>The truth is, of course, that no one knows what impact the (sic?) TPP would have.
Huh? Yeah, we have a sweeping new trade agreement. What does it do? Who knows!
Call me cynical, but I don't believe you.
Trade agreements are always about getting the best deal for your own industries - usually the ones which do or might fund your party.
(from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/06/tpp_trade_deal_text_published?page=2)
>The big topic that does seem to be legitimate is that the TPP will allow corporations to sue governments through so-called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), but that individuals will not be given an equivalent right to sue corporations.
That first phrase alone should be enough to kill it, even without the second phrase. Its designed to entrench vested interests by hamstringing governments. How nice if your multinationals can pull damages from foreign countries' tax-payers! Yeah, I'll bet that's just overblown, theoretical stuff. I mean, a company like McDonalds would never try to sue an Italian city for money it failed to make because the city refused to let it plonk its ugly self down in the middle of an historic plaza, next to a beautiful piece of architecture built before your country existed, would it?
Now we have a reputation problem. If part of the treaty is so anti-democratic as to try to over-ride governments, what's the likelihood that I'll trust the rest of it not to be bad in ways I haven't thought of?
But wait, there's more! Not only do you want to negotiate it behind closed doors (bad enough but possibly legitimate) but you want no-one to know about it until after it is signed into law? Contemptuous of democracy? Sure I trust you! Or maybe I don't. Maybe your own people distrust you and dislike the way you act so much, they would rather vote in an openly obnoxious lunatic just to try to change the way things are done.
When you effectively stamp on the people to get your own way, they eventually revolt and they start smashing things, both good and bad.
There are similarities with the Brexit referendum. Why didn't the politicians realise the political situation? I can only believe that they had isolated themselves from the people. They did not want to know what the people thought and the party machine made sure they didn't hear it. Was the media publishing their own thoughts rather than reporting on reality? They too appear to be in their own little bubble of "what should be" or (for the conspiracy theorists) what the media's owners think should be. Both party-political sides appear to be completely dishonest. In both instances the leaders of the party where the upset came from did not want the upset. There are differences too. The electoral college is an anachronism with Trump not actually being the majority choice - there are no such moral legitimacy issues stemming from the voting system with Brexit. The US issues are multiple and hazy, whereas the Brexit issue was a single, clear choice.
I suspect people asked the question, what do the trade treaties do for us? There was no answer because they weren't designed to benefit the people, they were designed to benefit the corporations. People will accept that for so long, but as the gap between rich and poor widens, the rich begin to believe in their divine right to rule and the poor's patience begins to grow thin.
What will be interesting now, is to see whether Congress has given so much power to the State bureaucracy that Trump will be able to deliver on things, or whether his own party will shut him down.