The new chessboard

In the following piece, the former chief negotiator for Chile in the TPPA negotiations provides a Latin American perspective on the talks and stresses the need to conduct negotiations 'carefully and firmly to protect the national and regional interest'.

Rodrigo Contreras

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THE Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is one of the most important agreements being negotiated in the world today. Due to the deeper and more extensive treatment of the issues under negotiation and the number and importance of the countries involved, the TPPA transcends its geographical scope and will set the tone for future trade negotiations.

Trade policy in several countries in Latin America coincides with the objectives of the TPPA in general terms, but that does not mean that we should sign this new agreement in any form. The reality and the goals of the Latin American countries are different from those of the Anglo-Saxon countries and the participating Asian countries.

Topics of specific interest to the region - protection of biological and cultural diversity, flexibility to design and implement development policies, access to medicines and educational materials without excessive restrictions, and intellectual property issues - should be negotiated carefully and firmly to protect the national and regional interest.

The votes of each country have equal worth in the TPPA negotiations. The Latin American countries make up a quarter of the countries and can influence the outcome.

Our countries need the flexibility that has been recognised by multilateral trade negotiations on issues such as intellectual property, environmental protection, capital controls, and the proper balance between the rights of private investors and the state.

This requires a strong negotiating position in the face of claims and pressures of the richest countries in the TPPA and their companies.

The countries of the region have a long way to go to advance access to knowledge, quality education, health care coverage, and the strengthening of their economies (especially their financial and exchange rate systems).

We must avoid limits on access to knowledge available on the Internet and not exacerbate intellectual property protection for the downloading of online content.

Nor should we accept the excessive expansion of copyright protection terms for books, movies or music, which would limit their availability in libraries and schools, and would make them more expensive for lower-income people.

The extension of drug patent protections beyond the current terms, or the restriction of challenges to frivolous patent applications, would delay the availability of generic drugs and increase the cost of medicines. Public health budgets and access to health services for the most vulnerable would be affected in our countries.

While we might be satisfied with the stability of our economies in the region, all countries, including high-income ones, are exposed to the effects of any economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund has reiterated that one of the main challenges for Latin America is to restore the space for applying financial safeguards. In these circumstances it does not make sense to further liberalise capital flows, depriving us of legitimate tools to safeguard financial stability.

The TPPA offers us the opportunity to achieve a balanced agreement that reflects the interests and needs of the participating Latin American countries. Our countries have similar objectives, and in some areas we share interests with Asian countries, allowing more room for negotiation with the largest countries in the TPPA.

The TPPA is a great idea under development. We should transform it into real opportunity for our economies. It is critical to reject the imposition of a model designed according to realities of high-income countries, which are very different from the other participating countries.

Otherwise, this agreement will become a threat for our countries: it will restrict our development options in health and education, in biological and cultural diversity, and in the design of public policies and the transformation of our economies. It will also generate pressures from increasingly active social movements, who are not willing to grant a pass to governments that accept an outcome of the TPPA negotiations that limits possibilities to increase the prosperity and well-being of our countries.         

Rodrigo Contreras was Chile's chief negotiator for the TPPA and Director of Multilateral Economic Affairs and Bilateral Economic Affairs at the Chilean Foreign Ministry between 2007 and 2012. He is currently an independent consultant on international trade issues. The above article has been translated from the Spanish. The original article appeared in the Peruvian magazine Caretas.

*Third World Resurgence No. 275, July 2013, p 29