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TPP Conference At Yale Highlights Winners And Losers

David Rowland
/
SNPA via AP
Trade delegates pose for a photograph after signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement in Auckland, New Zealand, in February. Trade ministers from 12 Pacific Rim countries including the United States have ceremonially signed the free-trade deal.

Yale Law School hosted a conference on Tuesday about problems with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. Both presidential candidates say it would hurt workers and the U.S. economy. 

An official study from the United States International Trade Commission shows how the TPP could impact the U.S. Lori Wallach, director of the nonpartisan Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch based in Washington D.C., says the study found that states with big agriculture industries could be big winners in the agreement. But she says that won’t help Connecticut.

“If you’re Connecticut and you’re about manufacturing, then you are a loser. And interestingly, one of the big sectors here, which is the corporate headquarters of the financial services sector that moved to Connecticut, are projected to lose. Financial services are one of the losing sectors in the ITC study, which is unusual compared to past agreements.”

Wallach says the study found that the pharmaceutical industry based in Connecticut could profit because the agreement would limit negotiations on bulk drug prices. But that industry would also lose jobs.

Damon A. Silvers, director of policy with the AFL-CIO labor umbrella organization, says job loss is typical with trade agreements like the TPP.

“A relatively small part of the population that is actually earning the incomes out of the profit line in corporate financial statements does really well. But the majority of the population whose incomes are dependent on wages do poorly. This is the way that trade agreements drive runaway inequality.”

Silver and Wallach agree that most of the TPP agreement focuses not on trade, but on benefits for corporations to get around U.S. laws and regulations.

House and Senate leaders have said they would not call the TPP agreement up for a vote this session. Wallach says it’s still important for voters to ask their representatives whether they are for or against the agreement.

Cassandra Basler, a former senior editor at WSHU, came to the station by way of Columbia Journalism School in New York City. When she's not reporting on wealth and poverty, she's writing about food and family.