Google Comes Down On The Wrong Side Of The TPP

from the short-sighted dept

This is extremely unfortunate, but not surprising. Google has made some noise sounding supportive of the TPP over the past year or so, and now it's put out a blog post strongly supporting the agreement, and claiming that it's good for intellectual property and the internet. The company is wrong. The statement is right about a big problem on the internet -- the growing restrictions and limitations on the internet in different jurisdictions:

But Internet restrictions -- like censorship, site-blocking, and forced local storage of data -- threaten the Internet’s open architecture. This can seriously harm established businesses, startups trying to reach a global audience, and Internet users seeking to communicate and collaborate across national borders.

Yes, absolutely. And the TPP only tackles a tiny part of that -- and in some ways makes other aspects worse. But that's not what Google says. Instead, it misrepresents what the TPP really does. The post is correct about the issue of cross-border data flows and localization -- and I agree that these are good things -- but they're small parts of an agreement that has so many other problems:

The Internet has revolutionized how people can share and access information, and the TPP promotes the free flow of information in ways that are unprecedented for a binding international agreement. The TPP requires the 12 participating countries to allow cross-border transfers of information and prohibits them from requiring local storage of data. These provisions will support the Internet’s open architecture and make it more difficult for TPP countries to block Internet sites -- so that users have access to a web that is global, not just local. 

It's after that where the post goes off the rails:

The TPP provides strong copyright protections, while also requiring fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations that protect the Internet. It balances the interests of copyright holders with the public’s interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works -- enabling innovations like search engines, social networks, video recording, the iPod, cloud computing, and machine learning. The endorsement of balanced copyright is unprecedented for a trade agreement. The TPP similarly requires the kinds of copyright safe harbors that have been critical to the Internet’s success, with allowances for some variation to account for different legal systems. 

This is just wrong, and it's the most frustrating part of the post. The TPP expands copyright rules to ridiculous levels in many countries, including extending copyright terms at a time when there is no sound basis for advocating for extending copyright terms. And the "requiring fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations that protect the Internet" is just wrong. Yes, it's true that for the first time the USTR actually acknowledges user rights in such an agreement. In the past, all such trade agreements only focused on expanding copyright holder rights. So you can argue that's progress. But the details showed that it's not creating "fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations," but instead pushing a misleading tool that will limit the way countries can explore fair use, and (even more important) makes the fair use stuff optional. Google claiming that it requires such things is just... wrong.

The TPP advances other important Internet policy goals. It prohibits discrimination against foreign Internet services, limits governments’ ability to demand access to encryption keys or other cryptographic methods, requires pro-innovation telecom access policies, prohibits customs duties on digital products, requires proportionality in intellectual property remedies, and advances other key digital goals. 

Yes, this part is also a good thing that it's in the TPP, but (1) it's so outweighed by bad things that it's really not that big of a deal and (2) the issues around encryption and telecom access policies are not nearly as clear cut in the TPP as this blog post implies, nor are they necessary to do via the TPP process.

As I've said before, I'm a supporter of free trade, generally (unlike many who oppose the TPP). But the TPP is not about free trade, other than at the margins. There's so much in there that's about blatant protectionism and supporting certain business models over others. Of course, that's how the trade game is played these days. Companies get big enough to influence the USTR to advocate for closed room deals that favor them. And Google is big enough to play that game. This public support of the TPP is a part of that game, but it's unfortunate. The company could have and should have taken a stand on this, noting the things that are important in the TPP, but also being honest about the disastrous IP section and other problems in the agreement (such as the corporate sovereignty provisions that will almost certainly come back to bite Google and others).
There are good trade agreements to be made. And they can focus on things like protecting a free and open internet, and creating important safe harbors for communication and innovation. But the TPP is not that agreement -- and it's disappointing that Google has decided to jump on board, rather than highlight the very clear and very real problems of the TPP.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, safe harbors, tpp, trade agreements, ustr
Companies: google

It's Official: US International Trade Commission Predicts Negligible Economic Benefits From TPP

from the and-that's-even-before-you-start-to-factor-in-the-costs dept

Techdirt has written hundreds of stories about TPP over the years. So many of those have revealed troubling aspects of the deal that it's hard to single out the worst. But there can be no doubt that one of the most extraordinary facts is that the US and the other TPP nations were negotiating for eight years the biggest so-called trade deal in history with only the sketchiest idea about its likely benefits. Instead, politicians and supporters simply assured the public that it would all be great, honest. And yet when the rigorous econometric studies began to appear, they consistently showed that TPP would produce almost no benefits whatsoever.

Upon hearing that a planned course of action designed to bring financial gains would do nothing of the kind, most rational people in ordinary life would try something else. But not the politicians and TPP negotiators, who carried on despite these clear signs that TPP was simply not worth the effort. They either ignored these studies completely, or at most said that the only reliable predictions worth considering were the official ones, which would come from the US International Trade Commission (USITC) once TPP's text had been finalised. Last week, the USITC released its massive 792-page report (pdf). Here's a key part of the summary:

The Commission used a dynamic computable general equilibrium model to determine the impact of TPP relative to a baseline projection that does not include TPP. The model estimated that TPP would have positive effects, albeit small as a percentage of the overall size of the U.S. economy. By year 15 (2032), U.S. annual real income would be $57.3 billion (0.23 percent) higher than the baseline projections, real GDP would be $42.7 billion (0.15 percent) higher, and employment would be 0.07 percent higher (128,000 full-time equivalents).

Like all the figures mentioned there, that 0.15% GDP boost would be achieved in 2032, which means that on average TPP is expected to produce an extra annual GDP boost of roughly 0.01%. Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch (pdf) pulled out a few other interesting figures from the report, which:

Estimates a worsening balance of trade for 16 out of 25 U.S. agriculture (p. 124), manufacturing (p.228), and services (p. 340) sectors that the ITC selected to feature. This includes vehicles, wheat, corn, autoparts, titanium products, chemicals, seafood, textiles and apparel, rice and even financial services. Autoparts would be hard hit with employment projected to decrease by 0.3 percent.

Estimates the TPP will increase the U.S. global trade deficit by $21.7 billion by 2032.

Projects even the U.S. services trade balance will worsen by 2032 as service imports of $7 billion swamp the estimated increase in exports of $4.8 billion (p. 35).

Global Trade Watch also notes that the USITC's track record for predictions is not good:

The actual outcomes of past trade pacts have been significantly more negative than ITC projections generated using the same methodology employed for the TPP study. This makes today’s unusually negative ITC findings on the TPP especially ominous.

The economist Dean Baker from the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) agrees about the USITC's past failures:

The USITC also has not done well in projecting winning and losing sectors from trade agreements. A recent analysis by CEPR found no relationship between the industries that were projected to be export and import gainers and losers from the trade deal with Korea and the actual outcome.

He goes on to point out an even more worrying aspect of the latest modelling:

this analysis does not seem to incorporate any of the losses associated with the stronger and longer patent and copyright protection required under the TPP. Higher prices for drugs, software and other protected items are likely to impose substantial costs on the United States and other parties to the agreement. For example, the New Zealand government estimated that just one provision -- extension of copyright protection from 50 years to 70 years -- would cost the country 0.024 percent of GDP. This amount is 10 percent of the total gains projected in the USITC report. It is entirely possible that a full assessment of the cost of these provisions would show that the TPP would lead to a net reduction in income for the United States and other countries in the pact.

That's a hugely important point. On the rare occasions when TPP supporters have made specific claims about the economic benefits of TPP, they have consistently failed to take into account any downsides. It's like going into a business deal only looking at the benefits, and ignoring any possible costs. Against this chorus of disapproval, it's interesting to see how TPP supporters try to spin the USITC's miserable figures. Here's what the Business Roundtable, "an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies", has to say:

"The release of the ITC report marks an important step in the process for considering the TPP. We look forward to reviewing the report's findings as we continue to highlight the benefits of the TPP to American businesses, farmers and workers," said Tom Linebarger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cummins Inc., and Chair of the Business Roundtable International Engagement Committee. "The TPP will remove many foreign barriers to U.S. goods and services and impose strong, enforceable rules for trade -- enabling U.S. manufacturing, services and technology companies to grow their sales to important international markets."

"The TPP sets high standards and reflects American priorities, and if the United States doesn't take the lead in shaping international trade rules, our economic competitors will," continued Linebarger.

That's it: the Business Roundtable could not find a single number to quote that made TPP look like a good deal. What about the ultimate TPP cheerleader, US Trade Representative Michael Froman? What did he have to say about the report? This:

"The ITC report illustrates for the American people and members of Congress the benefits TPP will deliver in their own backyards. If you are a poultry farmer in Delaware this report shows that chicken exports will increase by $174 million annually under TPP. If you are a rancher in Nebraska this report shows that beef exports will increase by $876 million annually under TPP. And if you build cars in the Midwest, this report shows that auto exports will rise $1.95 billion annually. With today's study as another important data point, our work with Congressional leaders on TPP implementation and enforcement will continue and accelerate in the days and weeks ahead."

Froman decided to pretend it was all about little numbers, and to gloss over the fact that when you add up all those little numbers to find out TPP's total benefit...you still get a little number. Froman also fell back on that old favorite -- fear-mongering about China:

"What cannot be quantified in this study or any other is the cost to American leadership if we fail to pass TPP and allow China to carve up the Asia-Pacific through their own trade agreement. If we allow China to beat us in defining the rules for trade it will undercut our workers and businesses and prevent us from taking badly needed steps to improve worker rights, bolster intellectual property protections, and protect the environment through TPP."

In other words, yes, it's true TPP offers absolutely negligible benefits for the US but oh, look, a squirrel...

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Filed Under: benefits, economics, itc, tpp

Chevron Lobbied For Corporate Sovereignty Rights In TAFTA/TTIP To Act As 'Environmental Deterrent'

from the they're-not-even-trying-to-hide-it-anymore dept

Back in 2014, Techdirt noted that arguably the most serious problem with corporate sovereignty was not the huge awards that could be imposed on countries, but the chilling effect the mere threat of those awards could have on national sovereignty. In that post, we quoted from a remarkable 2001 article in The Nation. A former Canadian government official in Ottawa revealed that numerous proposals for new environmental regulations had been dropped in the face of threats that NAFTA's investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) framework would be used against Canada if it brought in new laws. The Techdirt post also mentioned a case in Indonesia, where a mining company dropped a corporate sovereignty case when it was offered "special exemptions" from a new mining law.

More recently, we've seen New Zealand put on hold its plans to require plain packaging for cigarettes, as a result of Philip Morris bringing an ISDS claim against the Australian government for doing the same. The New Zealand government was concerned it too might get hit, and so decided to wait. Now that the Australian case has been thrown out, New Zealand is pressing ahead with its plain packs legislation.

The chilling effects of corporate sovereignty are now so well established that companies are even beginning to cite them as a reason for including it in trade deals. The minutes of a meeting that took place between European Commission officials, and Chevron executives, obtained by The Guardian, make that plain:

"ISDS has only been used once by Chevron, in its litigation against Ecuador," say the minutes of a meeting in April 2014 between unnamed Chevron executives and European commission officials, which the Guardian obtained under access to documents laws. "Yet, Chevron argues that the mere existence of ISDS is important as it acts as a deterrent."

Chevron is talking about the multi-billion dollar award made against Ecuador in one of the longest-running and most complex disputes involving corporate sovereignty. When contacted by The Guardian, Chevron repeated its claim that ISDS was a really great weapon to wield against countries, although naturally it expressed that view in somewhat different language:

ISDS serves a useful function of encouraging investors and host states to negotiate in good faith in order to avoid escalation of disagreements that occasionally arise.

Aside from confirming people's worst fears about the chilling effects of corporate sovereignty, Chevron's candid admission that it wants ISDS in TAFTA/TTIP as a "deterrent" reveals something else. It shows that corporations not only demand a unique privilege to circumvent national legal systems using secret tribunals composed of corporate lawyers, but are now trying to craft yet another "right": to deploy routinely the mere threat of ISDS as a "deterrent" to government action. Or, as you and I would put it, the right to engage in raw, brutal bullying on a global scale.

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Filed Under: chilling effect, corporate sovereignty, isds, lobbying, tafta, tpp, trade agreements, ttip
Companies: chevron

New Zealand Government Trying To Streamroller TPP Through Ratification Without Proper Scrutiny Or Public Input

from the so-much-for-that-'don't-worry,-you-can-debate-it-when-it's-finished& dept

Back in February, we noted that the TPP has been officially signed, and that the focus now moves on to ratification by each of the 12 participating countries. On this score, there's been plenty of sound and fury in the US, including bizarre demands to re-negotiate TPP, but less coverage of what is happening elsewhere. As we noted, Canada's ratification has ground to a halt as the new government there launches "widespread consultations." Japan, too, won't be ratifying TPP for a while, for reasons explained by The Mainichi site:

The government and ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)-Komeito coalition decided to put off attempting to ratify the treaty and enact related bills as they determined that a combination of opposition party resistance and the Kyushu earthquake disaster response leaves insufficient time to deliberate the legislation. The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not planning to extend the current Diet session, which is scheduled to end on June 1. The government will instead carry the ratification and bills over to an extraordinary Diet session to be convened this autumn, to discuss them again in the House of Representatives for final approval and enactment.

The government in New Zealand, by contrast, seems to be doing everything in its power to ram through TPP as quickly as possible, with little time being given for that full public debate so frequently promised. Even the country's MPs are being stampeded, as Radio New Zealand News reports:

MPs have been given just five days to consider hundreds of submissions on the controversial TPP trade deal after the timeframe was drastically cut from four weeks.

The select committee was originally give a month to write its report and present it back to Parliament.

According to the news item, the committee was due to hear from hundreds of people who were keen finally to make their voices heard. But the government has apparently decided that it just doesn't care what the public thinks:

The tight deadline meant the [MPs'] draft report would be written before the committee had finished hearing all the submissions.

Apparently, the New Zealand government isn't interested in democracy, only timetables:

Opposition members on the committee say they were told yesterday the government wanted to cut down the time they had to analyse the submissions, so the legislation could get through by the end of the year.

Nor are MPs and the public the only ones being treated in a shabby way. So is the Waitangi Tribunal, which is an important commission charged with investigating and making recommendations on claims brought by the indigenous Māori people relating to actions by the New Zealand government. Because the select committee of MPs examining TPP will produce its report earlier than expected, the Waitangi Tribunal also finds itself with little time to consider the issue properly. An article on the Scoop site suggests that might be intentional:

"Why the government suddenly announced it is fast-tracking the report date for the select committee considering the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) from the end of May to 4 May is now clear.

It gives the Waitangi Tribunal three rather than seven weeks to produce its urgent report on the claim brought by prominent Maori that the Agreement violates the Crown's obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi", says Professor Jane Kelsey who has been advising the claimants.

What makes the situation even more worrying for New Zealanders is something Techdirt wrote about a couple of months ago: the fact that even if TPP fails, it seems that laws brought in to comply with the terms of the treaty would not be rolled back by the New Zealand government. That's an extremely good reason to take things slowly and carefully -- not to rush ahead recklessly as is currently happening.

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Filed Under: democracy, new zealand, public input, ratification, tpp

Latest Version Of Anti-TPP, RCEP, Shows That Its Intellectual Property Provisions Are Even Worse

from the from-bad-to-worse dept

Last summer, we wrote a bit about the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade agreement that is being worked on by a bunch of Asian countries, and which is often described as an "anti-TPP" or, at the very least, a competitor to the TPP. It's being driven by China and India -- two countries who were not in the TPP process. Given how concerned we were with the TPP, we had hoped, at the very least, that RCEP would be better on things like intellectual property. Unfortunately, some early leaks suggested it was even worse. And while the TPP is still grinding through the ratification process in various countries, RCEP has continued to move forward, and the bad ideas have stuck around.

Knowledge Ecology International just released a leaked copy of the agreement's draft intellectual property chapter, and it's basically chock full of bad ideas. As KEI's Jamie Love notes:

The RCEP will be a massive trade agreement and the content of the IP Chapter is important. It will bind India and China, two countries left out of the TPP. Japan and Korea are trying to push many of the worst ideas from ACTA, TPP and other trade agreements into the RCEP IP Chapter. Some of the issues that negotiators did not understand in the TPP, such as the damages provisions, are also lurking in this text, creating risks that negotiators will do worse than they think, because the secrecy of the negotiations insulates the negotiators from timely feedback on technically complex issues. Japan and Korea are pushing for test data monopolies, without the same safeguards available to patent monopolies. There are proposals for patent extensions, restrictive rules on exceptions to copyright, and dozens of other anti-consumer measures, illustrating the power of right-holder groups to use secret trade negotiations to limit democratic decisions that impact access to knowledge, the freedom to innovate and the right to health, in negative ways.

The TPP is not good on intellectual property (at all). But seeing RCEP apparently be just as bad, if not worse, is not exactly encouraging. As I've said in the past, I think free trade is an important ideal, but free trade agreements are increasingly about something entirely different, and it's about backdoor (and backroom) mechanisms for putting in place regulatory frameworks that favor certain legacy players.

Filed Under: asia, australia, china, india, intellectual property, japan, korea, rcep, tpp, trade agreements

Australian Case Shows Why Corporate Sovereignty Isn't Needed In TPP -- Or In Any Trade Agreement

from the running-out-of-arguments dept

One of central claims made by supporters of corporate sovereignty chapters in trade deals is that companies "need" this ability to sue the government in special tribunals. The argument is that if the extra-judicial investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) framework is not available to a company, it will be defenseless when confronted with a bullying government. A new case in Australia shows why that's not true. A column in The Sydney Morning Herald provides the background, which concerns a US company called Nucoal:

In 2013, the NSW [New South Wales] Independent Commission against Corruption found that there had been corrupt conduct relating to the granting of mining licences to Nucoal and other mining companies and the NSW government cancelled the licences.

Naturally, Nucoal unleashed its lawyers:

[Nucoal] demanded compensation of more than $900 million in Australia's High Court, claiming the decision to cancel its licence without compensation was unconstitutional and had reduced the value of the company. The High Court found in April 2015 that under Australian law Nucoal was not entitled to compensation.

Now Nucoal had a problem. Normally, a company in this situation would invoke the corporate sovereignty chapter in a relevant trade deal, and move the case to secret ISDS tribunals, which were likely to be more favorable to its cause than the independent national courts. But with unusual foresight, Australia refused to accept ISDS in the 2004 AUSFTA trade agreement between the US and Australia -- which makes its decision to acquiesce to ISDS in TPP doubly foolish. Despite what fans of corporate sovereignty claim, Nucoal still has another option at this point:

Nucoal is pressuring the US government to put a case to the Australian government that the denial of compensation has violated the general investment terms of the [AUSFTA] agreement. This could result in a formal complaint from the US government demanding trade sanctions against the Australian government.

Last week The Australian reported that the CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce in Australia has announced that the US government will raise the issue in a closed-door review of the AUSFTA to be held in May.

That is, unable to avail itself of the investor-state dispute mechanism, Nucoal now wants to take advantage of the state-state dispute settlement process (pdf) whereby the US government formally complains to the other government concerned. Now, whether the US government should really be taking up a case involving corruption is another question. The key point is that it is not absolutely necessary to include corporate sovereignty provisions in a trade deal to protect companies, because there is always the state-to-state mechanism that can be invoked if necessary.

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Filed Under: australia, corporate sovereignty, courts, disputes, isds, tpp, trade
Companies: nucoal

EU-Canada Trade Deal Still Struggling, As Romania And Belgium Say They Won't/Can't Ratify Treaty

from the it-ain't-over-yet dept

Alongside the better-known trade deals that aren't really trade deals, TPP and TAFTA/TTIP, the smaller one between the European Union and Canada, CETA, is still trapped in a strange kind of political limbo. It was "celebrated" way back in October 2014, and has been officially in the "legal scrubbing" phase where the text is tidied up and translated into all the relevant languages (lots of them for the EU). Cleverly, the EU has used this period to sneak in the "lipstick on a pig" version of corporate sovereignty in an attempt to head off revolts among EU nations worried about growing public resistance to the idea. But just when the European Commission thought it had everything nicely sewn up, this happens:

Romania will not ratify the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada which was concluded in 2014, as an angry reaction to the refusal by Ottawa to lift the visa requirement of its nationals, but also for the lack of EU solidarity for solving the issue.

As EurActiv explains, Romania is upset because Canada is requiring Romanian (and Bulgarian) citizens to obtain a visa before visiting Canada, whereas everyone else in the EU can get in without one. As a result:

A Romanian government official who asked not to be named said that Romania would "veto" the CETA ratification.

Normally the ratification of CETA should conclude by the end of 2016 or 2017. Romania however will not ratify the agreement, EurActiv was told.

If that were the only problem with ratifying CETA, it might be possible to resolve with some judicious arm-twisting by the European Commission. But it's not, because SputnikNews is reporting the following:

The government of the French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia has refused to ratify the EU-Canada free trade agreement approved by the Belgian cabinet, the region's minister-president said.

Belgium may be a fairly small country, and Wallonia an even smaller part of it, but if the regional government doesn't agree, it would seem that Belgium can't ratify CETA, and without Belgium's OK, the whole CETA agreement might unravel. In truth, nobody really knows -- and that's why these unexpected developments are so worrying for the European Commission. It is uncharted legal territory for EU countries like Romania and Belgium to be unwilling or unable to ratify international trade agreements the Commission has negotiated. One thing is certain: CETA ain't over until it's really, absolutely, definitively over. Until then, grab the popcorn.

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Filed Under: belgium, canada, ceta, eu, international trade, ratification, romania, tpp, ttip

Shoe Company New Balance Says US Gov't Basically Offered It A Bribe To Support TPP

from the wow dept

We've mostly focused on the impact of the TPP and trade deals on the internet (and also on national sovereignty), because that's the kind of stuff that interests us most around here. We've spent a lot less time looking at the more traditional free trade arguments, in part because that's not nearly as controversial, and in part because -- despite claims to the contrary -- there really aren't that many tariff-related barriers that make a big difference any more. It's generally good to reduce such tariffs, and in response you see the typical response from firms based on whether or not they benefit from those reduced tariffs. The "benefits" of free trade tend to be focused on the companies looking to expand into those markets where tariffs are being lowered or abandoned -- and not so much for companies competing against products from those same countries. Frankly, I find arguments that the companies who freak out about trade deals because it will mean more competition against them a bit tiresome, because I tend to believe competition is a good thing for innovation.

However, the Boston Globe has quite a story about one such company, the sneaker company New Balance, which was quite worried about how the TPP would increase competition from shoemakers in Vietnam. Again, I find those concerns to be overblown, but the next part of the story is where it gets interesting: New Balance is now claiming that it stopped publicly complaining about the TPP after the US government more or less promised it a big government contract, which never came through:

After several years of resistance to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact aimed at making it easier to conduct trade among the United States and 11 other countries, the Boston company had gone quiet last year. New Balance officials say one big reason is that they were told the Department of Defense would give them serious consideration for a contract to outfit recruits with athletic shoes.

But no order has been placed, and New Balance officials say the Pentagon is intentionally delaying any purchase.

New Balance is reviving its fight against the trade deal...

The US government, of course, is insisting the issue of a contract is entirely separate from the TPP, but New Balance said an explicit offer was made. The company notes that while most of the uniform worn by the military is American made, there has always been an exception for sneakers because so few were actually fully made in the US. New Balance apparently decided to change that in hopes of getting a government contract, and the administration more or less said that this would work if New Balance shut up about opposing the TPP:

In 2014, the Pentagon relented. With competition among US manufacturers, officials said they were ready to consider domestically made shoes.

LeBretton said a representative for the Obama administration then asked New Balance to accept a compromise version of the trade deal, partly in exchange for a pledge of help getting the Department the Defense to expedite the purchase of US-made shoes.

The Globe claims that the Defense Department says the reason that it didn't give New Balance a deal was because its shoes weren't durable or cheap enough, but even if that's true, the very idea that the government more or less tried to buy off the company's opposition to the TPP seems highly questionable.

Of course, I wonder, should the TPP get ratified and should the Defense Department then agree that it will only buy American made sneakers... one wonders if Vietnamese sneaker makers would then have an ISDS corporate sovereignty case against the US government? After all, it would be harming "future profits" that the Vietnamese sneaker-makers would have been expecting, and a "buy American" rule could clearly be seen as a non-tariff trade barrier to foreign goods, no?

Filed Under: competition, defense department, shoes, sneakers, tariffs, tpp, ustr
Companies: new balance

Two Former White House Tech Advisors Tell The President To Actually Be Transparent About Trade Deals

from the what-a-concept dept

Two former Obama tech staffers -- Professor Colleen Chien (who advised the administration on intellectual property issues) and Quentin Palfrey (who worked for years in the Commerce Dept and the Office of Science and Technology Policy on intellectual property issues) -- have written a fantastic opinion piece for The Hill, arguing that the White House has one last chance to actually be transparent in trade negotiations as it moves forward with the TTIP agreement with the EU. The piece notes that part of the reason that the TPP agreement is in so much trouble was its secrecy:

Largely due to the secrecy of the negotiation process, the TPP long bred suspicion. When its terms finally became public last fall, opposition to the process quickly hardened into opposition to the agreement’s terms – which both Democrats and Republicans say need improvement before it can be passed. The text has been 10 years in the making, but only recently did the public get access to its terms. Since multiple leaks made most of the negotiated terms an open secret, why did the Administration wait so long to formally disclose the text?

They admit that the USTR's standard answer -- that trade negotiations rely on secrecy, and you don't want to give up an advantage -- may have some validity, but argue that it's almost certainly outweighed by other factors. They then raise three key points for being much more open and transparent on trade deals (all issues we've raised in the past):

1. Quality suffers when there is no free and open debate.
2. "Exporting U.S. law" is hard and can lead to unintended consequences.
3. Trade policy should reflect our democratic ideals

To be honest, all three of these are basically the same argument phrased differently, but they're all valid points. And they then urge the White House and the USTR to take the (not really that big) step of opening up the negotiating texts of the TTIP agreement. Since it's just between the EU and the US, it's not even as complicated as the TPP where you were negotiating with over a dozen countries. And the EU has been much more transparent in negotiating its trade deals, and has pledged to be on the TTIP as well. So, really, why does the USTR continue to take such an undemocratic, archaic viewpoint in negotiating these deals? The only explanation that makes sense is that it's the best way to sneak in favors for certain industries -- and given the ongoing "revolving door" between the USTR and certain large, legacy industries, perhaps that really does explain most of the issue.

Filed Under: colleen chien, democracy, obama administration, quentin palfrey, secrecy, tpp, trade, transparency, ttip, ustr

Annotating The Letter Disney's CEO Sent To Disney Employees Asking Them To Fund Disney's Sketchy Lobbying Activities

from the oh-really-now? dept

Here's quite a scoop from Joe Mullin over at Ars Technica. Apparently, Disney is getting a bit desperate on the whole TPP thing. The company, which has been having a rough go of things because of the next generation not giving a shit about ESPN, decided to take things up a notch. CEO Bob Iger apparently emailed Disney employees asking them to contribute to DisneyPAC, specifically to help Disney pay for lobbyists to push the TPP across the finish line. They even made it so easy that employees can donate directly from their payroll. Here's the letter, with some commentary (how can I resist?):

As we head into the election year of 2016, the electorate faces significant decisions about the direction of our Nation's future. Besides choosing a new president, we will once again be electing new senators and representatives. These decisions will have a profound impact on the lives of all Americans. The election will also impact issues that affect our company. As such, we will continue to work with our representatives in Congress to ensure that they understand our perspective on critical issues like trade, intellectual property, tax, and travel policies. I write to urge you to consider supporting the Company's efforts through a contribution to DisneyPAC. A well funded DisneyPAC is an important tool in our efforts to maintain our positive profile in Washington.

We're a big giant company, and as such, we've stopped innovating. So we need to keep friends in Washington to protect us from innovation and competition. Please consider taking your hard earned money and giving it to us so we can keep doing that kind of thing.

In the past year, we successfully advocated the Company's position on a number of issues that have a significant impact on our business. We played a major role in ensuring that the "Trade Promotion Authority" legislation set high standards for intellectual property (IP) provisions in our trade negotiations, and we helped get that bill through Congress. We used that language in TPA to advocate successfully for a strong IP chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations. We also pushed for provisions to promote digital trade and to reduce barriers in media and entertainment sectors. TPP will establish a strong baseline of protection for intellectual property while breaking down trade barriers in the Asia Pacific region. In both TPA and TPP we had to overcome significant efforts to weaken respect for IP, pushed not only by foreign governments but also from within our own Congress and the Administration.

Have you heard about the TPP? It was negotiated in backrooms by special interests -- but good news -- we're one of the big special interests! So we helped craft it and it's got all sorts of goodies for us. Not the public, of course. Or even you workers. But it's really awesome for Disney bosses.

The fight on these issues is far from over. Last year we spent significant time and effort engaged in a series of government reviews of the state of copyright law in the digital environment.

By the way, did we mention that 18 years ago we successfully extended copyright 20 years to keep Mickey Mouse from reaching the public domain, and we have two years left to do it again. Think of the Mouse, Disney employees. Think of the mouse!

We also continued to defend our right to be compensated for carriage of our programming by cable and satellite carriers as well as by emerging "over-the-top" services. With the support of the US Government we achieved a win in the Supreme Court against Aereo—an Internet service claiming the right to retransmit our broadcast signals without paying copyright or retransmission consent fees. With respect to tax issues, Congress extended certain provisions that provide favorable tax treatment for film and television production in the US. It also extended this treatment to live theatrical productions. Last year we also worked closely with the Administration on important veterans employment issues—an issue of critical importance for the men and women who defend our country and an area in which our company is proud to play a leadership role.

Yes, thanks to our efforts, we were able to destroy innovative technologies that consumers really liked! And now we're losing customers who are ditching cable. But rather than help us innovate, please contribute more money so that we can shut down other new innovations. Because we're Disney and thwarting innovation is just what we do these days.

In the coming year, we expect Congress and the Administration to be active on copyright regime issues, efforts to enact legislation to approve and implement the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, tax reform, and more proposals to weaken retransmission consent, to name a few.

Can you believe those numbskulls in Washington? We already did this once and suddenly they're back again, talking about the public interest and consumer rights and all that crap again. Please help us put an end to it.

On the trade front, we will also look to build on our achievements in other negotiations this year. 2016 should see significant activity in negotiations between the US and China over a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), continued negotiations with the European Union over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement, the 50-country Trade in Services Agreement negotiations, and efforts by the US Government to raise IP standards and break down trade barriers through a variety of means.

We successfully got awesome anti-public / pro-Disney language into the TPP and now we can do it again in other trade deals. Go team! Help us lock up culture even more! And pretend it's about "free trade."

In 2016, Congress will further discuss various tax reform proposals. While comprehensive reform is unlikely, activity in the coming year will lay the foundation for what many expect to be a genuine opportunity for reform in early 2017. We have been active educating Members of Congress on the importance of lowering the corporate tax rate to be competitive with the rest of the world. The US has one of the highest marginal and effective tax rates among developed countries, creating a significant competitive impediment to companies headquartered in the US.

Because, yes, we know that you, dear Disney employee, are quite concerned about the tax rates of giant conglomerates like Disney. Please give us money to help us get a tax break! We may give you a free ticket to Disneyland in exchange. But no free music or movies. That's bad.

Congress will continue to be very active on intellectual property issues... After three years of hearings and testimony from 100 witnesses, we now expect the House Judiciary Committee to turn to legislating. We expect significant attention on legislation to modernize the Copyright Office, a small agency that can have an enormous impact on our interests.

Did you hear about the newly nominated Librarian of Congress? We hear she actually cares about the public and open access, and that's bad and must be stopped. At the very least, let's rip the Copyright Office out from under her and put it in the hands of people who understand us better. And by "understand" I mean, will soon accept jobs from us when they "transition" out of government work.

And the Copyright Office has launched several proceedings involving possible changes to laws governing the accountability of online services and the laws protecting technologies used to secure distribution of digital content. These discussions obviously have significant implications for a business like ours that is dependent on copyright policy in the face of ongoing change in technology and the marketplace.

Did I mention our successful efforts in killing innovation? This is the next part of our plan. Like the internet? Fuck you. We're Disney and we're going to fuck it up. With your money, hopefully!

We will also need to continue our work to fend off growing and concerted efforts to weaken our ability to freely negotiate the distribution of our broadcast and cable programming. Last year, the FCC teed up several rule makings that could have a significant adverse affect on retransmission consent and how we package and sell our media networks. As the debate becomes much more heated, we will need to remain vigilant.

Did you notice how odd it was that the FCC suddenly seemed to be caring about consumers again? We can't have that. We CANNOT have that. Please help us destroy the FCC. Sure your cable bills will be higher, and the internet will suck, but we're Disney. We've got a mouse.

With all of the challenges we will face this year, it is important that our PAC be strong. We, therefore, respectfully suggest that you consider making a contribution of [REDACTED]. You may give more or less than the suggested amount (although no contribution can exceed $5000 in any year) and any contribution will be appreciated. As always, 100% of your contribution is used in direct support of candidates and political entities that uphold policies and principles that are consistent with the best interests of our company. DisneyPAC contributes equally to Democrats and Republicans each calendar year. For your convenience, DisneyPAC has implemented a payroll deduction system, through which your contributions to the PAC will be deducted from your weekly paycheck. If you prefer, you may instead make a one-time personal contribution to the PAC. Your contribution is important to all of us, but I want to emphasize that all contributions are voluntary and have no impact on your job status, performance review, compensation, or employment. Any amount given or the decision not to give will not advantage or disadvantage you. You have the right to refuse to contribute without reprisal. Your help is truly appreciated.

We'll take money straight from your paycheck and put it to work making corporate Disney's life better. Not yours. Do that with whatever money you have left.

Filed Under: bob iger, copyright, disneypac, employees, lobbying, pressure, tpp
Companies: disney