Abstract:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is no ordinary free trade deal - and this book is about much more than 'free trade'. The proposed agreement raises questions about the political future of independent nations, about sovereignty, democracy and indigenous self-determination, and, above all, the people's right to know what governments are doing. The TPPA is billed as an agreement fit for the twenty-first century, but no-one is sure what that means. The US sells the TPPA as the key to jobs and economic recovery (while protecting home markets); New Zealand sees is as a magic bullet to open the US dairy market; Australia hails it as a foundation stone for an APEC-wide free trade agreement. None of these arguments stacks up. Most participant countries are already heavily liberalised and deregulated, with numerous free trade agreements already in place. No-one really believes that US dairy markets will be thrown open to New Zealand or that China, India and Japan will sign onto a treaty they had no role in designing. In No Ordinary Deal, experts from Australia, New Zealand, the US and Chile examine the TPPA negotiations, and set out the costs of making concessions to the US simply to achieve a deal. They argue that obligations under the TPPA will intrude into core areas of government policy - such as financial regulation, pharmaceutical controls, foreign investment, food standards, culture and intellectual property laws. Above all, the proposed agreement locks our countries even deeper into a neoliberal model of global free markets - when even political leaders admit that this has failed.