Well That's Not Very Polite

In the pages of the world press Justin Trudeau has suddenly gone from pretty boy to bad boy. Our prime minister has made waves by purportedly sabotaging the Trans Pacific Partnership talks at the APEC summit.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has sabotaged a pact to salvage a multibillion-dollar, 11-nation Pacific Rim trade deal at the last minute, surprising leaders of the other nations, including Australia's Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Trudeau failed to show up at a meeting late on Friday that was set to officially revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that had been negotiated on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the Vietnamese coastal city of Danang.

Wait a second, he's Canadian. Our leaders don't just "fail to show up" leaving a gaggle of other world leaders in the lurch. That would be rude. I'm not even sure Trump would do that.

"There were a lot of unhappy leaders left sitting there," said an official who was in the meeting.

All 11 foreign ministers of the grouping had agreed on Thursday night to revive the agreement that was rejected by US President Donald Trump days after he took office.

But Mr Trudeau raised issues at the last minute that forced Japan's Prime Minister Shino Abe, who is chair of the gathering, to announce the meeting had to be abandoned.

Mr Turnbull has been spruiking the benefits of the TPP since arriving in Danang on Thursday, telling an APEC leaders' reception the pact "creates rules of the road to match the new economic world in which we're living".

"It aims at old hidden trade barriers like corruption and new ones like data protectionism," he said.

Mr Trudeau's walk-out is deeply embarrassing for Canada's Trade Minister Franois-Philippe Champagne, who has agreed to the deal.

Officials expected that the leaders would simply rubber-stamp what had already been agreed by the trade ministers, despite the agreement being unpopular in Canada.

This is completely weird. It's the diplomatic equivalent of ditching the bride at the altar - times ten.

Guess What? The TPP May Not Be Dead After All.

The Japanese government is proposing a revival of the Trans Pacific Partnership only without the United States.

An idea has emerged that the Trans-Pacific Partnership can take effect among at least five nations including Japan, Australia and New Zealand, instead of 12, sources involved in the negotiations said.

The idea cropped up as the 11 states involved discussed what to do with the aborted free trade pact in the wake of the United States’ withdrawal earlier this year under President Donald Trump, the sources told Kyodo News on Wednesday.

At the just-finished two-day meeting of top negotiators from the 11 parties, Tokyo argued for making the TPP take effect without the United States at an early date by tweaking the original agreement, they said.

Trade, Trade, Trade

I recall an interview with prime minister Trudeau at the 6-month mark of his ascent to power. He told the interviewer that his overarching responsibility was to be an agent of trade. Trade to grow the economy. Trade to generate prosperity.

Trudeau's Harperesque pursuit of CETA and TPP demonstrates that he means business. This goes straight back to those mandate letters he issued to his freshly minted cabinet ministers as they were sworn in. Even Catherine McKenna's marching orders stipulate that her priorities are to be the economy and the environment. There's no doubt that she meant it when she said she was "as much an economic minister as an environmental minister."

Trade it is then. But, if you're going to make trade your priority, your dominant responsibility, then surely you have to accept full responsibility for the fallout from that pursuit. That's on you, Slick.

One element of that fallout is the rise of Canada's homegrown "precariat." It's a term used to describe the future this free-trading government has bequeathed to our youth. In case you're wondering, that's a future fraught with insecurity and economic peril.

Earlier this week, Trudeau finance minister, Bill Morneau, delivered the bad news telling Canadians that they would just have to get used to "job churn" - a future of intermittent employment and a constant scramble for the next job, that essential paycheque to meet the rent and heat the apartment.

Morneau defined his government's focus will be to train and retrain and retrain regularly laid off Canadians as they're tossed "from job to job to job."

What Morneau avoided was any mention of why he's consigned Canada's most vulnerable to a nomadic working life, always wondering when the current job will end and where they'll find the next temporary spot, how long it will take to find and how they'll avoid falling through the floorboards when that inevitable dislocation happens again and again and again.

Morneau won't mention how his own government and its predecessors laid the foundation for this upheaval and uncertainty through its obsessive pursuit of neoliberalism and global free trade, the constant downward spiral. He won't explain why, when even the World Bank and International Monetary Fund can no longer remain silent on the social and economic damage inflicted by globalism, his government remains a faithful adherent to this toxic ideology.

I'm sorry Morneau and you too, Trudeau, but, when you tell Canadians to forego their hopes and resign themselves to a future in the precariat, what you're really telling them is that you won't change course and liberal democracy be damned.

It wasn't always this way. Here are a few observations from two real American Idols - Lincoln and T. Roosevelt.

Let's begin with Abraham Lincoln who declared:

“I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.”

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

If it is, indeed, man's duty "to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind," how is he to do that when his government consigns him to the precariat and tells him to "get used to it"?

If Labour is "the superior of capital" how is it that your government chooses to stack the deck so that capital prevails at the direct cost and damage to labour and our society?

Now let's turn to Teddy Roosevelt who observed:

"In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next. One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows."

"At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the commonwealth."

"Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled."

"There is a wide-spread belief among our people that, under the methods of making tariffs which have hitherto obtained, the special interests are too influential. Probably this is true of both the big special interests and the little special interests. These methods have put a premium on selfishness, and, naturally, the selfish big interests have gotten more than their smaller, though equally selfish, brothers. The duty of Congress is to provide a method by which the interest of the whole people shall be all that receives consideration."

"Of conservation I shall speak more at length elsewhere. Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation."

"Now, with the water power, with the forests, with the mines, we are brought face to face with the fact that there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the special interests should be driven out of politics. Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part."

"The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare. Understand what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him. No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life by which we surround them."

"The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so long as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens. Just in proportion as the average man and woman are honest, capable of sound judgment and high ideals, active in public affairs, — but, first of all, sound in their home, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well, — just so far, and no farther, we may count our civilization a success."

Now, I know these passages carry a certain homespun-ness that can seem awkward but I dare you to tell me - whether you're a Conservative, New Democrat, Liberal or Green - would you really prefer a government that doesn't embrace every one of these principles? What would you give to have a government that did, a genuinely progressive party?

Climate change is, or should be, a non-partisan issue. It's the ultimate scientific question spanning the gamut of Earth sciences - geology, climatology, atmospherics and meteorology, hydrology and oceanography, physics, agronomy, epidemiology, on and on and on. Those disciplines are all separate voices. They have their own scientific focus, their own scientific history, and they each test the "hypothesis" against the best research, analysis and knowledge of their own discipline. Discipline, by discipline, by discipline - without exception - they have all tested the theory of climate change against their own strictures and found in that ever more corroboration.

Progressivism, like climate change, can and should be a non-partisan issue. You shouldn't have to be a Conservative or Liberal or, even, New Democrat to reach out and grab these precepts and notions. Even Edmund Burke wrote of matters progressive.

And so how do our Latter Day Liberals and Conservatives justify so abandoning the Canadian people and, especially, our younger generations? Who elected them to give the future the finger?

This, of course, brings us back to Morneau's finger to young and future Canadians to just "suck it up." If you were one of those kids, you might look at us and the governments we imposed on them as truly predatory acts.

I can only defend some of what we've done by claiming "we didn't know." We really didn't know the scope or the nature or the self-destructive qualities of neoliberalism. But we've had our eyes opened now,  at least other than those who chose to turn their heads, and we don't have any excuse to keep tolerating the Morneau's and the Trudeau's and Harper's of this world who see no obligation to ensure the Canada bequeathed to our young and future generations won't be a much degraded remnant of the country we have exploited for our ease and comfort.

It's not unfair to say that Morneau's dystopian vision is, in a word, revolting. That's "revolting" as in justifying resistance, civil disobedience, perhaps even upheaval. If this government isn't leaving our young people and generations to come the best possible future it can provide, if it isn't even attempting to fix this crisis of our own making, why should any young person accept it? Why should they find any legitimacy in such a government?

If I stumbled across an act of civil disobedience underway today, I would be very tempted just to look the other way. This form of governance is not legitimate to me either.

Think of Yourself as Collateral Damage

We're all familiar with the reality of collateral damage these days. An Afghan wedding party gets disrupted by an uninvited guest in the form of a thousand pound high explosive bomb dropped on what was mistakenly thought to be a group of terrorists. Or sustained attacks on war zone hospitals run by Medicins sans Frontieres. Something big moves, something small gets flattened.

A lot of Canadians wonder why Canada should be so eager to sign on to the Trans Pacific Partnership, the TPP. What do we get out of it? By the government's own admission, next to nothing. The best argument I've heard for it from our government is that we'll be worse off if we don't. What's that, extortion? "Nice place ya got here. It'd be a shame if somethin happened to it."

Extortion? It just might be. That comes through when you think of the Trans Pacific Partnership as America's geopolitical wet dream. For what is a trans-Pacific deal that deliberately excludes Asia's largest economy, China? Chances are it's a gambit, disguised as a trade deal, that's really intended to target China. And it comes with collateral damage, ordinary people in Canada for starters.

I read an interesting defence of the TPP in Foreign Policy. It wasn't written by some economist. No, it was penned by retired four-star US Navy admiral, Jim Stavridis, now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. To Stavridis, the failure of the TPP initiative would be America's Brexit.

The case for the TPP is economically strong, but the geopolitical logic is even more compelling. The deal is one that China will have great difficulty accepting, as it would put Beijing outside a virtuous circle of allies, partners, and friends on both sides of the Pacific. Frankly, that is a good place to keep China from the perspective of the United States, and the treaty thus brings together not only Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and other Asian partners, but also Chile, Mexico, Canada, and Peru. The obvious missing member from Asia is South Korea, but indications are clear that over time South Koreans will want to be part of the agreement. This will be relatively easy to facilitate as South Korea already has a robust bilateral trade agreement with the United States....What is particularly compelling about the TPP, however, is the geopolitical argument in its favor. Three key points are especially salient:

China is on the march in Asia. Beijing intends to claim essentially the entire South China Sea as its territorial waters, based on preposterous historical arguments soundly rejected by international courts. It continues to build artificial islands, destroy reefs, and practice hybrid maritime warfare with unmarked sailors in “fishing boats” intruding aggressively into Japanese, Philippine, and Vietnamese waters. China clearly intends to be the dominant actor in East Asia, and absent a strong U.S. presence, it will succeed. An Asia dominated by China does not serve U.S. interests for a host of reasons, especially given the economic vitality of the region.

This is a moment of real vulnerability for many Asian nations. The unpredictable Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is watching this potential U.S. Brexit from Asia and already talking about increasing military ties with China. Vietnam, historically wary of its massive neighbor to the north, frequently discusses its vulnerability with U.S. leaders. Japan is rattled by Chinese activity around the Senkaku Islands, and even South Korea — which maintains strong ties with China — is worried about Beijing’s seeming reluctance to rein in the behavior of its client state, North Korea. A U.S. failure to maintain a strong economic presence in the region — highlighted by the TPP — will have significant negative effects on our political and diplomatic position over time.

Sending U.S. aircraft carriers is not enough. Some would argue that the United States can exert all the influence it needs to by simply sending enough Carrier Strike Groups sailing through the western Pacific. That kind of simplistic “show the flag” argument doesn’t work in the 21st century; we are more than 100 years on from Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet. A nation’s influence is the composition of its military, cultural, political, and — above all — economic influence. As the leader of what would be the largest free-trade zone in the world, the United States would continue to exert real leadership in this crucial region.

...Over 2,500 years ago, during the Zhou dynasty, the philosopher-warrior Sun Tzu wrote the compelling study of conflict The Art of War. There is much wisdom in that slim volume, including this quote: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” The United States can avoid conflict best in East Asia by using a robust combination of national tools — with the TPP at the top of the list. Looking across the Atlantic to the Brexit debacle, we must avoid repeating the mistake in the Pacific.

The clear winner if the United States rejects the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be China, and an increasingly authoritarian and regionally dominant President Xi Jinping will be cheering the loudest.

Leaving Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen aside, you can hardly go wrong taking geopolitical advice from an American general or, in this case, admiral. Those guys are the pros from Dover.

The line I like best is this: "The United States can avoid conflict best in East Asia by using a robust combination of national tools — with the TPP at the top of the list." I guess admiral Jim has forgotten that America was trying the very same thing he proposes only against Japan right up to the morning of  December 7, 1941 - Pearl Harbor.

If the TPP isn't going to do much for Canada and the price for so very little is to be herded into America's geopolitical corral for the purpose of isolating and containing China shouldn't we at least be holding out for something a lot better?

Krugman Gives TPP a Thumbs Down.

New York Times economist and Nobel laureate economist, Paul Krugman, tends to support free trade but even he wants the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, or TPP, dead and buried.

Krugman's big objection is that the deal allows corporations to monopolize intellectual property and will result in monopolized trade, not free trade.

Is this a good thing from a global point of view? Doubtful. The kind of property rights we’re talking about here can alternatively be described as legal monopolies. True, temporary monopolies are, in fact, how we reward new ideas; but arguing that we need even more monopolization is very dubious — and has nothing at all to do with classical arguments for free trade.
 
Now, the corporations benefiting from enhanced control over intellectual property would often be American. But this doesn’t mean that the T.P.P. is in our national interest. What’s good for Big Pharma is by no means always good for America.