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The United States formally withdrew from the original TPPA in January 2017, killing the agreement. It now appears likely that an agreement based on the TPPA (known originally as the TPPA-11, then rebranded as the CPTPP) will go ahead.
The Labour Party, despite saying they’d refuse to support ratification of the TPPA and demanding independent economic and health analyses, and promising a new inclusive approach to trade and investment agreements are planning to sign the TPPA-11 on 8 March 2018.
The text for TPPA-11 is the same as the original TPPA, with a small number of provisions suspended until the United States rejoins. The negotiations are still secret. The threats to our regulatory sovereignty remain the same.
Visit www.DontDoIt.nz to sign the comprehensive petition seeking Parliament to reject the TPPA, and to ensure that a fair and democratic process is adopted for future trade and investment agreements.
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When it first became obvious that the US was going to pull out of the TPPA, there was some discussion from the remaining countries about a new agreement going ahead without the US. The idea was initially widely dismissed, not least of which by Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who described such an agreement as “meaningless“.
From a New Zealand perspective, it is easy to understand why this is the case. The whole point of the TPPA, according to its New Zealand backers, was to gain access to heavily protected US markets. As it happened, we achieved only limited improvements in dairy access to the US, and the overall economic economic benefits were seen to be marginal. In the end, the losses for the New Zealand public far outweighed the benefit the economic benefit. If an agreement based on the TPPA goes through without the United States, New Zealand will have sold out its sovereignty without the benefit of (limited) increases in US market access. As Professor Kelsey has written:
“The economic modelling the government relied on to sell the TPPA last year had zero credibility and failed to account for the costs. Take the US out of that equation and any attempt to pitch the agreement as having net benefits to New Zealand is risible.”
If the TPPA made no sense with the United States involved, it makes even less sense without them.
Despite this, the prospect of a TPPA without the US (“TPPA-11”) is gaining ground in light of the surprise 180 degree turn by Japan, who are now pushing for the agreement. Senior trade officials from the TPPA-11 countries met in early April, followed by a full Ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the APEC conference in Manila later in the month. At the conclusion of that meeting the TPPA-11 countries issued a statement recording that they would begin working towards an agreement based on the TPPA in advance of a further ministerial meeting in November 2017.
Under the National-led government, New Zealand pushed hard for a TPPA-11 without any amendments to the original TPPA document in the hope that this would make it easier for the US to return to the agreement. Bill English went on record to say that:
“The indications are there’s a collective interest in maintaining the agreement in a way that the US could sign up to in the future.”
Unfortunately for the Bill English, and fortunately for other New Zealanders, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was blunt in his assertion after the Manila meeting that “the United States pulled out of the TPP and it’s not going to change that decision.”
Even better for New Zealanders, the new Labour-led coalition government is likely to throw a spanner in the works of the TPPA-11 given the Labour Party’s desire to regulate foreign ownership of existing housing stock and farmland (which would breach the TPPA as it currently stands) and the strong opposition of New Zealand First and the Greens to the agreement.
In opposition, the Labour Party strongly criticised the National-led government’s lack of public consultation on the TPPA. Debating the TPPA Amendment Bill in Parliament, Grant Robertson said that former Trade Minister Todd McClay had “let down New Zealand with the way this process was undertaken: in secret, without conversation with New Zealanders, and without bringing New Zealanders along with him.”
Whether or not the TPPA-11 is signed on March 8, it will still need to be ratified by the New Zealand Government before it comes into force. Visit www.DontDoIt.nz to sign the comprehensive petition seeking Parliament to reject the TPPA, and to ensure that a fair and democratic process is adopted for future trade and investment agreements.
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