[CTC] Statements on TPP Maui Round

Sat Aug 1 07:00:15 PDT 2015

Some early press statements on the TPP round…

SIERRA CLUB

Sierra Club Statement on Trans-Pacific Partnership Finish Line Failure, Flawed Environment Chapter
U.S. and Pacific Nations Fail to Strike a Trade Deal

LAHAINA, HAWAII -- Today, trade ministers of the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries failed to reach a deal on the controversial trade pact at their meeting on Maui, Hawaii. The Sierra Club has been working tirelessly to expose the threats of this pact on communities, the environment, and our climate. 

In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:

"The road to completing the climate-damaging Trans-Pacific Partnership continues to be a perilous one. 

“If countries do eventually finalize the deal, its fate in the U.S. Congress is far from certain. The TPP would empower corporations to challenge climate and environmental safeguards in private trade courts and would expand trade in dangerous fossil fuels that will imperil our climate. The TPP’s environment chapter might look nice on the surface but will be hollow on the inside, and history gives us no reason to believe that TPP rules on conservation challenges such as the illegal timber or wildlife trade will ever be enforced.

“Any member of Congress who cares about the environment should not support such a deal.”

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PUBLIC CITIZEN

Yet Another ‘Final’ TPP Ministerial and Again No Deal; Not Surprising Given Growing Controversy Over TPP Threats Here and in Other Nations

Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
Today’s fourth “final” TPP ministerial without a deal means the clock has run on possible U.S. congressional votes in 2015. No deal means the TPP is thrown into the political maelstrom of the U.S. presidential cycle and with opposition building in many countries there are reduced chances that a deal will ever be reached on a pact that U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman declared to be in its “end game” in 2013 but that has become ever more controversial since.
It’s good news for people and the planet that no deal was done at this final do-or-die meeting given the TPP’s threats to jobs, wages, safe food, affordable medicines and more. Only the beleaguered negotiators and most of the 600 official U.S. trade advisors representing corporate interests wanted this deal, which recent polling shows is unpopular in most of the countries involved. 
This ministerial was viewed as a do-or-die moment to inject momentum into the TPP process, so this Maui meltdown in part reflects how controversial the TPP is in many of the involved nations and how little latitude governments feel to make concessions to get a deal.
The intense U.S. national political battle over trade authority was just a preview of the massive opposition the TPP would face once members of Congress and the public see the specific TPP terms that threaten their interests. Given the damaging impacts that some TPP proposals could have for many people, it’s not surprising that the same set of issues including investor-state dispute resolution and medicine patents as well as market access issues like sugar, dairy, and rules-of-origin on manufactured goods like autos remain deadlocked given they will determine whether a final pact is politically viable in various TPP countries.
Many of the 28 House Democrats who supported Fast Track authority for Obama explicitly said that their support for the TPP relied on certain goals being met, including strong, enforceable labor and environmental standards, and no rolling back of past patent rule reforms relating to access to medicines – terms meeting the “May 2007” standard that elements of the TPP do not meet. 
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Useful Resources 
·       The Fast Track timeline for a U.S. congressional vote on the TPP: As this memo <http://www.citizen.org/documents/TPP-vote-calendar.pdf> explains,  under the Fast Track bill passed last month, various congressional notice and report filing requirements add up to about four and one half months between notice of a final deal and congressional votes being taken. Thus, unless there is a final TPP to go along with today’s press announcement so that formal notice to Congress can be given immediately, it is already too late for a TPP vote in Congress in 2015.

·       Congressional Letters Raising Doubts on the TPP’s Prospects:  On July 30, 19 pro-Fast Track Democrats sent a letter <http://blumenauer.house.gov/images/pdf/072915_letter_TPP.pdf> laying out necessary environmental terms for an acceptable deal; on July 29, 18 pro-Fast Track Democrats sent a letter <http://blumenauer.house.gov/images/pdf/072815_letter_ustr.compressed1.pdf> about lack of enforcement in current and future trade agreements and demanding action against Peru for violations of environmental terms in its bilateral U.S. trade deal. Twelve Democrats who supported Fast Track and 12 GOP members were among the 160 Representatives signing a letter <http://democrats.waysandmeans.house.gov/press-release/160-members-congress-call-state-department-not-upgrade-malaysia-ranking-2015> decrying Malaysia’s inclusion in the TPP and the upgrade of Malaysia’s Human Trafficking status. Since Fast Track’s passage, a series of letters have been sent by U.S.representatives <http://timryan.house.gov/press-release/representative-tim-ryan-d-oh-and-dave-joyce-r-oh-fight-include-currency-manipulation> and senators <http://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=1b2b1027-ba52-4d3a-b9a5-d60480e6ac66> insisting that the TPP include enforceable disciplines against currency cheating in its core text. 

·       Polling: As this memo <http://www.citizen.org/documents/polling-memo.pdf> shows, recent polling reveals broad U.S. public opposition to more of the same trade deals among Independents, Republicans and Democrats. While Americans support trade, they do not support an expansion of status quo trade policies, complicating the push for the TPP.  Furthermore, recent Pew polls <http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/21/work-moves-ahead-on-tpp-trade-pact-but-nations-still-divided-over-deal/> in many of the TPP nations show that, outside Vietnam, the deal does not have strong support.

COUNCIL OF CANADIANS

July 31, 2015
TPP talks fail: Part of Harper’s disastrous economic project ends, says Council of Canadians

OTTAWA – Ministers from 12 countries negotiating the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) announced that they were unable to reach an agreement today. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was expected to call an election Sunday or Monday, while boasting of the success of the undisclosed agreement. The Council of Canadians has warned against the destructive effects of a potential deal.

“This is a victory for those fighting against the deal,” says Sujata Dey, Trade Campaigner for the Council of Canadians. “The nightmarish details will not be revealed for a long time, but from what little we do know from Wikileaks, we see that it involves a corporate takeover of the public good. This stall in talks could mean the death of the deal, and a win for the public interest all over the world.”

There is widespread speculation that the deal will not be adopted. Public Citizen, a well connected U.S. citizens’ group that regularly lobbies on Capitol Hill, says it will be next to impossible for the TPP <http://www.citizen.org/documents/TPP-vote-calendar.pdf> to pass Congress before President Obama’s term expires, even if a deal had been concluded today.

So far, chapters of the agreement have been revealed only through Wikileaks. Some MPs have not had access to the deal, and advisors who have received the required clearance face jail terms if they reveal details of the agreement.

Unifor, a major private sector union, just released a report calling Harper one of the worst economic managers since World War II. The report, titled Rhetoric and Reality: Evaluating Canada’s Economic Record Under the Harper Government <http://www.unifor.org/sites/default/files/documents/document/909-harper_economic_critique_eng_0.pdf>, says: “Since its election in 2006, Canada’s exports have hardly grown at all, at an average rate of just 0.3% per year. That’s by far the worst in post-war history, and Canada now experiences large annual trade deficits (since our imports grew much faster than our exports). Nurturing Canadian skills, value-added industries and globally successful companies is the key to higher exports – not just signing more corporate-friendly trade deals.”

“Under free trade deals, Canadian exports have not grown. The TPP would have been just another of the Harper government’s terrible economic legacies,” says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “Luckily, the deal was not concluded in Maui. With a federal election imminent, Canadians can choose another direction.”

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AUSTRALIA FAIR TRADE AND INVESTMENT NETWORK

Media Release                                                                                                                                                                                               August 1, 2015

Failed Trans-Pacific (TPP) talks show folly of trading away access to medicines and giving foreign investors rights to sue governments despite community opposition

“The failure of TPP Ministers to reach agreement in what was supposed to be the final round of negotiations vindicates the deep concerns of community groups that the TPP is secretly trading away issues like access to affordable medicines and governments’ right to regulate without being sued by foreign corporations. These are issues which should be decided though open democratic parliamentary processes, not secretly traded away for token access to sugar or dairy markets,” said Dr Patricia Ranald, Coordinator of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network.

At a media conference held at 12.30 PM Australian EST, TPP ministers announced no agreement. They claimed “significant progress” and said “intensive work” will continue, but have not set a date for another meeting.

“We are pleased that governments failed to reach agreement on key sticking points about extension of monopolies and corporate rights which should not even be on the table in so–called free trade negotiations. These are:

Extension of monopolies on costly biologic medicines which would cost the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme hundreds of millions of dollars <http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/tpp/submissions/Documents/tpp_sub_gleeson_lopert_moir.pdf> for every year of delay for cheaper versions to become available. This would lead to pressure for higher prices at the chemist.

Special rights for foreign investors to sue governments in international tribunals if they can argue that a change in domestic law or policy ‘harms” their investment. There are increasing numbers of cases against health and environmental law, like the Philip Morris tobacco company case against Australia’s plain packaging law, which has cost the Australian Government $50 million in legal fees <http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-faces-50m-legal-bill-in-cigarette-plain-packaging-fight-with-philip-morris-20150728-gim4xo.html> and is still not finished after four years. Proposed ‘safeguards’ <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-31/gleeson-tienhaara-crunch-time-for-isds-in-tpp-agreement/6663398> have not prevented such cases.”

“The US has been driving this agenda on behalf of its most powerful export industries for five years. It is now rushing to finish to a timetable set by the US presidential elections, because the TPP is so unpopular in the US that neither side wants to defend it in an electoral race. This deadline is now unlikely to be met. The Australian and other governments should continue to resist these proposals, and should soon recognize that the TPP project will not succeed and should be abandoned,” said Dr Ranald.

PROF. JANE KELSEY (NEW ZEALAND)

1 August 2015

TPPA ministerial fails – time for Key and Groser to cut their losses

‘The “final” ministerial meeting on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in Maui has failed. Not opting to stay another day shows the gridlock is serious and potentially intractable’, according to University of Auckland law professor Jane Kelsey.

‘Everyone is blaming each other in Maui’, Kelsey said. ‘But the underlying reason for the gridlock is the domestic opposition in almost all the TPPA countries.’

‘People simply don’t believe a deal that raises the price of medicines and handcuffs the right of governments to regulate is in their national interests’.

‘Despite erecting a shroud of secrecy around the negotiations, politicians know they can’t sign a final deal that they can’t sell at home.’

Professor Kelsey notes that Minister Groser’s sales job got much harder this week.

After years of denial, he and the Prime Minister have now confessed that medicines will indeed cost more, that the TPPA will prevent tighter restrictions foreign investments, and that foreign investors might indeed sue New Zealand and win under the TPPA. 

‘Those confessions raised the political price of the TPPA and meant the Minister couldn’t accept a cosmetic deal. Despite downgrading his ambitions from the initial “full liberalisation” to something “commercially meaningful” for dairy, even that was not achievable.’

Time has now almost run out. The US Fast Track law sets out a complicated process the US must follow. US consumer organisation Public Citizen calculates the absolute minimum amount of time is about 3 months.

Under the more likely timeframe, if negotiations do not conclude until September the earliest Congress would vote on the TPP is January 2016, when the path to passage will be more politically fraught. That is US election year. The last thing Hilary Clinton, other Democrats and many Republicans want is a vote on a politically toxic deal mid-campaign.

‘Hopefully the groundswell of media coverage and discussion in New Zealand this week, along with a stronger position from Labour and the Waitangi Tribunal claim, have created enough pressure on the government to cut its losses and walk away’, Kelsey said.

‘At the very least, before the negotiations resume we need to see the text and the options clearly laid out, and have an independent and comprehensive cost benefit analysis that can be debated in an open and democratic way’. 

‘I and others will seek to advance that openness with the judicial review proceedings of the Minister’s refusal to release documents under the Official Information Act, to be filed early next week’.\

USTR

 https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2015/july/joint-statement-tpp-ministers <https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2015/july/joint-statement-tpp-ministers>
Joint Statement by TPP Ministers

Lahaina, HI - We, the trade ministers of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam announce that, after more than a week of productive meetings, we have made significant progress and will continue work on resolving a limited number of remaining issues, paving the way for the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.

Ministers and negotiators leave Hawaii committed to build on the momentum of this meeting by staying in close contact as negotiators continue their intensive engagement to find common ground. Negotiators will also continue to work to formalize the achievements that have been made this week.

In this last stage of negotiations, we are more confident than ever that TPP is within reach and will support jobs and economic growth.

The progress made this week reflects our longstanding commitment to deliver an ambitious, comprehensive and high-standard TPP agreement that will support jobs and economic growth across the Asia Pacific region.

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