After all, this isn’t everyone’s approach to trade.
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The New Zealand government has beaten everyone else to the punch publishing the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement a month after it was finalised by the 12 nations party to the deal.
The planned changes are consistent with former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s strategy of easing investment restrictions with the country’s historical trade links – North America, Europe, Japan – while increasing scrutiny of investments from outside of Canada’s historical commercial partnerships, targeted largely at emerging countries such as China.
“We will be working with our representatives in Congress to describe the benefits of the agreement to their constituents, no matter what part of the state they represent”, Wenger said.
“We are organizing a series of in-depth public hearings to assess the merits of the proposed agreement, zeroing in on those issues that are of particular importance or concern to us and our fellow Democratic colleagues”, Levin said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The ISDS provisions in the TPP text are within the normal range of such provisions agreed in many other free trade agreements, and are not a threat to New Zealand’s sovereignty”.
But the president added that “the TPP includes the strongest labor standards in history, from requiring a minimum wage and worker safety regulations to prohibiting child labor and forced labor”.
For example, if enacted, the TPP will not allow national regulatory authorities to use existing data that demonstrates a biological product’s safety and efficacy to authorize the sale of competitor products, even in the absence of patents.
To start with, critics are unconvinced of the labor standards Obama was eager to tout.
Details of the TPP were kept under wraps during the more than five years of negotiations, angering a few for its opacity and fueling fears over its possible reach.
“It’s worse than we thought”, Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said after examining the full text of the pact, which was unveiled early Thursday. This will not only help boost United States exports but will also support higher paying jobs at home. For instance, the deal gives drug companies about eight years of protection from cheaper competitors for biologics, which are ultra-expensive medicines produced in living cells. Senior officials from each country will meet at least once a year to consult on exchange-rate policy, and will produce an annual report on the meetings.
But it is opposed by unions and many of Obama’s fellow Democrats, including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who initially backed the developing deal when she was secretary of state during Obama’s first term.
A few pro-trade Republican lawmakers are also wary of the deal, heralding a tough fight to get the deal through Congress. Republican White House contender Donald Trump has labeled it a “disaster”.
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It has to be ratified by all 12 nations, in Australia’s case by parliament and for the U.S.it must be passed by Congress despite the divisive presidential election being in full swing.
