No Ordinary Deal: Unmasking The Trans Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement

Author: Jane Kelsey

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General Fields

  • : $25.00 NZD
  • : 9781877242502
  • : Bridget Williams Books
  • : Bridget Williams Books
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  • : November 2010
  • : 270mm X 140mm
  • : New Zealand
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Jane Kelsey
  • : Series 21 - Into a New Century
  • : Paperback
  • : 1st Edition
  • :
  • :
  • : Very Good
  • : 224
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Barcode 9781877242502
9781877242502

Description

The Trans Pacific Partnership is no ordinary free trade deal. Billed as an agreement fit for the twentyfirst century, no one is sure what that means. For its champions in New Zealand a free trade agreement with the US is a magic bullet - opening closed doors for Fonterra into the US dairy market. President Obama sells it as the key to jobs and economic recovery, while protecting home markets. Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd hails it as a foundation stone for an APEC-wide free trade agreement. None of these arguments stacks up. All eight participant countries except Vietnam are heavily liberalised, deregulated and privatised.* They already have twelve free trade deals between them. No-one really believes that US dairy markets will be thrown open to New Zealand, or that China, India and Japan will sign onto a treaty they had no role in designing. No Ordinary Deal unmasks the fallacies of the TPP. Experts from Australia, New Zealand, the US and Chile examine the geopolitics and security context of the negotiations and set out some of the costs for New Zealand and Australia of making trade-offs to the US simply to achieve a deal. 'Trade' agreement is a misnomer. The TPP is not primarily about imports and exports. Its obligations will intrude into core areas of government policy and Parliamentary responsibilities. If the US lobby has its way, the rules will restrict how drug-buying agencies Pharmac (in New Zealand) and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (in Australia) can operate, and the kind of food standards and intellectual property laws we can have. Foreign investors will be able to sue the government for reducing their profits. The TPP will govern how we regulate the finance industry or other services, along with our capacity to create jobs at home. Above all, No Ordinary Deal exposes the contradictions of locking our countries even deeper into a neoliberal model of global free markets - when even political leaders admit that this has failed. The Contributors: Jane Kelsey, Bryan Gould, Patricia Ranald, Lori Wallach, Todd Tucker, José Aylwin, Paul Buchanan, John Quiggin, Warwick Murray, Edward Challies, David Adamson, Geoff Bertram, Tom Faunce, Ruth Townsend, Susy Frankel, Jock Given, Ted Murphy, Bill Rosenberg, Nan Seuffert