Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership sucks: short, funny animation

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@LoriW

Whatever your political agenda is, on the merits you are wrong. In fact, China has recently obtained an equivalent designation. Yes, the receiving country has to make an equivalence determination, but the sending country can challenge that decision. China challenged the U.S. decision NOT to allow its imports in as equivalent at the WTO - and the U.S. lost the case. To avoid trade sanctions via the WTO, the Obama administration then issued a new equivalence determination and pounded on Congress to fund its implementation. And BTW, being concerned about imports of food from a country that has regular, deadly food safety scandals is not anti-China fear mongering.

If you don’t like accusations of fear mongering, then support your claims. And I wasn’t saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about importing food from China; I said that Spocko’s senario was far-fetched and manufactured for the purpose fear mongering. You say that China has received an equivalent designation, but you don’t say for what and you don’t provide any evidence or support for your claim. If I’m wrong on the merits (what merits? what claims have I made? where have I said that there are not problems with the TPP?), show me where I’m wrong and back up your claims. If you find it difficult to provide support, why should I believe what you’re saying?

Also, you might be aware that those Chinese who can afford to like to buy foreign food products and shop from larger stores like Wal-Mart or Carrefour, in large part because of food safety and supply-chain concerns. In the highly unlikely event that food products like baby formula, cooking oil, preserved fruit, etc. become designated as equivalent to US-produced products, I think it very likely that US consumers will vote with their wallets and chose US-produced goods.[quote=“LoriW, post:50, topic:16451”]
The problems people are identifying with TPP are very real, including this problem with being required to accept imported food that does not meet US safety standards. So, while you seem to be trying a dog whistle move there, [. . .] trying to change the topic is not gonna work at this point.
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As I basically said above, there are enough problems with the TPP that making rather dubious claims like this is pretty stupid: it ensures that you are only likely to be preaching to the converted, and will not carry much weight with those who are undecided. Extreme and unbelievable claims also have the risk of compromising the believability of of more accurate and legitimately worrying claims. Is pointing this out trying to change the topic? I don’t think so. Is Mr. Doctorow trying to change the topic when he complains that the TPP will massively increase IP protections, even though this video says it will strip IP protection from things made in the USA?