(10-16-2015, 06:29 AM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]Surely the republicans have a greater interest in pushing it, or something similar, through?
Not really. The net outcome of the TPP is going to be marginal for the average American, so it's easy for them to stick to any "Anti-Obama" rhetoric without being accused of hindering economic progress. A lot are wary that it will cost small businesses too. Cynically speaking, Republicans represent the interests of Big Business, but even more cynically, anything Obama likes they have to hate. They don't have to offer an alternative if they think the status quo is fine. Again, cynically speaking, they haven't offered up viable alternatives to anything in a long time.
If it sounds like I'm disparaging conservatives, don't worry. My outlook on life is just as dismal when talking about liberals. American politics are crap
There are actually a lot of forces against the TPP.
*US - Obama is pushing TPP as a last great item for his presidency, meaning that even though TPP is about american business interests which Republicans usually eat up and push hard for, the Republicans are against it. Petty partisan politics is more important than lobbyist dollars, apparently!
*EU - The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) just passed a ruling that
ended the EU-US safe harbor agreement. This means that all US companies have to follow EU privacy rules or they cannot do business in the EU! This
directly violates the TPP. And the CJEU very cleverly wrote their opinion, so that even if the TPP is ratified as law in the EU, the CJEU will strike it down as their equivalent of unconstitutional. This means that the EU is pretty much out of TPP, and the TPPI and TISA too!
*China - They will never, ever ratify this! Which makes the entire TPP process moot, as the whole point was to try to negate some of china's economic power (and give more to US companies, yuck). Obviously china was not going to be happy about it, but the writers were hoping that they could pressure china into accepting. With the above issues, that is so not going to happen.
I hope the TPP gets tossed in the Pacific for good. The part the really ruffles me is how the U.S. basically wanted copyright terms in line with our Life + 70 (or more) years. The rest of the world doesn't need our broken copyright scheme.