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TTIP:downward harmonization
outweighing optimistic estimates |
During the final week of April 2016, New York City was playing host to
U.S. and European trade negotiators for the 13th round of talks on the
proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Protocols agreement (TTIP).
That it is still even under discussion reflects not only the vast
political influence of multinational corporations, but also a certain
automatic orthodoxy among many economists. The latter assert that trade
liberalization can create huge worldwide economic benefits.
If those benefits sound important, I hope you enjoyed them – because
they have already happened. In the “bad” old days – think 1990 or
earlier – there were real barriers to international trade. Tariffs,
import quotas and many varieties of protectionist legislation did appear
to limit the flow of goods between nations.
But then, NAFTA and CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement
equivalent) opened up Western Hemisphere trade. Next, China joined the
World Trade Organization (WTO), and WTO rules lowered worldwide trade
barriers.
Also, a longstanding textile quota agreement was allowed to
expire as well.
Meanwhile, the European Union continued to expand its single market
across more and more of Europe. Bilateral and regional trade agreements,
too numerous to mention, continued to pop up on every continent.
Analyses sow there are enormous benefits from multiple areas of European
regulation. In chemicals policy, the EU requires manufacturers and
importers of chemicals to provide well-defined evidence on the safety of
their products.
In the U.S., unfamiliar chemicals are treated as innocent until proven guilty, with almost no requirements for safety testing.
In climate change and renewable energy, Europe is far ahead of the
United States. Thanks to feed-in tariffs and other policies that promote
renewables, more than 25% of EU electricity now comes from renewable
energy.
This has climate benefits, because it avoids CO2 emissions from
conventional generation (usually coal-fired, in Europe).
It has health
benefits, because it avoids the other pollutants caused by coal
combustion.
And there are more than 1.2 million jobs in renewable energy industries throughout the EU.
The benefits of just these two areas of European regulation,
chemicals policy and renewable energy, are almost as valuable as the
entire economic benefit of TTIP to Europe (as estimated by TTIP
advocates).
So suppose that Europe accepted TTIP and gained as much income as the
trade optimists predict. If this came at the price of downward
harmonization to U.S. standards,
Europe would lose about as much in the
benefits of chemical safety and renewable energy as it gained in higher
incomes.
Since many other valuable areas of regulation would also be at risk,
the overall losses from downward harmonization would greatly outweigh
the optimistic estimates of the gains from slightly expanded trade.
The rhetoric of trade liberalization lives on. Only the reality has
changed. As Janis Joplin might have put it, is free trade just another
word for nothing left to lose?
We need another word for orderly, democratically governed trade
between sovereign nations that are free to protect their citizens from
social and environmental harm.
TTIP and similar proposed treaties have
nothing in common with the international agreements we need to promote
the common good.
Read more: TTIP Rhetoric and Reality: Europe's Regulations at Risk - The Globalist
