TPP Will Increase U.S. GDP by Just 0.15%. The Real Purposes of the Integration Project

According to official estimates, 15 years after the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement enters into force, the United States’ GDP will increase by $42.7 billion (0.15%) annually; employment will grow by 0.07 per cent (128,000 new jobs); and export and import will grow by $27.2 billion (1.0%) and $48.9 billion (1.1%) a year respectively.

In other words, the TPP will be a very weak catalyst for the U.S. economy.

Why then this project is considered to be so important?

Photo: Reuters

We could suppose that it is not so much about stimulating the U.S. economy as it is about the economic containment of the United States’ real and potential competitors in Asia Pacific. This containment will be implemented in three areas.

First, the TPP sets up rigid regulations that prevent wage discrimination and place restrictions on the activities of trade unions, work safety violations, the use of child labour, etc. This will eliminate the advantage enjoyed by the competitors of the United States with regard to their cheap workforce.

Secondly, the TPP will strengthen the dominant position of the United States in e-commerce by essentially prohibiting any national restrictions or special standards for such commerce. The demand to give up restrictions on disseminating information via the internet deals a blow to the region’s authoritarian regimes.

Thirdly, the TPP introduces international mechanisms for controlling state-owned companies in order to prevent them from receiving unfounded subsidies, tax preferences, or any other advantages. It undermines the foundations of the model of state capitalism, which gave rise to the East Asian “economic miracle” of the recent decades.

Data:

— United States International Trade Commission