As negotiators and ministers from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries meet in Atlanta in an effort to finalise the details of the sweeping new Trans-Pacific Partnership, some sober analysis is warranted. The biggest regional trade and investment agreement in history is not what it seems.

You will hear much about the importance of the TPP for "free trade".

The reality is that this is an agreement to manage its members' trade and investment relations — and to do so on behalf of each country's most powerful business lobbies.

Make no mistake: It is evident from the main outstanding issues, over which negotiators are still haggling, that the TPP is not about "free" trade...snip

...For starters, consider what the agreement would do to expand intellectual property rights for big pharmaceutical companies, as we learned from leaked versions of the negotiating text. Economic research clearly shows the argument that such intellectual property rights promote research to be weak at best.

In fact, there is evidence to the contrary: When the Supreme Court invalidated Myriad's patent on the BRCA gene, it led to a burst of innovation that resulted in better tests at lower costs. Indeed, provisions in the TPP would restrain open competition and raise prices for consumers in the US and around the world — anathema to free trade.

The TPP would manage trade in pharmaceuticals through a variety of seemingly arcane rule changes on issues such as "patent linkage", "data exclusivity" and "biologics". The upshot is that pharmaceutical companies would effectively be allowed to extend — sometimes almost indefinitely — their monopolies on patented medicines, keep cheaper generics off the market and block "biosimilar" competitors from introducing new medicines for years. That is how the TPP will manage trade for the pharmaceutical industry if the US gets its way...snip

...International corporate interests tout ISDS as necessary to protect property rights where the rule of law and credible courts are lacking. But that argument is nonsense. The US is seeking the same mechanism in a similar mega-deal with the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, even though there is little question about the quality of Europe's legal and judicial systems...snip
Full Article: http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/716932/the-great-trans-pacifi... (link is external)

Joseph E. Stiglitz, (b February 9, 1943) is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and is a former member and chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers. He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, free-market economists (whom he calls "free market fundamentalists"), and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz (link is external)

2 Republican debates so far and not a single question on the TPP. And there is no protest.