The approval on October 5 in Atlanta of the Trans-pacific Partnership (TPP) was greeted as a major victory by the presidents of the three Latin American countries (Peru, Chile and Mexico) that had signed up to it. But for anyone else in these countries, possibly with the exception of technocrats in the trade ministries that have negotiated it, it remains a mystery what exactly they have signed up to. It is only because of Wikileaks spilling some of the beans, that we have an inkling of what it contains.

In Peru, this failure to be upfront on what has been negotiated is the source of growing public indignation. All that appears to have been the case in Atlanta is that Peru and Chile failed in their attempt to push the United States into reducing patent protection for pharmaceuticals, a matter that greatly increases the costs for health ministries in the two countries and puts certain drugs out of reach for those that need them. This hardly seems to constitute a major victory.

The TPP is an attempt to create a free trade area covering Asian countries (Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam), the members of NAFTA (Canada, United States and Mexico) along with Chile and Peru. For Peru, the economic effects are probably fairly minor; the country already has free trade agreements with a number of the countries on this list. For the most part, the volumes of trade with Asia (other than with Japan) are modest; Peru’s key trade partner is China which, intentionally on the part of the United States, has been left out of the club and from the negotiations establishing the rules for future membership. In some cases – Vietnam, for example – more trade is likely to mean more imports, and imports of cheaply manufactured goods that put Peruvian businesses (eg in the clothing industry) out of business.

The significance of the TPP seems likely to be more geopolitical. It reinforces the salience of the so-called Pacific Alliance whose members, in the main (Colombia has not been party to the TPP negotiations) are the United States’ more stalwart allies in the region and who maintain some of the region’s more business-friendly economies. At the same time, it further locks in Peru to maintaining liberal trade and investment rules that favour transnational corporations and restrict the scope for future government to amend these to protect national interests. http://larepublica.pe/impresa/opinion/708883-el-tpp-o-la-capitulacion-de-una-nacion