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posted by martyb on Thursday April 12 2018, @10:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the first-they-laugh-at-you? dept.

Trump Proposes Rejoining Trans-Pacific Partnership

President Trump, in a surprising reversal, told a gathering of farm state lawmakers and governors on Thursday morning that he was directing his advisers to look into rejoining the multicountry trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal he pulled out of within days of assuming the presidency.

Rejoining the 11-country pact could be a sharp reversal of fortune for many American industries that stood to benefit from the trade agreement's favorable terms and Republican lawmakers who supported the pact. The deal, which was initiated by the Obama administration, was largely viewed as a tool to prod China into making the type of economic reforms that the United States and others have long wanted.

Both Democrats and Republicans attacked the deal during the president campaign, but many business leaders were disappointed when Mr. Trump withdrew from agreement, arguing that the United States would end up with less favorable terms attempting to broker an array of individual trade pacts and that scrapping the deal would empower China.

Republicans in Congress have also been skeptical of Mr. Trump's tendencies on trade, and 25 Republican senators sent a letter to Mr. Trump urging him to re-engage with the pact "so that the American people can prosper from the tremendous opportunities that these trading partners bring."

Previously: Donald Trump to Withdraw US from Trans-Pacific Partnership
Renamed TPP Signed, Without the IP Rules, Without the USA

Related: "Legal Scrub" of TPP Makes Massive Change to Penalties for Copyright Infringement
US Government's Own Report Shows Toxic TPP "Not Worth Passing"
Australia Leads Charge to Revive TPP While Canada Abstains


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 13 2018, @01:25AM (6 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 13 2018, @01:25AM (#666279) Journal

    Well, I still don't like the TPP very much, but without the IP parts, it does lose most of it's evil.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @07:05AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @07:05AM (#666348)

    Agreed, but it makes it also a VASTLY less favourable deal for the US, as it basically does nothing to help its biggest export: IP.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 13 2018, @04:54PM (4 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 13 2018, @04:54PM (#666516) Journal

      Maybe the US should stop focusing on exporting Imaginary Property?

      The absurd lengths of time (even 20 year patents) vastly exceed what seems reasonable. If you can't get your reward within the market advantage time before your competitors can figure out what you did to copy it, then is it really worth protecting?

      Many innovations simply happen because the time is ripe for it. Like 1-click shopping. No reason Amazon should have a patent on that. If Amazon hadn't added that button, someone else would have within six months. It's not an innovation. Simply a "who did it first", and everyone would have done it within a short time. It was fairly obvious. But these days being fairly obvious is the primary thing that makes something patentable.

      I understand there are some who argue that some innovations should be protected. And some good justifications are offered -- even for some software. But it always seems like edge cases. Now if you could get rid of the vast majority of patent-noise so that these edge-cases were the mainstream of patent applications, then you might convince me.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 13 2018, @05:49PM (3 children)

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday April 13 2018, @05:49PM (#666544) Journal

        [1-click shopping]

        It's not an innovation.

        It is an innovation. But patents were not introduced to protect innovation, they were introduced to protect inventions. That's an important difference.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday April 13 2018, @05:51PM (2 children)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 13 2018, @05:51PM (#666546) Journal

          Okay.

          But if 1-click shopping is an invention, then we're protecting the wrong thing.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 13 2018, @10:08PM (1 child)

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday April 13 2018, @10:08PM (#666643) Journal

            Read my post again.

            1-click shopping is an innovation. It is not an invention. Patents were not meant to protect innovations, they were meant to protect inventions.

            Again, innovations and inventions are not the same thing.

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
            • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday April 14 2018, @02:32PM

              by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 14 2018, @02:32PM (#666934) Journal

              Sorry, I misread. I agree.

              --
              People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.