Statement on Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Heads of State 10-8-13 Declaration

"It is not surprising that the leaders could not announce a deal and in fact have eliminated the language in their official statement that negotiations are on track to meet the long-touted 2013 end-of-year deadline, despite all of the hype to the contrary leading up to the summit. [STATEMENT, ATTACHED, NOW SAYS: "...our countries are on track to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations. FULL STOP"]

Public and parliamentary opposition in some TPP countries has grown as the true nature of the TPP "trade offs" in public health, financial stability, quality job creation, Internet freedom and more being demanded for this deal has emerged, forcing continued deadlocks on many of these issues. [SEE CHART BELOW FOR DEADLOCKED ISSUES]

That the leaders have admitted that there is no deal nor a clear path to obtaining one this year, despite the hype built up pre-summit, reveals the growing domestic political blowback against the TPP that the leaders are now trying to manage. At the last TPP Summit in 2011, the leaders gleefully announced a breakthrough when they did not have one. Since the last 2011 TPP leaders' summit, opposition to the very notion that closed-door TPP "trade" negotiations with 600 official corporate advisors should rewrite wide swaths of 12 countries domestic laws has only grown in the U.S. and in other TPP counties, creating new political liabilities for any head of state associated with that agenda.

Perhaps the most lasting effect of Obama not attending the APEC summit due to the government shutdown is that it reveals there is little chance that this Congress will delegate its constitutional trade authority to grant Obama the extraordinary Fast Track powers he says he needs to finish TPP and that other countries want in place to ensure Congress is handcuffed before they make concessions that could cause them political woe at home.

Trans-Pacific Partnership at APEC:

What End Game? (No End in Sight...)

On November 12, 2011, the Leaders of the nine Trans-Pacific Partnership countries ... announced the achievement of the broad outlines of an ambitious, 21st-century Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement..." Wait? Wasn't that the much-hyped goal of this leaders' summit two years later? Until recently, USTR Michael Froman was declaring that the TPP was in its "end game." Except:

* There is no text agreed for major swaths of at least three of the pact's 29 chapters.

* There are multi-year deadlocks on a long list of controversial "behind the borders" issues in a dozen other chapters - one chapter has 300 "brackets." (Brackets mark disputed text.)

* There are no deals on any of the controversial market access issues -from sugar and dairy to textiles/apparel and autos, in part because the most basic question remains contested: how will the TPP relate to the more than 30 bilateral trade pacts already existing between the parties?

And, as details have leaked out about the draft texts that have emerged from three years of extremely secretive negotiations, political opposition is building in several TPP countries among parliamentarians, powerful professional associations, business sectors, unions and the public. Signatory countries would be required to conform all of their domestic laws to the TPP terms. And, only five of the pact's chapters cover traditional trade matters. The rest would set rules on patents and copyright, medicine pricing policies and health care, financial regulation, food safety, immigration visas, government procurement, land-use, energy policy and more.

Check List: Were These Controversial TPP Issues Suddenly Resolved*?

oEntire patent section of IP chapter and text on medicine pricing rules both deadlocked

A U.S. proposal that would deliver on Big Pharma's demands for extended patents, data exclusivity and other monopoly powers that raise medicine prices has faced unwavering multi-year opposition by most other TPP countries. The entire patent section of the IP text is in brackets. In another chapter, an Annex cynically dubbed "Annex on Transparency and Procedural Fairness for Healthcare Technologies," is also deadlocked. This text would allow Big Pharma to challenge the decisions of doctors and pharmacologists who determine the cost-saving medicine formularies of countries' healthcare systems. These issues have become a major political liability in numerous TPP nations.

oDeadlock over enforceability of labor rights

The U.S. seeks labor standards that are enforceable on equal terms with the pact's other provisions. Most TPP countries oppose enforceable labor standards altogether.

oEnvironment chapter at an impasse

The text still has 300 brackets - connoting text that is not agreed, which is most of the text.

oDeadlock over the State Owned Enterprises (SOE) text

To start with, there is no agreed definition of SoEs! The U.S. has proposed disciplines on SoEs forbidding the use of government resources to subsidize SoE activities within TPP nations. A sizable bloc of nations opposes the U.S. text absolutely. Recently Australia tabled an alternative text altogether. The result: this text is all brackets and no agreement.

oUnited opposition to the U.S. demand that TPP ban the use of capital controls

With the IMF now endorsing the usage of capital controls as a legitimate policy to avoid floods of speculative capital that cause financial crises, it is not surprising that there is united opposition to the unbending U.S. demand that TPP include a ban on countries' use of various common-sense macro-prudential measures, including capital controls and financial transaction taxes.

oDeadlocks over various aspects of controversial "investor-state" private corporate enforcement of TPP

Australia's newly-elected conservative government has reiterated that it will not be bound to the investor-state enforcement system, which elevates individual corporations to equal status with sovereign nations in order to enforce privately a public treaty by demanding compensation from governments before panels of private-sector attorneys for government actions that undermine expected future profits. Japanese Prime Minister Abe's Liberal Democratic Party parliamentary majority has set as a condition for Japan's TPP participation that the deal not include investor-state enforcement. Other TPP nations oppose the U.S. demand that government natural resource concession, private-public-partnership utility management contracts and procurement contracts be subject to such extra-judicial processes. Key text remains in brackets with respect to both the substantive rights which investors would be granted and the enforcement system.

oNegotiations on sensitive Market Access issues not even started

Japan's parliament has listed five "sacred" commodities - rice, beef and pork, wheat and barley, sugar and dairy - that it demands be excluded from TPP rules zeroing out tariffs. Other TPP countries insist that no sector can be excluded. The rules of origin - how much of a product's value must come from TPP countries - have not been agreed for sensitive sectors such as apparel/textiles, autos and more, so actual tariff-cutting negotiations have not started on these products. Battles over sugar, dairy and more remain unresolved.

oImpasse on Copyright Rules

Hollywood and recording industry-inspired proposals to limit internet freedom and access to educational materials, to force internet providers to act as copyright cops, and to cut off peoples' internet access have triggered public outrage and led to a negotiation stalemate. There is entrenched disagreement about whether copyright should be able to keep works of art and literature out of the public domain 70 years after death of the author, with no resolution in sight.

oNegotiations on Currency Disciplines Not Even Started

Despite bipartisan demands in recent weeks by 60 U.S. Senators and 230 Representatives that TPP include disciplines against currency manipulation, talks on the subject have not even begun.

* And, that's just a sample of the issues that are raising opposition in both the negotiations suites and TPP nations' streets...