From Carmen Elena Dorobăț at mises.org:
After 19 rounds of negotiations spanning 5 years, hosted along the Pacific Rim from Bali and Lima to Hanoi and Hawaii, the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) was signed yesterday in Atlanta by all 12 member governments and remains only to be ratified by each country. Although the text has not been made available to the public, and will not be for the next four years to avoid opposition, the TPP is publicized as a tremendous boost in free trade for the signing countries, and thus for almost 40% of world trade. It is supposed to ‘promote’, ‘enhance’, and ‘support’ many things, from innovation to investment and development, and job creation.
The language used, characteristic now of all such governmental agreements, is a clear indicator that the TPP is nothing more than additional thousand(s) of pages of new trade regulations, with a sprinkling of tariff reductions that will benefit some industries and companies, and hurt others. According to the Office of the Unites States Representative, the TPP includes chapters on no fewer than 22 issues: “competition, co-operation and capacity building, cross-border services, customs, e-commerce, environment, financial services, government procurement, intellectual property, investment, labour, legal issues, market access for goods, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary standards, technical barriers to trade, telecommunications, temporary entry, textiles and apparel, trade remedies.”
This illustrates what Ludwig von Mises pointed out half a century ago: that the focus of these agreements has long shifted from trade liberalization (defined as removal of barriers) to trade regulation (or what we know today as “managed trade”) and the promotion of special interests. As Mises showed, “each country has a system of varying privileges for individual interest groups… [and] none of these measures would work if foreign countries were to freely supply the domestic market.” (Mises to Hoenig, letter dated December 6, 1951). Trade agreements only extend the regulatory power of governments and their ability to grant such privileges.
To continue reading: The TPP and the Trade Rhetoric
