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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.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:18AM
> It isn't like what we're doing now is working out for the vast majority of people, although there are a few who profit enormously.
Actually it has been working out pretty good for quite a large number of people in China and to a lesser extent south-east asia.
The problem is that the price in the USA has been predominately paid by the people least able to afford it. The libertarian mindset tends to emphasize the net good without giving much thought to the distribution of the costs. Since politicians are supposed to look out for the interests of their constituents that's a problem (and, as an aside, why guys who talk like Trump are so popular among those disaffected. Nevermind that the actions of guys like Trump are a primary source of the problem in the first place.)