Even Fans Admit Chances Of TPP Being Ratified By US Soon — Or Ever — Have Just Slumped
from the stumped-by-Trump dept
In the wake of the unexpected win of Donald Trump, people in many fields are starting to re-examine their assumptions about what might happen in the next few years. One of the areas impacted by Trump’s success is trade in general, and trade deals in particular. For perhaps the first time, the 2016 election campaign put trade deals front and center. They may even have contributed to Hillary Clinton’s downfall, since many found her sudden conversion to the anti-TPP movement unconvincing, to say the least.
Given Trump’s vocal antipathy to TPP, even its strongest supporters are recognizing that it is now in trouble. Here, for example, is John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and one of the cheerleaders for the deal:
[TPP] would have been nice to have, but we’re not going to have it in the short term.
The leader of the main opposition party in New Zealand agreed:
[TPP] seems to be dead in the water now.
The Radio New Zealand report that these comments are taken from had further confirmation of TPP’s demise from a source with privileged access to the man himself:
A close Trump supporter, Senator Jeff Sessions, told reporters at Mr Trump’s victory party last night the proposed deal was now “dead”.
Of course, “dead” is not an absolute term in politics. TPP may be dead in the short term — something underlined by US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Senate’s soon-to-be-top Democrat — but that doesn’t necessarily mean completely dead forever. New Zealand’s Key had some thoughts on what might happen next:
Does that mean there will never be an attempt to re-negotiate it? No, because President Trump will get the same advice from the State Department, from the Pentagon, from the Treasury that President Obama got, which is that you need to have influence and you need to have presence in Asia and to do that free trade locking you in there is the way to do it.
Re-negotiating TPP is going to be painful for all the other participants, who doubtless thought and hoped it was all done and dusted. It will be particularly awkward for Japan, because this just happened:
Japan’s House of Representatives voted to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and passed a related bill Thursday, despite diminishing prospects for the ratification of the pact by the United States following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
That might stand as a warning to other TPP nations that are on the brink of ratifying the deal. Given the huge uncertainty surrounding its fate, holding off would be a very sensible move at this point — something that Key himself needs to remember before he pushes through New Zealand’s TPP Amendment Bill.
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Filed Under: donald trump, japan, new zealand, tpp, trade deals
Comments on “Even Fans Admit Chances Of TPP Being Ratified By US Soon — Or Ever — Have Just Slumped”
only good thing
to come out of trump winning is the tpp failing~
Re: only good thing
That’s not even close to the only good thing, but it’s certainly one of the biggest
It will be particularly awkward for Japan
Come On!!! It’s Japan, they were broken a long time ago.
The Japanese society has been one of the most whacky and goofy countries on the planet. Just watch a lot of their anime and find out how out of touch with human hormones those clowns are! If anything worked the way all of those sexually repressed boys thought they did, Japan would be descended upon by the world as a resource for all manor of rich and powerful to build their harems from!
You can go to jail in Japan because your Lawyer is too nice to offend the prosecutor or the Judge in your defense! Japan knows that if the US stops protecting it… China will roll a bit to the west, fart, and gone will be Japan! Japan will absolutely do everything America tells it to do.
Typical autocratic double speak, locked in trade is free trade.
Who wasn’t expecting it?
Seriously, anyone who didn’t take one look at the slogan "make America great again" and immediately say "he’s going to ride those four words all the way to the White House" is simply not paying attention.
Sure, the polls kept predicting Clinton would win, and yeah, what Nate Silver managed to pull off last time around was pretty awesome, but even when the entirety of the Primary process showed Trump consistently doing significantly better than polls predicted, everyone in the media continued to treat the polls as gospel. (Einstein’s definition of insanity springs to mind!)
The 538 polling was the sort of trick you can only pull off once, because once people realize they’re being observed, their behavior changes. (Techdirt readers are already quite familiar with this principle as applied to surveillance, but it’s true in other contexts as well. Many, many other contexts.) Drawing attention to Nate Silver’s accomplishments destroyed its effectiveness.
Re: Re:
“once people realize they’re being observed, their behavior changes.”
Absolutely fantastic use of ‘Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle’!
This is also how the chilling effects of surveillance caused trouble. When you start looking for it, people start doing things to fool the system. All of a sudden the FBI sees a whole long of problems because people are dicking with them since they know they are watching. By the time they figure it out for real, then Boston happens, and then the Orlando Night Club happens.
I know there are a few people that remembered Orlando when they went to vote this cycle and remembered that Hillary’s team sided with the Muslims against the Gay’s. People do not easily forget that type of betrayal. Sadly, only a few saw it as a betrayal.
Re: Re:
“Seriously, anyone who didn’t take one look at the slogan “make America great again” and immediately say “he’s going to ride those four words all the way to the White House” is simply not paying attention.”
Is it so hard to believe? Think about it….They’ve been soooooo busy calling the white folks racists, homophones, xenophobe, etc etc etc to notice what was going on Mason. Their social justice warriors were rioting in the streets, burning American flags, taking to twitter, you tubing and ranting on the comment sections of every forum they could find. They spent the last 8 years pissing all over the working class white person. They “pivoted” with a “laser beam focus” on trying to make them feel that going to work every day, believing in god, going to church, raising their family, and trying to keep as much of their hard earned money as they could from finding it’s way to someones EBT card was bad, and that they were horrible people because of it, to REALLY see what was about to happen. Right in the heat of their frenzy, right in the middle of their social justice hate whitey rampage, whitey dropped their collective pants, and shit a Donald Trump.
It stopped the whole thing dead in it’s tracks. Now their standing around looking at this giant turd and wondering how the hell they could have missed THAT…. forest for the tree’s Mason… forest for the tree’s…..
> Does that mean there will never be an attempt to re-negotiate it? **No, because President Trump will get the same advice from the State Department, from the Pentagon, from the Treasury that President Obama got, which is that you need to have influence and you need to have presence in Asia and to do that free trade locking you in there is the way to do it.**
No, not happening. The foreign policy implications don’t matter to the people against TPP like Trump.
No renegotiation is going to fix TPP’s real political problem, a lot of people hate it and are heavily motivated to oppose it. They’ll still be deeply suspicious of any renegotiated TPP.
Re: Re:
You are too optimistic. Do not ever underestimate the Global Elites DEEP DEEP central banking pockets and the people they can buy.
Trump is but a broke little beggar compared to their cash flow!
Re: Re: Re:
‘That’s a nice Trump Organization you have there Donald, shame if something bad happened to it’ said one of his bankers, a member of the Global Elitists who want the TPP to go ahead.
Donald doesn’t fund his debt-driven company from Bob the butcher, Main St. Forgottentown, USA. He charms his mates in the big banks to fund his multi-million dollar developments & they have him by the balls. And when you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts & minds will follow.
Especially as he is handing the running of his company over to others who may just make the wrong executive decisions on current & new investments. Then the banks will call in their loans on a particular investment/development which then puts the whole company teetering on the edge & making Mr. President wondering whether running the country is more important than running his business & being rich.
Grandeur versus greed, what will Mr. President choose? Jail the nasty bankers on trumped up charges, not likely, they have his ego by the balls & can crash the economy with the stoke of a pen (been there, done that) which won’t look good in the history books for the 45th President, the “Man of the People”.
TPP might be dead, but wanna bet SOPA comes to life again?
Re: Re:
Wouldn’t be surprised. Trump is one of the 1%, and the 1% has a titanic hard-on for ridiculous copyright.
RCEP
TPP will no doubt be allowed to die, after which we’ll have TrumpTrade, i.e. RCEP, the new 16-way trade deal that now includes China along with the dreaded ISDS.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. He only came out against TPP because it’s a hot potato.
Ah, but Obama's reach should exceed his grasp
Or what’s a lame duck session for?
One of Donald Trump’s platforms is attacking China’s economic rise and taking away American jobs. When it is explained to him by the swamp masters who he is employing that the TPP doesn’t include China for a very good reason & that is to try to isolate China’s influence in the Pacific region President Trump will be all for using the TPP to attack China.
It’s had all the hard work done already by getting many countries to sign on the dotted line & you Mr. President will be doing your American workers a great big favor by using the TPP as one of the tools/weapons to put China back in it’s box. The spinmeisters will be able to sell the plan as the best thing since Apple Pie & Thanksgiving.