The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP or P4) is a controversial free trade agreement in negotiation between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, The United States, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada, and Japan. It aims to further liberalize the economies of the Asia-Pacific region. Though the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement will form a free trade agreement aimed at broadening the flow of goods and services across international borders, it negatively impacts our government and the ability to protect it’s citizens, as well as pressuring local businesses and creating network security issues. As a group we have decided to explore this topic and further analyze its negative impacts through conducting the PEST analysis.

Political

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement has cause significant damage to the global economy. Before its name was changed it was originally known as the P4 or Pacific 4. The P4 originally consisted of the following countries: Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Singapore, and New Zealand. It was the first multi-party free trade agreement that linked Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. The P4 negotiations were first held at the APEC Leaders’ Summit in 2002 and it came into full force in 2006. Under the agreement, most taxes on goods traded between countries were removed immediately. The P4 eliminated duties on 92% on New Zealand’s exports to Brunei and 90% of New Zealand’s exports to Chile. Brunei and Chile will phase out the remaining tariffs of New Zealand’s exports in 2015 and 2017 respectively. In return, New Zealand will phase out its tariffs by 2015. The P4 also measures the facilitate trade in goods, cover rules of origin, quarantine rules and technical barriers of trade. The P4 agreement aimed to provide easy economic integration meaning that it was designed so that other countries could later come on board. The term Trans-Pacific Partnership came later after 2009 negotiations. The United States joined the P4 in 2009 thus changing its name to the now Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement. More countries soon follow the footsteps on the U.S and join the TPP. Currently there are a total of 12 countries involved in this treaty: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, the United States, Vietnam, Mexico, Canada and New Zealand. Though the P4 originally was mainly made to remove taxes on exports, the TPP has now extended over copyrights, patents, trademarks and other intellectual properties laws of countries. (1)

The TPP is a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to diminish intellectual property laws and rewrite international laws on its enforcement. Normally, it is only positioned as merely a trade deal, to harmonize taxes and other trade regulations and promote trading among the countries involve. But it is not all that it seems. Described as "stealthy delivery mechanism for policies that could not survive public scrutiny" that agreement’s hidden agenda aims to severely restrict government authority at any level. It greatly encourages illegal trades that harm the community and the environment. (2) The TPP has many provisions; most have nothing to do with trade per se. They promote the interests of powerful global corporations and use legal and political means to limit true competition in the marketplace. (3)