Mexico Will Ask To Join US-EU Transatlantic Trade Agreement

from the really-getting-serious dept

Wed, Mar 13th 2013 4:39pm — Glyn Moody

Things are moving fast with the proposed US-EU transatlantic free trade agreement (TAFTA). It was only a few weeks ago that the formal announcement was made, and already another country wants to join, as pointed out by @PostActa (original in Spanish):

The Mexican government wants to be part of the negotiations of the Transatlantic Association of Trade and Investment (TTIP, in its English acronym), which the United States and European Union will be negotiating, with the idea that there will be two blocks that make up the future pact.

That is, alongside the EU block of 27 countries, Mexico is suggesting there should be a similar regional grouping in North America. Interestingly, the story says that the Mexican government will ask the US President for permission to join, with no mention of asking the EU: "It is a sovereign decision of Washington as to the approach and the negotiation strategy to be adopted", and although the U.S. government has already referred to the idea, it is something that is not yet included in a formal dialogue, and needs to be defined.
That suggests that the US is actively involved in this latest move -- maybe even its instigator -- and would look favorably on Mexico joining TAFTA. There's also a hint in the article quoted above that Canada too might join TAFTA. Having both Mexico and Canada on board would be consistent with the US's past approach, where it allowed them to join the TPP negotiations, but on fairly humiliating terms that limit their scope of action.

Whether or not Mexico and Canada become part of TAFTA, and under what terms, it's pretty clear what the US strategy here is. Just today we learned that South Korea is likely to join Japan in asking to sign up to the TPP talks. That would make TPP the defining international agreement for the entire Pacific region. TAFTA obviously aims to do the same for the Atlantic. As well as establishing the US as the key link between the giant TPP and TAFTA blocs, this double-headed approach would also isolate the main emerging economies -- Brazil, Russia, India and above all China -- if they refuse to join as presumably junior partners. That globe-spanning pair of trade pacts, it would seem, are what Obama hopes to be remembered for when he leaves office: his legacy to America -- and to history.

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Filed Under: eu, europe, intellectual property, mexico, tafta, trade agreements, us

12 Comments

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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Mar 2013 @ 4:59pm

3D printing destroys the pharma side of this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/21/chemputer-that-prints-out-drugs

The massive storage and direction torrent apps are going will destroy the copyright side of the agreement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

So what is the point?
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That One Guy (profile), 13 Mar 2013 @ 5:26pm

Something's missing...
Considering how they were treated when they 'joined' the TPP negotiations, I have to wonder: is someone being promised some major kickbacks, or is it more of a 'we highly suggest that it would be in your best interests to sign up with the agreement' situation being presented to them?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2013 @ 9:04pm

Re: Something's missing...
I'm willing to bet it's the latter rather than the former.
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ECA (profile), 13 Mar 2013 @ 9:15pm

ONLY 1 REASON
there seems only 1 GOOD reason for all the other countries JUMPING on the band wagon..

Can you guess?

MONEY...WHO IS PAYING FOR THIS..
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2013 @ 9:28pm

Bend over Japan.

You're going to enter an agreement where corporations are elevated to the level of governments and can sue you for "Undermining expected future profits." If your laws conflict with what they want to do.

Remember, no lube.
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Ninja (profile), 14 Mar 2013 @ 3:09am

I'm hoping the emerging nations stay out. Would provide them freedom from the intellectual property shackles to grow faster than anybody else.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2013 @ 3:27am

and as per usual, the USA will want everything it's way, protecting and promoting everything for and of it's own industries whilst being to the detriment of all other countries and all ordinary people. what makes it worse is that if they think they wont get something, they will throw hissy fits like 2 year old kids until they get it and all others will be shit scared of doing what is best for them, rather than for the USA. look at what the USA is doing to N.Korea. did they or the UK worry about what other countries thought when they were doing nuclear testing? no! but no one else is allowed to do it, in case they have better deterrents than the USA etc. this aggressive behaviour from USA etc is through fear, not through might!
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Jay (profile), 14 Mar 2013 @ 5:32am

Re:
This is a lead up to secret pacts and treaties similar to WWI...

Everyone has an agreement with everyone else to respect their laws but aren't doing what's right fit the people.

The benefit is to clamp down on progress and make the world stable for a select few people. That's the authoritarian way.

But what's incredible is that this same idea being done in the US on this global scale is a mistake of history.

It's been tried in two World Wars and it always leads to disastrous results...

We're about to repeat history for a third time and that scares me.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2013 @ 8:30am

I wonder if this means that Mexico and the US would also have to become members of the European Union? If that happens, TAFTA will be dead on arrival in the Senate. Such a requirement would also mean that the USA and Mexico would also eventually have to sign on to Schengen, and not many Americans would approve of that very much.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Mar 2013 @ 8:36am

Good post.

Oh well I am at the library so I need to get back to my tent before my snow coffee gets cold.
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tqk (profile), 14 Mar 2013 @ 11:13pm

Re: Re:
But what's incredible is that this same idea being done in the US on this global scale is a mistake of history.

It's been tried in two World Wars and it always leads to disastrous results. We're about to repeat history for a third time and that scares me.

Exactly what I wanted to say, except that "third time" doesn't really say it. I can imagine Perfidious Albion, the Vikings, and maybe the Mongol Horde working by the same rules. Perhaps even China's Emperor Chi too.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Apr 2013 @ 6:20am

Re:
Neither would many Europeans, we are angsty about poor Romanians and Hungarians taking the low entry jobs without adding tens of millions of poor Americans into the mix.
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