TPP Agreement: Obama Wants Something The Public 'Can Look At' In November
from the but-what? dept
Transparency -- or lack of it -- has emerged as a major issue for all the big trade agreements that are currently being negotiated: TAFTA/TTIP, TISA, CETA and TPP. That makes the following story from Reuters, about a move to open up TPP slightly, intriguing:
Pacific trading partners hope to have a free trade agreement ready to present to the public and stakeholders in November, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday.
More specifically, he is quoted as saying:
"Our hope is by the time we see each other again in November, when I travel to Asia, we should have something that we have consulted with Congress about, that the public can take a look at, and we can make a forceful argument to go ahead and close the deal," he told reporters after the meeting.
As the Reuters article notes, that comes as something of a surprise since the talks seemed to have ground to a halt recently, despite original hopes that they would be finished last year. Indeed, some participants remain pessimistic:
Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb, who visited the United States last week, was reported as saying on June 18 there was no chance of a deal this year, though he hoped it could be concluded in the first half of 2015.
That uncertainty raises the question: what exactly does the President's statement mean? Is it just an attempt to give some momentum to the talks by setting a new deadline? Will there really be a document released in November? And even if there is something that the public "can take a look at" then, what exactly will that be? The full text of the agreement? That seems unlikely; what President Obama has in mind is probably some sanitized summary.
Still, the very fact that he has made this comment, however vague and unsatisfactory it might be, suggests that the increasingly-widespread calls for transparency are having some effect. We obviously need to keep it up.
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Filed Under: barack obama, negotiations, tpp, transparency
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Look no farther than the past
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"forceful argument "
Telling everyone "we're signing it, and there's nothing you can do to change it" would technically be a forceful argument...
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"What exactly does the President's statement mean?"
The president's statement means that he opened and closed his mouth while producing sound.
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Re: "What exactly does the President's statement mean?"
The Copyright for that sound was made in 2008 by the IFPI.
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Re: "What exactly does the President's statement mean?"
There would likely be more truth to a statement made by the president if he did it by opening his sphincter while making a sound.
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election-year politics
Whenever any US President wants to "wait until November" -- you just know it's something that won't be pretty.
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Obama has not changed his spots. Perhaps the only reason he is willing to even give lip service to the idea of a public release is because it isn't going anywhere and no one is buying the secrecy. Too many skunks have already been tried to be hidden with SOPA and the other little nasties.
The public of the EU has little trust now and are watching this like a hawk as another attempt to slide in those things they don't want the public to know or it would be transparent as it has been in the past before Obama.
Worse this secrecy violates many countries laws in that they are to tell the public what they are negotiating over.
Here's a clue for Obama. If you want trade agreements to pass, put it out in the open so the public knows. If you hide it, they have previous proof it's not something good. So no one else wants it.
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Dear Obama Adminstration:
Oh, wait, I remember. It's this transparency thing again.
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Hmmmmmm
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Re: Hmmmmmm
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There's the problem. For some reason, the public isn't considered a stakeholder, when actually, it is the ONLY stakeholder.
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"Trust my summery on what is in the contract. Just sign on the dotted line please."
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All this for the most transparent agreement ever! Wait why is it the public needs to see it?
President Obama, you say transparency? You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
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Worthless
Probably. And any such summary will be worthless. Summaries are only useful if you can trust that the summary is correct, accurate, and includes all of the important points. One of the things that is clear as day is that we cannot trust that it will be any such thing.
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Note to Congress: Do not ratify the Corporate Treaties
All of these currently under discussion need to tank, be fully exposed and if anything, exact opposite written up and signed.
ie - copyright needs to die an early death - restrict back to the original 15 years for published works, let's go 5 years for software.
Patents? yeah -no more extensions on patents - period.
Software Patents? Nope - dead, revoked, public domain.
Make it happen Congress, or you'll be on the chopping block come November.
End the stupidity, vote out every incumbent, first by voting for the other guy in the primaries, then by actually voting for the person who will do what their constituents (not corporations) want.
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.... pick a card, any card .....
"Our hope is by the time we see each other again in November, when I travel to Asia, we should have some apparently official-looking phony treaty documents that we can claim to have consulted with Congress about, that the public can take a look at, and then we can make a forceful argument to go ahead with the actual still-secret text of the original treaty and close the deal - including the ten year non-disclosure of the final text of the treaty - while everyone is still congratulating themselves for having forced the treaty text into the open."
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Word choices
The administration's *hope* is that when when talks resume, they *should* have something Congress has been *consulted* about. What is this something, as clearly it wouldn't be the actual document, could it? Why consulted, and not discussed with or debated? Does Congress have no input? And what's with the word 'about' here, as it carries a connotative sense of abstraction and distance?
The public *can look* at...reminds me of the "look but don't touch" phrase parents tell their children. Will the administration actually listen to what the public says? Possibly, but while Congress will have already been consulted, in November the public can by that time forward take a look (tense matters). Granted, what the public gets to 'look' at will most likely be some website with a spew of propaganda of how awesome this agreement is.
Of course, the need to plan a *forceful* argument to close the deal. Not so sure if I want to know the intent of the 'forceful' aspect to this argument.
I'll assume that Obama is being 100% truthful in his statement, as he can do so without having to do a damn thing of what he would like the public to believe he'll do. Am I looking too much into this? Given the administration's track record of purposefully being misleading in what they say, especially on matters the public won't like....
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