The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Fate was Discussed in Da Nang

Among the most noticeable events that took place on the sidelines of the latest APEC summit (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), held on November 10-11 of this year in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang, activities that attracted the greatest interest were at the Ministerial level, and later at the highest level of the TPP participating countries. That is because TPP’s subsequent fate is on the list of most important factors that are determining the character of the current, ongoing reshuffling of global political cards.

This list can be narrowed down to a few main trends among the few leading world players, as well as political geometric configurations of those same players, who wield decisive participation.

TPP enters the picture as such a configuration. That, in general, was not raising any doubts when the world’s leader, the USA, was a participant (and the main driving force) of the project, if for no other reason than that TPP, with America’s participation, accounted for about 40% of global GDP.

But even after the current American President withdrew the USA from the project, the remaining 11 participants produce a very impressive 27% of global GDP. This is almost equal to the productivity of the configuration “EU-Japan,” which is quite remarkable in all aspects (and not just economic). That configuration took shape in the middle of this year’s summer, when Tokyo and Brussels agreed upon the creation of a joint FTZ (free trade zone).

Now the corpse of the TPP, which is growing cold, is trying to energize Japan. Japanese Ministers in particular, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe himself, acted as project resuscitators in Da Nang. And the “resuscitation” as described might have occurred, had it not been for the “weak spot” that Canada showed.

During a few rounds of preliminary negotiations at the level of ranking representatives, and Ministers of the TPP’s 11 participants, it was decided not to make any revisions to the documents, which had been approved conclusively in February 2016 (meaning, still with Washington’s participation), but the validity of a few dozen points was “put on ice” “up to the return” of the USA to the project.

Canada refused to sign even this document which, as best that can be understood, came at the very last moment, and completely unexpected by all the other 10 participants of the meeting in Da Nang.

On the morning of November 10, Vietnam’s Minister of Trade (having host country authority of the meeting) announced the achievement of a “fundamental agreement” for the TPP project, the English abbreviation for which acquired 2 additional letters “C” (Comprehensive), and also “P” (Progressive), and now looks like CPTPP. An hour earlier, Canada’s Minister of Trade, François-Philippe Champagne spoke out in similar fashion.

However, just a few hours later, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared that some more work was required to achieve a “final agreement”. Consequently, at this time no TPP – neither “comprehensive,” nor “progressive – has arisen on the world’s political arena.

Commentators of the unexpected Canadian “slowdown” pretty definitively tie it to difficult, ongoing negotiations regarding the restructuring of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), which includes Canada, together with Mexico and the USA. At the insistence of Donald Trump, this process was set in motion in the summer of this year, and its progress has been discussed in NEO.

We’ll remind our readers that the American President was also present in Da Nang. Quite possibly, Justin Trudeau could have heard from him some “friendly advice” concerning TPP.

Right now it’s difficult to give a more or less exact description of the document not signed by Canada, as well as the current state of TPP overall. As always, artistic forms come to our aid.

The cartoon in the Chinese newspaper, “Global Times”, depicts a portico, supported on one side by three stone columns with letters that form the English abbreviation TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). The other side of the portico is held up by two flimsy sticks (seemingly put there in haste), which are marked by the same new letters “C” and “P.” With a lively step, an American eagle takes away the mighty column that stood before in their spot.

It’s hard to take issue with the cartoon’s artist, who seems to have wanted to say that TPP’s prospects remain unclear, even doubtful, and expectations for the return of the USA to the project should be abandoned.

At the same time, attention was raised by an unexpectedly cordial meeting on the sidelines of the APEC meeting between Shinzo Abe and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.

The word “unexpected” means that, despite the resumption recently of bilateral contacts with the participation of eminent, retired politicians, parliamentarians, and businessmen, the persistent, overall atmosphere of mutual suspicion would not incline one to expect to hear from Chairman Xi words “about success over the last months” in bilateral relations or even attribute to them “a new start”. With those words, Shinzo Abe was in complete agreement.

If concrete actions will follow the words, this will then become one of the few extremely important, positive trends of the current situation in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR).

Its development may be hindered by, in particular, the ongoing differences in viewpoints regarding future, regional economic cooperation. As noted above, Japan is now the main “promoter” of TPP, which, though being implemented in the form of “without the USA”, for now maintains an anti-Chinese political orientation put there earlier by Barack Obama.

With just this circumstance in mind, the Chinese leader in his address at the APEC summit in Da Nang spoke out against “closed” economic configurations in the region, and for closer cooperation among countries included in the very same APEC and ASEAN. We should note that both of these organizations include almost all (besides Canada) TPP participants, and also the USA.

So, the mere fact, progress, as well as results of the latest activities conducted in Da Nang as part of the TPP project of the new configuration, directly affect the various aspects of the political game, which has been unfolding in the APR. By the same token, the character of its development will fundamentally determine TPP’s fate.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

The Three Trump Administrations

Submitted by Wayne Madsen via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Foreign and national defense ministries around the world, as well as embassies in Washington, DC, are struggling to ascertain who is actually in charge of the U.S. government one month after Donald Trump was sworn in as president of the United States. It is a fair question, considering the conflicting statements issuing forth from the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon.

Suffice to say, there are, essentially, three Trump administrations, all with varying degrees of power.

The first administration and the most visibly powerful is Trump’s inner circle. At the present time, this consists of Trump, chief strategist Stephen Bannon, Trump daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, special assistant to the president Stephen Miller, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Although Bannon came to Trump from the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz, the former Breitbart News publisher has become a virtual «Svengali», influencing Trump on foreign and domestic policies.

The second administration represents the establishment Republicans who endorsed Trump after he secured the Republican presidential nomination. This circle includes White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former Republican National Committee chairman, and Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary who had the same job at the Republican National Committee under Priebus. Trump’s counselor and former presidential campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who, like Bannon, came from the Cruz campaign, funds herself often on the outside of the Trump inner circle and more in the company of establishment Republicans Priebus and Spicer. Priebus and Conway, and, to a lesser extent, Spicer, are the eyes and ears of congressional Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan in the White House.

The third administration represents the longtime «deep state» interests and is a combination of George W. Bush/Ronald Reagan administration neoconservative activists and powerful Wall Street and Houston/Dallas oil business moguls traditionally linked to Republican politics. While the neocons and business interests do not agree on much, they are taking advantage of the disorganization of the Trump administration to secure their own power centers. Recently, officials of this «third» administration were seen vying for influence and stature at the 2017 Munich Security Conference.

It is clear that the third Trump administration is the one that hopes to take the reins of power if either Trump is forced out of the presidency as a result of impeachment and conviction or ill-health. Representing the international status quo, the third Trump administration, represented chiefly by Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary James Mattis, was very active in promoting NATO, the European Union, and continued sanctions on Russia at Munich. The statements by Pence and Mattis ran counter to the opinions previously aired by Trump. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, opting not to attend the Munich conference, attended a G20 foreign ministers’ summit in Bonn held before the gathering in Munich. This leg of the Trump triad is the one with which the global elites feel most comfortable.

Tillerson, a Texas native and friend of the Bush family and former Secretary of State James Baker, showed that the neocons continue to have clout inside the Trump administration when he dared propose Elliott Abrams, an Iran-contra felon from the Reagan administration, to be his deputy Secretary of State. Abrams’s campaign rhetoric, in which he criticized Trump, resulted in the president vetoing Abrams for the State Department’s number two position. But that did not stop another arch-neocon, the never-confirmed former U.S. ambassador to the UN John Bolton, from being considered for number two at State and, more recently, as Trump’s national security adviser.

Tillerson’s ambassador to the United Nations, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, has publicly condemned Russia over the Ukraine situation, even though Trump has indicated he wants a rapprochement with Russia. The third Trump administration is full of similar contradictions, with paleo-conservatives like Tillerson willing to hire on neocons like Abrams. Other deep state players within this third leg of the Trump triad include Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo, who wasted no time traveling to Turkey and Saudi Arabia to pay homage to the vested political interests of both nations, and Director of National Intelligence director-designate, former Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, a longtime friend of Pence.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired three-star general, was never a member of the Trump inner circle. In fact, Flynn was closer to the neocons worming their way into the Trump administration. Flynn was the co-author of the book titled «The Field of Flight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies», with one of the most dangerous neocons around, Michael Ledeen, an Iran-contra co-conspirator of Abrams and another neocon vying for influence in the Trump White House, Frank Gaffney.

Ensconced with Pence and Mattis in Munich were the two most hawkish Republican senators who would have Trump adopt even more drastic sanctions against Russia: Senators John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and fellow committee member Lindsey Graham. McCain used Munich to not only bash Russia but also Trump, while his close friend Graham promised that 2017 would be «the year of kicking Russia in the ass.» The mere fact that McCain and Graham were permitted to represent at Munich a hawkish policy at loggerheads with that of Trump, while Pence remained silent and Mattis championed America’s commitments to NATO and the EU, shows the world that the United States government now speaks through different voices. Joining McCain and Graham to reinforce U.S. defense and financial commitments was Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker and former NATO commander and proposed Trump national security adviser General David Petraeus, previously disgraced by a sex scandal.

Munich provided the third Trump administration with a platform from which to reinforce the «world order» that Trump campaigned against. Governments that had donated handsomely to the Clinton Foundation and made no secret of their abhorrence of Trump as a candidate, were on hand in Munich to warmly embrace Pence and Mattis. Among those in attendance were Saudi Arabia’s wily anti-Iranian foreign minister and former ambassador in Washington Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s more slyer former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz, Qatari foreign minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani and defense minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, Bahraini foreign minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Khalifa, Kuwaiti deputy prime minister Shaikh Khaled al Jarrah al-Sabah, and Moroccan royal cabinet minister Youssef Amrani and the Moroccan king’s counselor André Azoulay. Undoubtedly, these Arab potentates will soon bestow their largesse upon members and corporate contrivances of the Trump family.

Pence and Mattis also rubbed shoulders at Munich with such influential anti-Trump personages as Bono, the U-2 rock band celebrity; former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; Ohio Governor John Kasich; former Defense Secretary William Cohen; Microsoft founder Bill Gates; Woodrow Wilson Center director Jane Harman; Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution and his wife and chief architect of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup Victoria Nuland; former Senator Joseph Lieberman; International Rescue Committee director David Miliband; Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse; ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff; and Frank Wisner, Jr., a longtime U.S. diplomat with deep state ties and the son of Frank Wisner, Sr., the CIA’s original crafter of «fake news», CIA propaganda disguised as actual news.

And if Trump’s avid anti-globalist supporters believe that their president is «draining the swamp» of their bitterest of foes, they might be surprised that Pence and Mattis were in the company in Munich of Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Trilateral Commission deputy chairman Michael Fuchs, and global political troublemaker George Soros.

The third Trump administration of Pence, Mattis, and Tillerson signaled the world that the actual Trump administration, the one representing America’s «deep state», will continue to run the U.S. government. This is the part of the Trump administration that will continue to conspire with the world’s elite at places like Bilderberg, Davos, Bohemian Grove, Cernobbio, APEC, and G-7. Trump has not «drained the swamp» as he promised. He has merely joined the reptiles already in it. In fact, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., who now head up the Trump Organization, recently opened a luxurious Trump golf course in Dubai. That set the ground for a very amiable meeting at the G20 meeting in Bonn between Tillerson and his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates. The French have a saying for Trump’s «revolution» – «plus ca change, plus c"est la meme chose» or «the more things change, the more they stay the same».

Secret Corporate Government Merger — Known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership — is Finally Dead

In perhaps the least ceremonious victory for U.S. and international activists, the decidedly abhorrent Trans-Pacific Partnership — a corporate giveaway of phenomenal proportions — effectively died yesterday.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle announced the much-maligned, so-called ‘free trade’ deal — which would have inextricably tied the U.S. to Asia and given corporations unprecedented powers over governments — would not be pursued in the lame duck session before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

President Obama had hoped the massive, 12-nation agreement would come to fruition under a Hillary Clinton presidency, but with her defeat and Trump’s promise to roll back the previous, similarly-modeled North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), all prospects of passage melted away.

Further, the deal’s secreted negotiations and Wikileaks’ publishing of enormously controversial sections — such as the Intellectual Property chapter — left the American public leery and increasingly contemptuous of what, in essence, constituted a gigantic corporate power-grab. Aware of growing skepticism among voters, Republicans previously supporting the TPP dialed back their enthusiasm in recent months.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, “Winning a majority of votes for the TPP in the House and Senate would have required both a last-minute deal to address Republican priorities and an election result that didn’t show such broad discontent.

“Neither occurred. Since the election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) have said no to bringing the TPP to a vote in the lame duck session, despite the strong support of many senators in both parties for freer trade.”

Despite going out with just a fizzle, the death of the TPP is no less a victory for the people. Although it will await Trump once he takes the White House in January, it’s doubtful the new president — who may, indeed, tone down previous radical ideas to better attune to the establishment — would revive the abominated deal.

In a statement cited by the WSJ, Rep. Kevin Brady said Wednesday “this important agreement is not ready to be considered during the lame duck and will remain on hold until President Trump decides the path forward.”

Clamoring but failing to be included in the deal in the months leading up to the U.S. election, China could now continue its current path spurning American involvement in its trade and economy. In fact, as nations in the Asia-Pacific region continue to foment an alliance both amongst themselves and with Russia, further tariff-eliminating trade deals aren’t likely to include the U.S. at all.

In the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping will reportedly seek trade arrangements with less strictures than had been included in the TPP, such as environmental restrictions, labor protections, and tightly-constrained rules about intellectual property.

Additionally, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) — which includes ten “members of the Association of South East Asian Nations plus China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand” — also presents direct competition for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Business Insider reports.

“China is always positively advancing work on its own regional free-trade strategy,” said deputy international trade representative, Zhang Xiangchen, quoted by Business Insider. “We, indeed, are continuously and positively advancing RCEP negotiations.”

Beijing feared U.S. protectionism under the TPP would cause economic isolation in the region, but the death of the agreement — and warming alliances with its neighbors — offers a chance for China to fully assert dominance it has been building financially and militarily.

Repercussions from the presidential election echo on the opposite side of the globe as well, as negotiations for the European-focused parallel trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), also came to a screeching halt.

Whether or not U.S. officials will begin to switch focus from the international to the domestic in the coming administration has yet to be seen, but the predicted death of the TPP certainly portends that possibility. Trump’s sometimes vitriolic rhetoric apparently did not spark sufficient malaise for voters soured on the TPP and other proposed trade deals once he denounced the plans as special interests attempting to “rape” the country, as the WSJ noted.

As with quickly heightening tensions and utter unpredictability trailing the election of a non-politician to arguably the seat of highest power on the planet, the killing of the TPP only occurred for the odd turn of events. Its abrupt and inelegant demise — however it came about — will undoubtedly be welcome news for many.