Beware of TPP

Asian buyers need to be wary of TPP agreement
 
'Despite President Barack Obama’s charm offensive in the region, Pacific nations are well-advised to remain wary of the US government’s position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP).
 
If US trade negotiators got their way, the Pacific Rim would reap surprisingly few gains — but take on big risks. Until the United States starts to see Asia as a true trading partner, rather than a region to patronise, it is right to hold out on the TPP.…
 
In exchange for these small benefits, the US’s partners in Asia and Latin America have to take on big risks…the US is insisting that TPP partners surrender their right to regulate global finance.
 
Through its financial services and investment provisions, the TPP would allow Wall Street banks to move into TPP countries’ financial services sectors. To do what? If you can believe it, to push the very financial products that triggered the biggest global financial crisis since the Great Depression.
 
That is not progress. That’s regress, given what the world now knows about these often toxic instruments.
 
What is more, if US trade negotiators, acting at the behest of US industry, got their way, the deal would prohibit the ability of these banks to be regulated to prevent and mitigate a financial crisis. They would be “free” to recreate the mess all over again….
 
…the IMF expressed concern that agreements like the TPP “do not provide appropriate safeguards”….
 
What is perhaps most risky for the US’s TPP partners is that the foreign banks themselves will be able to directly sue governments for violations of the agreement….
It is in the well-understood self-interest of Chile, Malaysia and other TPP countries to continue to push back on Mr Obama’s proposals to de-regulate financial services and investment. It is also in the interest of financial prudence and international fairness.
 
In light of that, it is disconcerting to find a recent study which shows these nations have been able to safeguard the ability to regulate finance in treaties with trading blocs such as the EU and Canada and China, but that it is the US which is pushing back with great determination.
 
Thankfully, there are important voices in the US who are pushing President Obama to act with more prudence than the US financial industry wants him to do. Americans are also painfully aware that financial crises hurt US jobs and financial stability.
 
US Congressman Sander Levin and others have been pressuring the Obama administration to ensure that trade deals don’t trump regulating global finance. In 2011, over 250 economists from across the world urged Mr Obama to make trade deals consistent with financial reform as well…. ©2014 The Globalist'
 
Kevin P Gallagher is a professor of international relations at Boston University.
 
The above article is published in Bangkok Post. It highlights the dangerous proposals in the TPP and the unusually high risks for countries to go with the TPP. And an American professor is warning Asians to be wary of the US. Apparently some Asian govts are soooo happy with this TPP that they cannot see anything wrong with it. So this American professor must be crazy right?
 
Why are there govts so eager to sign this American proposal which is akin to signing a suicide pact? Is Singapore one of the eager beaver? This is going to be far more dangerous than signing the CECA. Before out govt sign this pact, does it have any responsibility to tell the people the pros and cons of this deal? Or would it be like the CECA and the AEC, the govt knows best. Trust the govt?