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Drugs, Milk and Cars Stopped the TTP (For Now)

posted by takyon on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:45PM   
from the eats-shoots-and-leaves dept.

c0lo writes:

Deutsche Welle reports on failed round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) negotiations:

Sticking points were said to have included differences over protecting regional food specialties, the auto trade, and protection for drug makers.

Among other things, New Zealand, the world's largest dairy exporter, has said it will not back a deal that does not significantly open dairy markets.

The question of data protection for drug manufacturers was also a bone of contention, with the US wanting data on biological drug development to remain monopolized for 12 years, as compared with Australia's five years.
The deputy trade minister from Chile, which has no protection at all for drugmakers, said any deal must reconcile public needs with commercial interest. "For us it's vital to have an agreement that balances public policy goals for intellectual property in medicines," Minister Andres Rebolledo said.

The New Zealanders are upset about their distant Canadian cousins protecting their dairy industry, the NZ stuff reports:

The heavily protected Canadian dairy industry has earned the wrath of Federated Farmers president Dr William Rolleston for standing in the way of a good deal for dairy in the Trans- Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks in Hawaii.
Rolleston said the public position of the Canadians was "unacceptable".

A 2014 paper written by Canadian academic and former Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay says it costs a Canadian family about $300 a year to prop up the dairy industry.
The Canadian government slaps on quotas of 246 percent for cheese, and almost 300 percent for butter.
Outside key dairy electorates, the supply management system that protects farmers is not popular.

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Original Submission

• Re:This is just PR (Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:03PM

  by c0lo (156) on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:03PM (#216879) Journal

  The TPP isn't better at handling the problems it was sold to us as handling.

  Seems like the problems stems in the huge inhomogeneity in the economies' structure of the countries of the would-be trade partners. Australian Financial Review [afr.com]:

  [Pascal Lamy] who retired as WTO director in 2009 told The Australian Financial Review on Thursday on the fringes of the Boao Forum for Asia, that the importance for the world economy of the TPP would be "relatively modest".

  The talks were supposed to set new modern standards in trade for fair competition between state-owned enterprises* and private firms and for protection of foreign investment, but Mr Lamy said the countries in the TPP were so diverse and at such different levels of development that the "lowest common denominator will not be very high".

  Even in contries with large private initiative in economy, there are protectionist measure to ensure fair access to their citizens: e.g. Australia's position on drugs or postal services/Internet access [smh.com.au] - for the latter, think of Australia's outback: produces most of the export cattle, yet with a population density of atto-people/square-km** there isn't a chance any telecom would think of wiring them to internet.

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  * (think Vietnam)

  ** well, yeah, a "poetic license" here, but you get what I mean

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  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

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