\u201cYou can be for it, or against it, but just don\u2019t call it a free trade agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
So says Brock international relations expert Blayne Haggart on Monday\u2019s signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).<\/p>\n
The TPP would form the world\u2019s largest trading bloc covering some 800 million consumers. Its members still need to ratify and sign the agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the deal commits its 12 member countries to reduce or eliminate tariffs across sectors of the economy, it reportedly includes many provisions that go far beyond traditional trade concerns,\u201d says Haggart, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science.<\/p>\n
Haggart says that the virtues of \u201cfree trade\u201d itself are unquestioned in mainstream policy circles. Free trade is based on the theory of \u201ccomparative advantage,\u201d which holds that countries should produce and export the goods and services they\u2019re most efficient at, resulting in lower prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut a lot of what\u2019s in this Trans-Pacific Partnership literally has nothing to do with the principle comparative advantage, which means it can\u2019t be legitimated by saying it\u2019s a \u2018free trade\u2019 agreement\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
He points to the agreement\u2019s reported intellectual property provisions as being a \u201cwindfall\u201d for pharmaceutical and digital industries in particular, saying that stronger intellectual property provisions are actually a \u201cde facto trade barrier.\u201d While free-trade agreements are supposed to reduce prices, stronger intellectual property protections actually make products like drugs more expensive.<\/p>\n
Haggart also raises concerns about the agreement\u2019s reported investor-state dispute mechanism, which essentially would allow foreign companies to sue countries for various reasons. \u201cThis could have a negative effect on the quality of our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cYou can be for it, or against it, but just don\u2019t call it a free trade agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":35804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,1,4],"tags":[3445,3447,3448,3446],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35802,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35801\/revisions\/35802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}