOEs being prohibited from giving preferences for bumiputra companies in their procurement.

If the definition of SOEs also include private companies in which government agencies have a share, the net will be cast very wide.

It is however still unlikely that the proposed Bill will pass, as many Democrats are opposed to fast track and some Republicans just don’t want to give President Obama anything he wants.

But here’s the problem. If fast track is given with the conditions attached, the US negotiators will have to abide by them and can’t show required flexibilities. If there is no fast track, the proposed texts agreed to by the US can more easily be rejected by congress.

Either way, there is only so much the negotiators can give in response to demands made by Malaysia or other countries, and even then the compromises can be rejected by congress.

Which goes to show how difficult FTAs are to negotiate or conclude when the US is involved, for commerce and politics are all mixed up in the pot.

Global Trends by Martin Khor

Related posts:
1. Winds of change blowing in Asia
2. Looming danger on contrast and competition of economic models
3. An eventful week on the TPPA
4. TPP affecting health policies?
5. ASEAN plans world's largest trading bloc in Asia, RCEP ...