I’m speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, June 25-28. I don’t have details yet, but will post when I do.
WikiLeaks is offering $100,000 for a leaked copy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, says the Washington Post. It especially wants to see the agricultural chapters, as do we all.
For the WikiLeaks video (and pitch) that explains why it wants those TPP chapters, click here.
It’s worth trying to understand the TPP. Since my earlier post on it, I’ve been collecting items to help clarify the various stakeholder positions on this agreement.
For the TTP
The Obama administration, for reasons incomprehensible to Paul Krugman, among others, is very much for it. It claims across-the-board benefits for U.S. agriculture. For example:
Vegetables: U.S. exports of fresh and processed vegetables to the TPP countries face tariffs as high as 90 percent. Under the agreement, tariffs across the TPP region will be cut, offering new market access opportunities to U.S. producers and exporters of fresh and processed vegetables. In 2014 the United States exported almost $5 billion in fresh and processed vegetables to the TPP region.
The USDA’s has produced fact sheets on what TPP can do for individual states. I checked the one for New York. The expected benefits to the state are expressed generically, not specifically to New York State:
Fresh and Processed Vegetables: U.S. exports of fresh and processed vegetables to the TPP countries face tariffs as high as 90 percent. Under the agreement, tariffs across the TPP region will be cut, offering new market access opportunities to U.S. producers and exporters of fresh and processed vegetables. In 2014 the United States exported almost $5 billion in fresh and processed vegetables to the TPP region.
Dubious about the TTP
WikiLeaks may be on the right track here.