Tuesday, November 22, 2016



...with a stake through its heart

US President-Elect Donald Trump has announced that he will unsign the TPPA on his first day in office:

US President-elect Donald Trump has released a video laying out actions he'll take on his first day in office on January 20, including withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

Good riddance. The TPP was a shit deal which gained us nothing. And now its dead and buried with a stake through its heart, maybe we can do something better - something without the odious subsidies and anti-democratic clauses that the US demanded, for example.

Meanwhile over on Pundit, Andrew Geddis looks at the legality of John Key's plan to try and bring the existing law into force without the USA. His assessment? It would be illegal. When Parliament said "this only comes into force when the TPPA does", it meant it. So if Key wants to try that, he'll either have to fight it in the courts, or convince Parliament to amend the bill to allow it to be brought into force in other circumstances - which in turn means convincing us that a regulatory subsidies for the US copyright mafia and Big Pharma are worth it when we're getting absolutely nothing in return.