It took around-the-clock negotiations in Atlanta, and the pressure among 12 delegations was showing. Elections were due in some of the countries represented. The issue of the Trans-Pacific Partnership was looming as a selling point.
The signatures obtained from 12 countries ringing the Asia-Pacific, including Australia but excluding China, binds them to what ostensibly amounts to a supposed Free Trade Agreement.
According to WikiLeaks, the TPP is the 'icebreaker agreement' for what will be a 'T-treaty triad' which includes two additional documents — the Trans Atlantic Investment Agreement and the Trade Services Agreement that would replicate a similar body of rules to apply to 53 states, 1.6 billion people and two-thirds of the global economy.
The troubling feature of such talks was that each of the countries was being sold the implausible idea that the agreement was too large not to sign. This was the train of history that needed to be occupied, even if seating was in third class. What was on sale, however, was a dogma of corporate benefit rather than public welfare.
It has been shown time and again that the reality of projections suggesting equitable wealth creation, as opposed to selective accumulation, in such trade agreements is distant from the consequences that arise from them. Powerful partners — in this case, the United States and Japan — tend to hold sway over smaller states. One should hesitate about using the term 'partners' at all.
Australia's gains from its own free trade agreement with the US have shown up as mind numbing losses. Analysis conducted on the implications of AUSFTA by the Australian National University suggest both Australia and the US actually reduced their trade with the rest of the world by a staggering $53 billion.
Preferential treatment for US goods, services and investment effectively diverted trade away from more efficient and competitive suppliers, thereby putting pay to the myth of 'free' trade.
Even the giants can be wounded. The US itself has a foretaste of things to come with the TPP, given the impact the North American Free Trade Agreement had on the economy after it was signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. While there are disagreements among economists over the consequences, a good number point to the loss of manufacturing jobs overseas and a ballooning US trade deficit.
Billionaire and former US presidential candidate Ross Perot suggested that if the TPP were to be implemented, a 'giant sucking sound' would be