Maybe it will be put on the back burner or maybe it will just sink. I think we may have dodged a bullet.

What do you mean dodged a bullet ? Our standard of living will decrease if this the biggest trade deal ever is not concluded 90 per cent has been agreed But as usual the highly subsides farmers are holding the rest of us to ransom . If only our pollies had the guts to tell them to get stuffed . Talks will resume in November,,,

Like most I only know what I read and there does appear to be some reservations about it.

This thing will be all but impossible to back out of once signed.

It needs to good for Australia in all aspects, if it takes more time to achieve this so be it.

If it is not good, walk away from it.

SD

America has doggedly pursued a policy of extending patents for pharmaceuticals, particularly new medicines called biologics, from five years to 12 years. But patents inhibit competition. They ban generic drug manufacturers from entering the fray, thereby lifting profits for big pharmaceutical companies and raising the cost of medicines for those most in need.

Free trade is supposed to be about removing barriers to competition, not extending them. When it comes to trade, it would appear that modern America's version is largely concerned with putting as much distance between "free" and "trade" as possible.

Had this deal gone through on the weekend, it could well have been every bit as disastrous as the "free trade deal" Australia signed with the US a decade ago.

At the time, the Howard government promised it would deliver $5.6 billion a year in benefits. Instead, according to the Australian National University's Crawford School of Public Policy, it has destroyed about $53 billion more trade than it has created.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-03/verrender-why-we-should-welcome-tpp-talks-stalling/6667056

Forget about FIFOs and driverless mining trucks, Natsuko Ogawa and David Miles are the new faces of an export bonanza that should carry Australia out of the slump in national income after the end of the commodities boom.

The Melbourne-based Japanese legal specialist and the region-trotting aviation troubleshooter are at the front line of a little-appreciated services export trade, which a newly released study says is already more valuable than mining exports.

The study uses new statistical analysis to reveal that services accounted for 41 per cent of exports in 2013, compared with 37 per cent for minerals, despite record-high commodity prices at that time, and about 23 per cent for manufacturing and agriculture products combined.

And foreign branches of Australian services companies such as Qantas, Westfield and ANZ might be generating as much again in services turnover offshore, with financial benefits flowing back to Australia, although this is not directly comparable with exports.

fin review 

With the demise of manufacturing and without a product to sell internationally, the argument goes that non-resource states such as Victoria are fated to fall into recession in the short run, or experience a long period of declining real incomes.

For some the answer is a much needed infrastructure program targeting improvements in economic productivity. This is valuable but hardly a long-term strategy, nor one to employ the capabilities of a services economy like Victoria.

Because, while the headlines are full of manufacturing job losses, the rest of the Victorian economy has been generating services jobs. In the decade to 2013, during which there was a net loss of 50,000 manufacturing jobs, there were an additional quarter of a million jobs in health, education and professional services. Manufacturing jobs have fallen to 9% of the total while services jobs have grown to 77%.

Age 

We have to get out of the idea that old fashioned manufacturing is important it's not .. Asia needs our services ...The success of our Architechts , town Planners , Educationlists , SHopping centre builders and managers , travel  etc etc etc is greater than our exports of minerals or Agriculture ....

But even considering the idea makes plain how debauched the whole concept of trade agreements has become. In  the past trade agreements were unambiguously good for the citizens of the nations involved. They cut prices. This one puts them up. The US is using  to try to keep medicines expensive and the cost of taking on US corporations high. In Canada the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is using an ISDS clause in the North American agreement to sue the government for failing to grant it two patents knocked back on the grounds that they weren't sufficiently innovative. Eli Lilly wants $500 million.

Somehow, trade agreements morphed from pacts designed to cut trade barriers to pacts designed to erect them. Negotiators who had previously worked to advance free trade started working to advance the interests of US corporations.

Hailed as the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) first big trade deal in nearly 2 decades since the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) in 1997, more than 50 countries have signed the Information Technology Agreement II (ITA-II), an agreement to end tariffs on over 200 high-tech goods, through the 161-member WTO. Negotiations for an updated ITA begun in 2012, after many officials voiced concerns that the previous agreement  did not cover products that were invented or became popular after 1997.

The WTO estimates that the items covered by the tariff removal deal are estimated to be worth US$1.3 trillion per year in total trade. This is expected to be an unprecedented step towards opening up heavily protected markets, stimulating economic growth in both developed and developing countries as well as ensuring cheaper imports for consumers. As WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo puts it:

“Annual trade in these 201 products is valued at over US$1.3 trillion per year, and accounts for approximately 7% of total global trade today. This is larger than global trade in automotive products — or trade in textiles, clothing, iron and steel combined.” tweet

Amongst the goods covered in the ITA-II are the new-generation semi-conductors, GPS navigation systems, high tech medical products such as the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, telecommunication satellites and touch screens. Under the terms of the agreement, the majority of tariffs on these products are to be eliminated within three years, beginning in 2016. Besides that, the agreement also garnered a commitment from the partners to work together in tackling non-tariff barriers in the IT sector.

“This is a significant win for public health. We urge all partners to implement a quick phase out of tariffs so that patients can benefit from enhanced access as soon as possible.” 

The three most substantial decisions to reduce Australia’s trade barriers – in 1973, 1988 and 1991 – were all made by Labor Governments.

In 1973, the Whitlam Government cut tariffs by 25 per cent.

Gough has said that the short-term aim of the tariff cut was to reduce inflation while its longer term aim was to improve efficiency.

A more efficient economy was the primary motivation for the 1988 and 1991 tariff cuts by the Hawke-Keating Governments.

But Hawke and Keating also recognised that tariffs were pushing up the prices of clothing, whitegoods, cars and other basic consumer items.

They recognised that there was nothing progressive about a policy which meant working people struggled to afford decent school shoes for their children.

It has been estimated that the Hawke-Keating tariff cuts have put nearly $4000 a year into the pockets of the average Australian household.

They also drove the modernisation of Australian industry in the 1980s and 1990s.

This was one of the reforms which have contributed to Australia enjoying nearly a quarter of a century of uninterrupted economic growth.

Labor’s commitment to trade liberalisation was continued by the Rudd and Gillard Governments.

Under Rudd and Gillard, Labor: