America Is All Alone in the Trans-Pacific Trade Talks


Are you interested in the Trans-Pacific Partnership? No? I’ll confess that it leaves me a little glassy-eyed too. However, because so much of it deals with things like financial services, intellectual property, and drug patents, it’s spurred more wonk interest than old-school trade agreements that dealt mostly in reducing tariffs for tangible goods (food, textiles, cars, etc.). Gabriel Michael recommends this very brief Guardian listicle if you want to get up to speed on the primary points of contention. I agree. It’s good. And very brief.

But wait! The TPP is interesting for another reason: WikiLeaks managed to get its hands on a draft copy of the treaty, along with comments about which countries were taking which position. Michael, who’s a PhD candidate at GWU, totted up all these comments to figure out the average positions of each country in the talks. As the chart on the right shows, it’s basically the United States vs. everyone else.

The numbers on the x- and y-axes don’t really mean anything. The only thing that matters on this chart is distance. And as you can see, 11 of the TPP countries are clustered pretty near each other, with Australia and Peru being modest outliers. And then there’s the United States, way off to the left, all by itself. Nor is this just a case of rich countries vs. poor countries. Even the other rich countries (Canada, Japan, Australia) are miles away from the US.

So that’s modestly interesting. You can click the link to see the US position on various specific provisions of the TPP. Overall, though, nationalists should be pretty happy. By all accounts, the Obama administration has been pretty hard-assed about protecting American interests, whether they’re justified or not.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate