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Tenets Of Tp

Decent Essays

Progression or Suppression? Evaluating the Theoretical Policies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Liberalism asserts several tenets that explain the United States’ people’s failure to approve of a potential trade agreement, the Trans Pacific Partnership. Classical Liberalism refers to a series of concepts which are contingent upon individual autonomy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) refers to a proposed free trade deal amongst 12 countries across the Asia-Pacific region including the USA. The tenets of liberalism that explain the people’s failure to approve of the possible trade agreement include popular sovereignty and consent, individual autonomy, individual rights and limited and representative government.
An essential …show more content…

In turn, individuals are typically driven by self-interest. The central objective of the TPP is to cause trade within the 12 countries involved to be less costly. This could go one of two ways; American Companies could have the opportunity to trade cost-free with 11 other countries, or American Companies could move their businesses elsewhere, where labor is cheaper, and ship their products back to America for a cheaper price. The average American Citizens tends to see this with a glass-half-empty approach because of two factors. A majority of the money that would come from relocating labor overseas would only benefit the upper class of America, and because of the impacts of a prior trade agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). When NAFTA was enacted on January 1, 1994, many large companies moved their labor elsewhere (i.e. Mexico or Canada). According to a research group the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA cost us upwards of 800,000 jobs. Therefore, it is only reasonable to assume that the potential TPP agreement will have similar affects to the NAFTA …show more content…

The governments purpose is to protect an individual’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government also represents the people’s interests which implies a representative government, the rule of law majority rule, and a constitutional government. People believe their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being violated by this trade agreement. A mere 6, out of the 30 total chapters that construct the Trans-Pacific Partnership have to do with trade. This begs the question: what is the content suggested in the other 24? Jim Hightower writes: “The other two dozen chapters’ amount to a devilish ‘partnership’ for corporate protectionism. They create sweeping new ‘rights’ and escape hatches to protect multinational corporations from accountability to our governments. One notion that is expressed in those 24 chapters is the prices of prescription drugs will increase, which could absolutely threaten the governments protection of life and happiness. The Trans- Pacific Partnership would upsurge “costs for national health programs and over time jeopardize many and perhaps millions of lives in the Pacific region. In the Doha Declaration of 2001, all World Trade Organization (WTO) members—including the U.S.—acknowledged the humanitarian costs of pharmaceutical monopoly rights and

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