The TPP: A View from New Zealand

By: Mark Noll

October 9, 2015

Walk Away from the TPPA!!!” I see the bright red banner every time I walk across campus here at the University of Auckland, and it has been hanging ever since I got here.

The banner refers to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which was completed only on October 5. The deal is aimed at lowering barriers to trade in goods and services—including automobiles, biological drugs, dairy, and other industries—and has been in the works for almost a decade, negotiated in secret by trade ministers from each of the countries. Yet it has been extremely controversial, both here and in the United States. Comparing this anti-trade stance helped me to discover some interesting differences between the two countries’ economic and political attributes.

Last week, I found myself in the middle of a very large anti-TPP protest in the middle of campus, one that reminded me of some rallies in Washington, DC. I asked several people specifically why they oppose the deal. First, the issue every single person pointed out was the deal’s secretiveness. It became clear that the rally participants did not trust the trade negotiators to advocate for what would be best for them; instead, most saw the TPP simply as the government catering to powerful business interests at the expense of New Zealand citizens. There was also a fair amount of anti-US sentiment: one sign pointed out that prime minister John Key held stock in large US banks, while another proclaimed “New Zealand is NOT the 51st State of America!” I got the sense that no one really liked feeling pushed around by the United States, and that any final draft of the agreement would contain provisions favored by the United States and leave New Zealand short-changed. As the full text of the pact will not become public for another month, this last point remains unanswered, though it does sound like the most important request of New Zealand—to more fully open up foreign countries to Kiwi dairy exports—did not make the final draft of the text.

Interestingly, I also heard almost no mention of jobs or employment in the New Zealand protests; again, most Kiwis take issue with the undemocratic way the deal was negotiated. This stands in stark contrast with the United States, where opposition to the TPP is based on the aforementioned factors but also extremely strong fears about job losses and outsourcing. This “jobs” factor helps to explain another observation: here in New Zealand opposition to the deal seems to be limited to the left, while in the United States hostility to the deal is bipartisan. I believe that this comes from the fact that in the United States, coalitions in both the left and the right are suspicious of large corporations. I also suspect that the bipartisan opposition we see in the United States is based on experiences from the North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as the relatively large size of US manufacturing and its importance for providing employment and living wages. There is no similarly vulnerable industry in New Zealand, and as such Kiwis seem to be worried less about job losses and more about other issues, especially sovereignty.

Finally, I got the sense that the deal in New Zealand was couched in more economic language, as opposed to American news outlets’ focus on its political prospects and implications (both domestic and international). In the United States, there seems to be a much greater focus on the deal’s implications for the 2016 election cycle, as well as how the TPP supports Obama’s goal of strengthening ties with countries in the Pacific other than China. In New Zealand, these political issues are certainly present but are presented secondly to the deal’s implications for certain segments of the Kiwi economy.

Trade deals produce winners and losers, and they are never without controversy. It’s been interesting to see how the TPP helps to highlight certain economic and political differences between the United States and New Zealand.

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