In a recent op-ed piece for The Washington Post, US President Barack Obama noted that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would help his country lead in global trade. Analyst William Jones said the economic consequences of the initiative will be disastrous.
[May 4, 2016 |Sputnik News]
“America should write the rules. America should call the shots. Other countries should play by the rules that America and our partners set, and not the other way around,” President Obama wrote.
The TPP agreement brings together 12 nations accounting for 40 percent of the global economy. It was signed in February 2016, but country members still have two years to ratify or reject it.
The document has come under harsh criticism because it was not discussed publicly. According to experts, with this agreement, the US wants to deter China, Washington’s main economic rival in the Pacific. China is not party to the TPP.
The economic consequences of the initiative may be very dire, Executive Intelligence Review analyst William Jones said.
“Its economic outcome will be disastrous. None of the country members can be confident that there will be no problems after the deal is signed,” he was quoted as saying by RT.
The text of the document has not been made public, and there a lot of opponents to the deal, including among its participants, he added.
“I’m sure that if it was published there would be massive public protests against the TPP, and the initiative would soon be buried at the graveyard of history,” Jones said.
Critics of the TPP deal claim that it undermines domestic companies, laws, regulations and institutions through an extra-judicial process that stacks the deck in favor of multinational corporations.
The TPP is unlikely to put the United States in a better position than countries like China to write and enforce the rules of the global economy, Coalition for a Prosperous America CEO Michael Stumo told Sputnik.
Washington failed to enforce WTO regulations, Stumo observed, and there is little reason to believe Washington will be able to write enforceable trade rules through TPP.
