TPP was a communications and messaging failure on parts of governments. Other than being a sprawling agreement touching on multiple unrelated topics largely developed in secret, the US government in particular did little to convincingly persuade the populace about TPP's advantages. The anti-globalization folks predictably seized on those aspects while a different debate about the expansion of copyrights (i.e. the harmonization of copyright protections with those of the US) was raging in the tech sphere.<p>A gulf began to widen between the administration and those opposing TPP, and quality independent analysis was much more difficult to come by than fearmongering. A few corporations spoke out in favor of TPP [1], but given their vested interest, they made a poor case of swaying average people. Meanwhile, even mainstream news coverage of TPP tended negative. Hillary Clinton notably had modify her messaging on TPP [2] to be seen as a viable candidate, despite endorsing it before.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11893512#11894446</a> [2] <a href="http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-called-trans-pacific-partnership-the-gold-standard/" rel="nofollow">http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-called-trans-pacific-p...</a>
I so much hope that one of these countries will quickly change local laws to reduce copyright length to old levels (like 25 years after the life of the author) and start legally distributing (or even producing) movies featuring Mickey Mouse and other Disney "properties".
Not a fan of Trump but this is a good thing. See this exert from John Oliver on the effect of such trade deals; <a href="https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8</a><p>And that's the existing trade deals, TPP would have made it much worse. There is a reason why democratically elected governments need to protect their sovereignty. The scope of the legal provisions along with the requirement to use easily corruptible mediation is superfluous to free trade.<p>In addition, I don't understand those that think boxing out Russia and China from the rest of Europe and Asia is a good thing.
TPP was a trade agreement ruined by a long series of provisions sharply biased towards the USA and certain US industries. So as a New Zealander I'm really happy to see the back of it. Meanwhile we already have an FTA with China (and many other countries) and our trade both ways is booming.<p>Perhaps we can start again with a much cleaner, people friendly TPP that excludes the US and includes China.
This is essentially the resignation of the US in the Pacific. The TPP was intended to bind the smaller countries in the Pacific closer to the US and away from China. Generally, the election of Trump is the resignation of the US in the battle to remain the global hegemon. We live in interesting times. I just hope it won't become too interesting.
It will take decades to undo the damage from this latest bout of isolationism and protectionism. There was a wealth of FUD surrounding TPP, obscuring the benefits and over-inflating the effects of the more controversial issues like intellectual property rules. A number of TPP criticisms would lead one to believe that intellectual property rules were the main element of the agreement.<p>Instead of pushing to deal with those criticisms, the entire deal gets scrapped. And along with it, we now have an isolationist push against NAFTA and international trade in general. It'll be interesting to see the damage that's wrought in a vain attempt to somehow stack the deck in favor of "America First."<p>Sadly, it'll take much longer to fix than it did to screw up in the first place.
I'm very confused. When the TPP first leaked as a series of secret talks, everyone on HN was seemingly up in arms about the trade deal. Then it went through, and HN shifted to being very pro TPP. Now it's withdrawn, and now the HN mentality is back to voting for comments that are against the TPP. What is the prevailing opinion here?
I'm curious to see if the markets react to this. In the grand scheme of things, one trade deal shouldn't move the markets that much -- but the reasoning behind this withdrawal from the TPP is nothing at all approaching any of the real reasons one might be opposed to it -- the cause for this withdrawal is pure unfiltered sabre-rattling protectionism. "Let the trade wars commence and America intends to 'win'." The level of stupid behind that notion is nigh on incomprehensible -- and yet -- here we are.
What is the best summary of the TPP? It was done in such secrecy that it occurs to me that this may be the <i>only</i> good thing that comes from a Trump presidency.
Maybe it's just me, but wasn't everyone in Silicon Valley that wasn't senior management of a huge company vehemently anti-TPP ?<p>Why the change ?
Many here love to hate on any and all international trade deals. The problem with is that withdrawing from such negotiations does not stop them. Canada, china, europe, japan, the uk and everyone else will still be meeting and inking deals. Not every deal is great for everyone, but those who sit on the sidelines never win at anything.
TPP was a threat to the sovereignty of the United States. It would have encoded in a multilateral trade agreement, representing huge amounts of economic activity, massive regulatory requirements, enforcement courts, and processes for further multilateral regulation. It would have made the cost of changing those regulations unbearable for any future administration.<p>We almost had the regulatory state imposed at an international level. Good riddance.