Panama: The government wants in on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

What's the Alianza del Pacifico? Narrowly speaking, it's the governments of those Latin American countries that are part of the US-sponsored process aimed at creating a Trans-Pacific Alliance (TPP). They include Mexico, Colombia, Peru and, for the moment, Chile. The term is also more generally used to describe all of the countries involved in the negotiations for a TPP.

What is the TPP? Think about all of the agricultural and intellectual property proposals that the United States could not get the World Trade Organization to accept in the failed Doha round of trade negotiations. Think of the draconian "Internet piracy" proposals that have been defeated in the United States and the European Union. Think of NAFTA writ large. Think of a US trade alliance aimed at isolating China and the MERCOSUR countries. It's all of those things but also much more. How much more we don't really know because the talks are secret and there have only been partial leaks about what is proposed. However, enough is known to have prompted most of those in North America and Latin American who opposed the trade deals on the NAFTA template --- like the US and Canadian free trade pacts with Panama --- to start speaking and acting out against the initiative. As one labor union, the Communications Workers of America, puts it:

The TPP is much more than a "free-trade" agreement. It is part of the overall corporate and Wall Street agenda to make the world safe for corporate investment and profits by reducing labor costs and undercutting workers' rights; dismantling labor, environmental, health and financial laws and regulations that could impact profits; and setting up a process to resolve any disputes by going through special international tribunals rather than our own court system.

Of course, these folks have lost on virtually all of the battles over similar "free trade" deals, and the wins against the Internet proposals have been won with a somewhat different cast of characters on the contending sides. (These latter battles have been much more about Hollywood versus Google than the multinational corporate elite against all of their adversaries.) But tactics are being adjusted, the opposition is organizing across international borders and this struggle bears the seeds of a greater conflict between the United States leading one side and China, Brazil, Russia and India aligned on the other.

For Panama, adhesion to TPP means a choice to reject closer ties with South America's MERCOSUR countries.

As a step toward full membership in the Alianza del Pacifico and TPP, Panama is finalizing a free trade pact with Colombia. Essentially we will get quotas to export certain cuts of beef, chicken nuggets, fish meal and liquor to Colombia while Colombian fresh vegetables will by and large replace those grown in the Chiriqui Highlands in the Panamanian market.

The president's cousin, Foreign Minister Fernando Núñez Fábrega, sums up the process in this way:

We will put at the service of the Pacific Alliance our port, airport and terrestrial infrastructures that make Panama a natural interconnecting hub for the continent, as we are one of the most developed countries in terms of maritime, land and air connectivity in the Americas.

June 6, 2013

Source: The Panama News