Monday, November 13, 2017



Saved by Canada

APEC was held over the weekend, during which various countries were expected to make a final push to resurrect the Trans-Pacific Partnership. On Friday night, it looked like it was dead, and that Canada had saved us from a shitty US trade deal. By Sunday morning, it was alive again - but Canada has still probably saved us.

There were three bits of the TPPA that most people objected to: the anti-democratic Investor-State Dispute clause, under which multinational (US) corporations could sue countries for regulations which affected their (real or imagined) profits; US patent pork which threatened Pharmac; and general US copyright bullshit, including a mandatory copyright term extension to protect Mickey Mouse, along with various attacks on fair use and file sharing. But thanks to Canada, all of that shit is gone. Technically, its only "suspended", and could be back in if the US ever rejoins the agreement, but that's about as likely as Trump not sticking his foot in his mouth next time he opens it, so for all practical purposes these provisions are dead. So, we've got an FTA shorn of its most objectionable parts. Whether the deal is still worth it for New Zealand without US market access remains to be seen, but in the previous analysis the US bullshit was a significant cost, so it might be (whether you trust MFAT's analysts to do a fair analysis when institutionally their prestige rests on the deal being accepted is another question, of course).

The government has been clear that the new TPPA will have to go back to Parliament - that is, that it is a different deal from the "Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, done at Auckland on 4 February 2016", so National's TPPA law can never come into effect. While they're now part of the government which has agreed to this, I don't expect NZ First and the Greens to give it an easy ride through select committee, and I expect the numbers to be heavily scrutinised. If they don't like it, then I guess Labour will just have to ask National for support instead.

Meanwhile, if this experience has shown us anything, its how badly National sold us out on this issue. A better deal was possible the moment the US walked away, but National was perfectly happy to sign the TPPA as written, complete with US IP bullshit. Its also shown us how undemocratic our foreign policy is, and how secret negotiations do nothing but enable our politicians to lie to us. This isn't good enough. In order for such agreements to be legitimate, they need the consent of the people - and that means full transparency during negotiations, and explicit Parliamentary approval not just for ratification, but for signing. Anything less is buying into the arrogant ideology that foreign policy is for kings, and something us dirty peasants must be kept in the dark about, because we couldn't possibly know what we want. And that is simply undemocratic monarchical bullshit.