Fools or Liars on the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

Fools or Liars on the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

Monday, 21 March 2016 00:00
By Dean Baker, Truthout | Op-Ed


Given the recent flood of op-eds and editorials on the wonders of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Obama administration must be about to present the deal to Congress for approval. Otherwise, it's hard to see why so many pieces would spontaneously appear on the TPP. Since there is real money at stake, we can expect the debate to get pretty low and nasty, with the pro-TPP forces liberally substituting ad hominems and claims to expertise for serious arguments.

My favorite on the lack of argument side is the exciting news that if the TPP is approved it will eliminate 18,000 tariffs on US exports to the countries in the deal. That sounds like a huge boon to trade, right? Public Citizen looked up the 18,000 tariffs that would be eliminated. If found that the United States is not currently exporting in more than half of the categories in which these tariffs apply. Included in the list of tariffs to be removed are Malaysia's shark fin tariffs, Vietnam's whale meat tariffs and Japan's ivory tariffs.

The overwhelming majority of these tariffs are of little consequence in very narrow product categories, like Brunei's tariff on ski boots. So when the proponents of the TPP tout the 18,000 tariffs is this because they have no clue what they are talking about, or are they deliberately trying to deceive the public?

But this is just the beginning of the fun when it comes to the TPP. The very pro-TPP Peter Peterson Institute for International Economics produced a study showing that the deal will add 0.5 percentage points to GDP when its effects are fully felt in 2030. While this projection is supposed to convince people of the huge benefits of the TPP, taken at face value it means we will be as rich on January 1, 2030 as we would otherwise be on March 15, 2030.

But even this limited projected gain is dubious. The model used to project this result explicitly assumes that the TPP cannot increase unemployment. If people are concerned that the TPP will lead to a further rise in the US trade deficit, which would cost jobs, the Peterson Institute model has nothing to tell them on the topic. It rules out this possibility by assumption. ...........(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35300-fools-or-liars-on-the-trans-pacific-partnership