The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is a controversial deal mired in bitter argument that has, since its initial proposal, been less about free and fair trade and more about the needs of America and its attempts to cement its place in the region against the growing influence of China. "By hook or by crook" as they say, America wants to entrench and protect the might of its multinational corporations in the region.
The negotiations of this deal, have caused huge debate within the US and abroad, and have been roundly criticised by everyone from academia to the workplace.
The TPP has the potential for real harm
OPINION
By Ian Verrender
Updated about 4 hours ago
Most free trade agreements deliver little in the way of benefits, apart from photo opportunities for politicians, but the highly secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership has the potential for real harm in Australia, writes Ian Verrender.
You can almost picture it.
Palms swaying gently in a breeze laden with the heady scent of plumeria, a troupe of women in grass skirts, hips gyrating to the intoxicating rhythm of ukuleles and the soulful sounds of a Polynesian choir as the sun sinks beneath the Pacific in a riot of ever darkening orange.
"Where do I sign?" the trade ministers cry in unison before toasting themselves with yet another pina colada.
Trade ministers, their chief negotiators and raft of bureaucrats and assorted hangers on from 12 Pacific rim countries have been gathered in Waikoloa, on the Kona coast of Hawaii - known as the Big Island and not to be confused with tourist dominated Oahu - for the past week.
It's here that our very own trade minister, Andrew Robb, hopes to ink yet another trade deal, his fourth since being elected to government just 18 months ago.
But this will be no ordinary trade deal. This is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP for those in the know.
It is a deal mired in controversy and bitter argument that, over the decade or so since its proposal, has become less about trade and increasingly about politics.
Specifically, it is about American politics, and its attempts to cement its place as a regional superpower against the growing influence of China and entrench the might of its multinational corporations.
It has also caused a huge debate within the US with the trade deal roundly criticised by everyone from academics such as Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman to workers who watched US jobs evaporate in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Now the Democrats have split with Senator Elizabeth Warren hoping to steal votes from Hillary Clinton in the upcoming race for presidential candidate.
But this is a deal that could - and that's the operative word because no one knows any of the details - cost Australians dearly, particularly if our negotiators fail to protect our rights as they did in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement in 2005.
While the negotiations have been hammered out in secret for all these years, enough detail has been leaked to give rise to serious concerns about some of the provisions and the impact it could have on Australian sovereignty.
The biggest concern is over intellectual property rights, particularly over pharmaceuticals.
As part of the deal, large American pharmaceutical corporations want to extend the life of their patents, arguing that having spent billions to bring their research to fruition they should be entitled to a just reward so they can invest the profits into developing new medicines.
On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable argument.
The irony is that a patent essentially limits free trade. And America is using the auspices of a free trade agreement to push through changes that would inhibit competition by shutting out generic manufacturers. That means consumers will pay more for medicines for much longer.
The other major issue revolves around what is known as investor state dispute settlements. These clauses open the door to foreign companies to launch legal action against a democratically elected government, thereby undermining sovereign rights.
This has become a common inclusion in free trade agreements in recent years. The most celebrated case is being fought between tobacco giant Philip Morris and the Australian government over plain packaging of cigarettes.
Should it win here, it will strengthen its case to continue selling tobacco - an addictive drug that kills vast numbers of people - around the globe.
In a recent interview with Fairfax, Robb assured the nation that he would not sign away our rights or do anything that may harm the national interest.
Let's hope so. But given the secrecy around the entire deal, we'll never know until after the ink is dry. And by then it will be too late.
What is it with politicians and free trade agreements? And how useful are they?
The answer to the first question is that they provide wonderful photo opportunities in exotic locales while giving the impression of triumph, all great fodder for the next election campaign. The answer to the second question is: generally, not very much.
That may come as a shock to anyone who's studied economics and, in particular, the work of the father of modern economics, Adam Smith.
Smith - in his seminal work the Wealth of Nations - astutely observed that consumers should be allowed to buy goods from the cheapest source. All protection did was to create monopolies that he described as "a great enemy to good management".
Great strides have been made in reducing global trade barriers in the decades since the end of World War II. And that's one of the problems. There now are far fewer trade barriers to break down.
Those that remain - particularly around agriculture - have proven so difficult to remove that they have thwarted the ultimate goal of free global trade, which has forced governments to do individual deals with one another.
A 2010 Productivity Commission study into Australia's bilateral and regional trade deals concluded that while some businesses had benefitted from the furious signing of new agreements, "it appears that businesses generally have made limited use of the opportunities available from Australia's existing BRTA".
The Productivity Commission concluded that the best way to benefit from free trade was for a country to remove its own trade barriers, just as Australia already has done.
Even a survey conducted by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, while supporting free trade agreements, found that accessing the benefits was a "hit and miss" exercise.
In another damning report last year, the business lobby group said most agreements were so poorly drafted and so complex that they were next to useless in a commercial sense.
One of the most worrying aspects of the current round of negotiations, given the potential to entrench the interests of big American corporations, is the extent to which Australian negotiators failed in similar dealings a decade ago when the Australia US Free Trade Agreement was signed.
Again, it was intellectual property rights that formed a major part of proceedings. That section alone, an 11,500 word agreement in baffling legalese, is open to broad interpretation for anyone with an army of lawyers on hand.
According to Murdoch University Professor Anna George, the Australia US deal of a decade ago allows firms to "cherry pick" legal obligations. That means a company could take action to block labelling or bypass standards associated with policies to tackle obesity or diabetes, or information on use of antibiotics in cattle or fish.
A recent case where firms producing sunscreens with nano-particles were not required to label them as such appears to be a case in point.
And yet that deeply flawed deal appears to be the starting point for negotiations with Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Still, as they say, ignorance is bliss. Andrew Robb hopes to have this new agreement in the bag by the end of the week or maybe early next month at the latest.
Pass me a mai tai.
Ian Verrender is the ABC's business editor.
