U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has said he is going to pull the U.S. out of any further negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact, while the other 11 nations involved want it to be r

Undecided. I am basically for free trade but against supporting vested interests and entrenching corporate power over citizens.

According to news reports, TPP stipulates that absolutely no restrictions can be made on capital flows. That is what I don't like about TPP. But now that the US is out of the picture, that should not be so dangerous. So maybe TPP could be a fair deal with Wall Street out of the picture.

This is one of those areas I agree with Trump.

But I didn't know that all the other nations wanted it - is that true?

The majority of the TPP isn't about trade. There are other things they are trying to sneak in such as SOFA. If it was such a great deal, why negociate it in secret? Its always amazing that with free trade, you can build factories in cheaper countries, but you can't for example bring in doctors, dentists, archeitects, and other white collar jobs from poorer countries to rich countries. That is never part of the deal. If its really about free trade, lets see them open up the white collar jobs to the poorer countries where they are building their factories. Never happens. Free trade is about liberalizion of the blue collar jobs and protectionism for white collar jobs. That's why it will never work.

Back when TPP was a free trade agreement, I fully supported it. But after it became nothing but another piece of paper full of exceptions and exemptions for special interests, I stopped supporting it.

Getting out of TPP is one thing which Trump can do quite easily, as neither party in congress really supports it.

Poor Abe, the failure of TPP is entirely in his hands, and this failure is a large blow to Abenomics. Had he not insisted on protections for his own special interests, the treaty would have been passed more than two years ago. Now Abe has nothing at all to show for those years of negotiations other than the the huge cost of the travel involved in taking part. Of all the countries in TPP, none needed it more than Japan, and full implementation of the original treaty would have worked wonders for increasing the efficiency of Japan's economy. It is Japan's morbid fear of competing on a level field which has brought the economy down to where it is. Had Japan been forced to compete on the merit of it's products and industry, Japan could be a champion. But for decades Japan has relied on one-sided trade deals and a weak yen to keep it's companies profitable.

Poor Abe, the failure of TPP is entirely in his hands, and this failure is a large blow to Abenomics. Had he not insisted on protections for his own special interests, the treaty would have been passed more than two years ago. Now Abe has nothing at all to show for those years of negotiations other than the the huge cost of the travel involved in taking part. Of all the countries in TPP, none needed it more than Japan, and full implementation of the original treaty would have worked wonders for increasing the efficiency of Japan's economy. It is Japan's morbid fear of competing on a level field which has brought the economy down to where it is. Had Japan been forced to compete on the merit of it's products and industry, Japan could be a champion. But for decades Japan has relied on one-sided trade deals and a weak yen to keep it's companies profitable.

agree 100%

My fright about TPP has to do with health insurance. Please do not mess with our insurance here. It is fantastic.

Trump will be trying to bring back jobs ...I'm totally against any trade agreement..Would like to US became isolationists again...

FOR. Trade agreements certainly have overall benefits to society that are greater than any moon landing, and they are monstrously difficult to negotiate. They are the embodiment of the promise of a regime where people of different countries don't have to be slaves to the whims of mercantilism, which is pretty much equivalent to colonialism. People don't even understand that anymore. Was anybody reading this even alive before GATT? Life without trade agreements is a huge pain.

They involve so many opportunities for special interests to skew them or derail them that they are being done more and more in secret, among bureaucrats how have some idea of how domestic economies work, rather than businessmen, who will look for ways to jerk some foreigner in the true mercantilist tradition. Trade agreements are vulnerable to demagogues and populists.

So on a basic level, I am in favor of trade agreements, which have costs and benefits that continue forever, but they have to be set up first. It is tricky.

Do we really believe that NAFTA has caused all the problems that the rust belt whines about? I don't. Somebody should have told Americans honestly that auto assembly jobs were going and they never coming back. NAFTA was designed to let Mexico develop in its way, and for the US to develop in its way to more services and more automated production etc. By and large, that has happened. The problem is that Americans were too steeped in nostalgia to adapt as quickly as Mexican people were. And the Mexicans had a model for development. The US did not.

I can't prove it, but if America had gone to a 10 dollar minimum wage in about 1990 and been more careful about illegal immigration, then NAFTA would look like a genius move about now. The US would look more like Germany, and Mexico would look more like Brazil. Imagine if US businesses had invested in Mexico instead of China.

TPP is designed to knit Asian economies together and create a freer trade area with all kinds of commodities and services. Probably, Japan would be giving up ground in primary sectors, but getting access to markets for services and automated production. OF COURSE farmers are going to be against that. And Japanese coal miners too. But you know... how much longer are we going to lie to those people and tell them that they can compete against countries that grow three rice crops per year? And as Japan gets older... come on... whose jobs does Japan really need to fight for?

Finally, I trust Japan's bureaucrats to have a pretty good idea of what Japan is and where it is headed. On balance, they are better at finding a better deal for Japan than just leaving it all to fate and mercantilism.

People who know nothing about everything are pretty well screwing the world up these days. I expect that TPP will fail. Eventually, all the progress since WWII will fall away and the world will be basically back to the 1930s before people wise up. By then it will be too late. Humanity will have to have another war that will have to be won by a King Log for the world to reach its present state of leisure and learning. What is the likelihood of that happening again? About zip.

But I didn't know that all the other nations wanted it - is that true?

When the news media say a nation wants something, they usually mean that the politicians in power in that nation want something. Unless there are mass riots, the opinion of the people is not normally reported on.

That's actually what I meant - I agree with your comment, in that I wasn't talking about the will of the people.

All aspects of this trade agreement were made in private and not presented to the public. How can any group of people support something they know nothing about?

Trump is smart.

My impression was that TPP meant corporations could sue for losses due to national regulations on things like healthcare, GMO, environmental issues, as Wikileaks etc. suggested. I don't think it would take years to simply introduce "free trade".

Part of it was IP too wasn't it? All those copyrights (e.g. Mickey Mouse) that keep being extended into the future.

The TPP would have only benefitted Japan if they offset it with an import tax, which would have also been contrary to the point of a TPP. Japan has been using a price-fixing and subsidies scheme/scam to keep produce prices high for the agricultural industry for nearly a century. They would have had to give up this practice if they agreed to free trade of agricultural products because Japanese produce would be too expensive compared to imports. Abe coming out and stating that the TPP is useless without the US is only a convenient excuse. Japan has never been any good at sharing or changing. The fact is, a free trade agreement would spur Japan's economy and increase spending making the sale tax increase mean something. As it stands now, sales tax was increased by 3%, but consumer spending is down by an average of 10%. That is a fail in anybody's language. Some of the larger department stores like Takashimaya and Mitsukoshi have seen sales drop by 25% or more since the sales tax increase. Japan's economy will never improve while these cronies keep recycling the ideals of the bubble era for international markets that no longer exist for Japan. 99% of all animals are extinct due to not evolving to survive. I fear Japan's economy will also become extinct if it does not evolve.

Over the next two decades if the world stay at peace the next area of expansion will be in transport. Moving people and goods quicker. Robotic will determent how fast this era of change of transport will proceed. Like these robot are sync with how we move product and people and that a manual inenifient fossil energy way. In other words these robot can product far more then what they are producing now. The present way is holding up production. I see a people moving system fully atomises powdered by renewables. I see national shipment system that will use a vacuumed 3 meter pipe to shipped pallets of good at over the speed of sound from plant to port run solely on reusable energy. This is the world that will are working towards and for and only the elite will benefit.

For -> the original TPP before Japan joined the negotiations and more loopholes and behind doors negotiations were introduced.

Now I'm against it.

I see I'm among the 54% against it in this poll.

Heck, even Senator Bernie Sanders argued that the TPP will end up destroying the dynamic comprising small, working families in the United States. Corporations would take precedent over small businesses and local entrepreneurs. Not only that, by making it easier to shift jobs abroad, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would inevitably drain the American working force, leading to huge job losses in the United States.

And heck, even Hillary is against it now! And of course Jill Stein is against it. But wait, Gary Johnson is for it, lol.

Ok only the USA have stated they will up out. So when ask the question, "while the other 11 nations etc" meaning Japan and the rest. So I take it your asking the question to the USA concerned peoples opinion. I see people comments are about concern of both the Japan and USA. So the poll is unless but the article and comments are interesting.

Free Trade, pitting companies big and small in a globally "free market", is like pitting toddlers in a sprint race with Usain Bolt, none of these toddlers will grow. Wealthy countries became wealthy because of protectionism, Britain, Germany, USA, Japan, even China with its Alibaba, Baidu, Didi, etc. None of them became big because Amazon, Google, Uber were allowed free reign in China.

I will always vote NO for unfair free trade.

The fright everyone should have about TPP and such deals is that if passed, they would place multinational corporations beyond the control of governments. Corporations would have the right to sue governments for millions of dollars in "compensation" for denying them the right to, for example, dig for resources in the last pristine environments of the world. That's just one example. They would be beyond control. Workers rights, human rights? Forget it. The multinationals would rule, by the laws they themselves have drafted for these "deals". The corrupt politicians just go along with it. They're in the 1% anyway. TPP = "game over" for the working person. I don't like Trump, but by accident he got this one right (for the wrong reasons...manufacturing jobs aren't going to come back to the US because of not ratifying this). Check out Chris Hedges (Pulitzer Prize winner...still means something) for a detailed analysis if you want to.

Brexit/Trump were emphatic votes against a shell game that occasionally lets Joe Public win, lulling him - and an enrapt audience - into a false sense of opportunity.

TPP was the shell game writ large. But how long before Trump's isolationism - like Bush Jr's before him - is challenged by the unholy trinity of bankers, corporate interests and the military-industrial security complex?

Anyone the really knows what they're talking about regarding TPP... probably wouldn't be wasting their time on this website. You can all rant and rave but you're just talking in generalities.

Anyone the really knows what they're talking about regarding TPP... probably wouldn't be wasting their time on this website.

I am on three different screens right now, the others are for my business. As an exporter of goods from Japan, I am directly affected by the tariffs many of the countries in TTP charge on Japanese goods. I have no doubt that if these tariffs were abolished, I would be able to sell more to these countries, meaning I would make more money, along with my employees and suppliers. And if agriculture tariffs were abolished, I, my employees, and suppliers would spend significantly less on food, giving them more money to spend on things like a larger home, better clothes, or perhaps raising a larger family.

Developing countries charge tariffs on my goods of over 50%, needless to say that I sell little to these places. The funny thing is as the tariff rates go down, the quality of life increases. The countries which charge the lowest tariffs, or no tariffs at all, are for the most part the world's most well-off places. The countries with the highest tariffs as a rule are the ones which are the worst off. Tariffs do not protect industries, they protect businesses large enough to pay politicians to protect them.

Back to the old days, the TPP agreements is only benefitting Malaysian as their investments flew into the Chinese investments as they tries to overcome the TPP agreements in hands with the Chinese. They had once said that the TPP would not be a problem with the Chinese governments, and affects the Japanese with the South Korean. The South Korean at that time only relied to the Chinese investments, which had come to the losses to their firms, and for japan, the ideal for making the TPP is unworthy to do as the Malaysian investments didn't had it's protections on the TPP agreements. Wise for the newly elected Donald Trump to secured it, but sadly for Japan and South korea, they need to makes the investments in the ETA as their covered to the investments and protections that needs to overcome their usage into the exports as Malaysia firm will do the same trick as they do.

Hmm, maybe the TPP would actually be good without the US in it, more specifically, without US corporations in it.

Hmm, maybe the TPP would actually be good without the US in it, more specifically, without US corporations in it.

American corporations are nothing compared to Japanese, Korean, and Chinese corporations, which are far more able to twist the arms of the state to pad their profits, and to regulate their domestic economies to create captive markets. Japan's debt is near 250% of GDP, and much of that money has gone into the coffers of Japan Inc. to keep it afloat. American corporations are not champions of economic virtue, and do what they can to cause the government to regulate in their favor (regulations are not so much created to protect consumers as to prevent new competition from being created), but not even close to the extent of places like Japan.

Its a horrible deal that puts the Corporation in charge and being able to sue over low profits due to regulations of the host nation. They will be judged by a corporate Judge and Jury and ignore all laws and regulations as a threat to their profits. Get rid of that part and its more fair and will not take away the rule of Laws on the books. Its the new World Corporation Order that wants world domination