Talks for Pacific Trade Deal Stall at a Critical Step

[Purveyor]

Source: New York Times

LAHAINA, Hawaii — Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations were headed toward failure Friday, with difficult talks on the largest regional trade agreement ever breaking down over protections for pharmaceutical companies and access to agriculture markets on both sides of the Pacific.

Negotiators will return to their home countries to obtain high-level signoffs for a small number of final sticking points on the agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with bilateral talks reconvening soon.

But the breakdown is a setback for the Obama administration, which had promoted the talks here as the final round ahead of an accord that would bind 40 percent of the world’s economy under a new set of rules for commerce.

President Obama’s trade push had been buoyed by Congress’s narrow passage in June of “fast track” trade negotiating powers, and American negotiators had hoped other countries could come together once Congress had given up the right to amend any final agreement.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/business/tpp-trade-talks-us-pacific-nations.html?_r=0

[djean111]

1. Good.

Australia, Chile and New Zealand also continue to resist the United States push to protect the intellectual property of major pharmaceutical companies for as much as 12 years, shielding them from generic competition as they recoup the cost of developing next-generation “biologic” medicines.

[fbc]

2. Evil Asian nations protecting pharmaceutical companies over people

Oh wait, no, that's us. We are the bad guys.

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Boo-hoo!

[Auggie]

4. "Negotiations will push the U.S. ratification fight into 2016, a presidential election year."

YES! We need debate on this, and what better venue is there than Presidential debates?

[stuffmatters]

19. And "Reelection" year for Congress shills who voted against their constituents interests and wishes.

I'd read reports that petitions, letters, calls, emails were running as high as 100 to one against fast track & these T agreements.Yet all Repubs along with enough Wall Street Dems pushed through fast track & set up approval of the following T agreements.

I know I won't be voting again for my Rep Scott Peters. I wouldn't vote for Feinstein ever again either, but I heard she's not running again.

And wow if Ron Wyden were my senator, I'd sure be looking for another Dem to support in 2016. Wyden was the lynchpin Democratic turncoat and enabler of this surrender of our sovereignty to global corporate, unchallengeable kangaroo courts.

[ruffburr]

5. one can only hope-

This deal collapses under its own weight, Would save the world not to mention the U.S.

[admonish]

21. the US benefits the most from their trade deals

....admittedly, not 'merican citizens so much but definitely american based multinationals...especially big pharma and the dirty industrials...the reason obama supports this, imo, is because it will move the american economy forward as a whole....downward pressure on wages is there with or without this deal and upward pressure from the poorer countries is there as well...my opinion is that north american wages will rebound only when the poorer countries get theirs

[roguevalley]

6. this is the ticket to the darkest pits of hell and frankly, I think Mr. Obama earned one.

[Monk06]

7. This as never been about free trade from the get go. It's about US companies protecting their

industries from competition and avoiding environmental and consumer regulations in other countries.

In other words it's about trade protectionism the opposite of what it is called.

[jwirr]

13. Absolutely and when congress passed the TPA that put these other countries on the hook. They

are the only ones who can stop this unless our congress finally understands how bad this really is.

[villager]

8. Keep on breakin' down, TPP!

May these talks collapse and swirl into the gutter of history....

[irisblue]

12. from your keyboard to the divine

[Scruffy1]

9. Finally, some good news. eom.

[JackInGreen]

10. Let it be stalled

Left for dead and picked by vultures.

[99th_Monkey]

11. Cry Me A River

So US pharmaceutical corporations are strangling the TPP in it's crib with their unabated greed!?!

That's the sweetest irony I've encountered in a l-o-o-o-n-g time

[beltanefauve]

14. 115 comments

And only three were in favor of the TTP.

Two of those seemed like they were written by lobbyists or paid shills.

[snot]

15. Rec'ing for the stall.

[silvershadow]

16. I hope it steps off a cliff. nt

[eridani]

17. Good!!

[davidpdx]

18. Oh, this is just terrible

[DCBob]

20. They will be a TPP deal. There no way they will all give up on this.

Sounds like a negotiating tactic and also posturing to send a message to their constituents that they are trying to get the best deal possible.

[Sunlei]

22. perhaps all the countries will have to let the Drug Corps set their own prices and remove Drug Corps

'agreements'from all the trade deals.

If that's the only part holding the deal back.

[lark]

23. Whoohoo for Failure!

Whoohoo for destroying the pharmacy companies wet dreams of raising prices all over the world and ending the days of quick generic version. Whoohoo for no corporate courts overriding local labor and environmental laws.



to Australia

[lark]

24. OK, I know I'm celebrating prematurely.

Big pharma is not going to give up and neither are the other multinationals. It's just so good to get some happy news for a change on this topic that I just wanted to celebrate for a moment.