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EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

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311–320 of 399 posts

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#311
post #21

Canada recently made a trade deal with the EU as well. Our country (Canada) hasn't been pushing harder enough for this IMO, considering how greatly we benefitted from NAFTA it should have been our top policy objective for the last couple decades. Modern countries would rather get lost in decades long mega-deals with 1000 conditions for every political crony connection / special-interest group ever than get an actual…

Canada is sort-of not allowed to enter into trade deals without the USAs permission now... so its hard now. I'm worried about Canada being so easy to bully lately. I think the best defence is to get stronger economically, but all our tech talent is going south

(Note: kicked out of NAFTA if WD 'disobey')

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/canada-usmca-1.4845494

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is raising GMO animals more risky? Or do you think the EU should mandate farming boars instead of pigs?

If you genetically modify animals to have a stronger immune system there's going to be a natural pressure for stronger bacteria. Just like giving animals antibiotics to spur their growth is riskier than not.

Animals have been genetically modifying themselves to have stronger immune systems for millions of years. Are you proposing to halt evolution through natural selection?

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#313
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the weird, nearly constant cultural boundaries is fermented foods. I suspect even without the tariffs cheese will still be expensive in Japan. It doesn't really 'go' with a lot of the cuisine. I mean, if you handed me donburi with cheese in it I'd probably say, "Okay, that's weird but it could work so let me try it," but I'm wracking my brain trying to think what other dishes you could fit in it. Certainly eth…

> nearly constant cultural boundaries is fermented foods Interesting point. I think with horror of the "1000 year old eggs" in China. Kimchi is somewhat more agreeable... somewhat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg

I dunno. Objectively speaking, cheese is pretty disgusting. I've eaten all kinds of things, including infamous items like balut, dog, stinky tofu, belacan, sheep brain, etc.

I'm American and grew up with cheese and love cheese, but after having eaten all of those other things, you realize that the disgust factor of, say, a colorful, pungent chunk of blue cheese is exceptionally high. The smell, the texture, the mouth feel, the method of preparation, the source.

If you're a cheese lover than you're pretty much already at the top of the mountain in terms of disgusting foods. Internalize that notion and most other foods from around the world are a breeze.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised this was being downvoted because it is true. If countries engage in protectionism unilaterally, they are predominantly harming their own consumers and undermining competition of their own businesses. As Friedman used to point out, if Japan wants to subsidize its steel at the cost of their own taxpayers, just take the cheap steel and be thankful for it.

On the subject of Friedman, what was his take on how to address the deep personal losses suffered by tens of thousands of US based steel industry workers who lose their jobs? Many of these people become unemployed or underemployed for years. They seem to be taking a pretty big loss. Surely Friedman didn't expect them to just "take one for the team." I don't know. Maybe he did? Not sure.

Friedman's response to this was that there is always cost to some policy. The cost of protectionism just happens to fall on the majority of people which have no particular voice.

Protecting the local steel industry might be good for the steel workers, but it raises prices for everyone else in the economy who consumes steel. Now certainly every time someone's job is disrupted by competition it is personally tragic, but why do the interests of one particular interest group weigh in larger than the well-being of everyone else?

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#315
post #224
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TPP had many other issues though. Examples include criminal penalties for breaking DRM or disclosing trade secrets, and establishing an international tribunal that allows corporations to sue for monetary damages from a government that passes a law which they feel is discriminatory. (I know the US has trade agreements like this already, but it's a new thing for Australia -- and unfortunately we are now part of the…

What's your proposed alternative to this sort of international tribunal? To me it feels like obviously the correct solution, and e.g. the EU/EEA has this with the EFTA courts and the WTO has it with its courts. Point in favor: 1. It makes sense for a corporation in say Malaysia to be able to sue Australia over state subsidies, otherwise they need to convince their own governments to bring it up at the inter-state lev…

Having a process like the ECJ or EFTA (where governments breaking international agreements can go through a tribunal process) is one thing. Giving corporations the ability to sue governments for laws that are "discriminatory" is another thing entirely.

In Australia we have a concrete example of what negative effects such a court would have. When we introduced plain packaging laws, many tobacco companies have attempted to use international trade agreement arbitration systems to overturn the law. They first tried persuading several governments (Ukraine, Cuba, Honduras and the Dominican Republic) to use the WTO court system to start legal proceedings against Australia[1]. When it looked like that attempt would fail, they tried to use the international arbitration system that was part of a trade agreement from 1939 that Australia has with Hong Kong[2]. This also failed because of a jurisdictional issue.

However if there was a court that was specifically designed to allow companies to sue governments for discrimination, Phillip Morris and similar tobacco companies would've had jurisdiction for such a claim (and likely they would've won, because the plain packaging laws explicitly discriminate against tobacco companies and were seen as very extreme at the time).

In fact, the only reason why the TPP explicitly excludes tobacco is because Australia complained and gave this same example. The response was just to remove tobacco from the agreement, not redesign the international tribunal system they wanted (which misses the point of the complaint). Unfortunately we've changed government since then, so we've now signed the new version of the TPP.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/business/global/07iht-smo... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/18/austr...

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

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Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#317
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheese (at least in France) is not a topping but something consumed after the main course (and with bread). I could see a donbury followed by some mild cheeses. Perhaps stronger cheeses might even go with bonito flakes or other dried fish products. I'm sure some experimentation in pairing could yield some interesting results.

That's probably only France, where cheese after meals is common. While it's frequently used as a topping in Italian cousine, it's nearly exclusively eaten on top of slices of (dark) bread as a standalone dish in German cousine (though Germans eat a lot of Italian food). The most American use of cheese (i.e. not Italian cousine related) is maybe the cheese flavored corn-snacks (e.g. cheetos).

> That's probably only France, where cheese after meals is common.

Very common in the UK too

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still remember how horridly expensive cheese was in Japan. This is excellent news.

One of the weird, nearly constant cultural boundaries is fermented foods. I suspect even without the tariffs cheese will still be expensive in Japan. It doesn't really 'go' with a lot of the cuisine. I mean, if you handed me donburi with cheese in it I'd probably say, "Okay, that's weird but it could work so let me try it," but I'm wracking my brain trying to think what other dishes you could fit in it. Certainly eth…

I do eat チーズカレー [1] pretty often, but admittedly I can't think of other Japanese meals incorporating cheese.

[1] Japanese curry with cheese

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#319

Japan has avoided the madness of tariffs and trade wars that has affected the west recently. Instead they have been quietly negotiating trade deals with everyone and generally getting along. Good on them! Also it includes cheese, which will make westerners in Japan very happy.

Cheese will only get to zero tariff 16 years later only. Read the specifics.

Re: EU and Japan create world's biggest free trade zone

#320
post #235
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presence of a central court that can regulate goverment that act rashly is one thing, to allow individual companies to sue governments is another.

Yes it's a different thing. I'm asking you to make the case that it's a bad thing, which you're not doing. You're also assuming that all trade disputes are going to involve country X having an issue with country Y, whereas e.g. in the EU/EEA companies sometimes sue their own government for being in breach of the trade rules, and prevail in front of the EFTA court. E.g. a meat importing company in Iceland sued the Ice…

As I mentioned in my sister comment, because we have evidence that allowing companies to do this would've resulted in the tobacco lobby being able to overturn public health laws in Australia (because they tried to do it within an arbitration courts that they didn't have jurisdiction in). If the TPP was signed in 2011, Australia would've had to pay damages to Phillip Morris for passing plain packaging laws (something that is now becoming a more common law in many jurisdictions).

The problem with the EFTA (or ECJ) comparison is that those courts are designed to deal with the laws and directives passed by the EU/EEA. The entire point of the EU/EEA is that members democratically vote on laws that will affect members -- thus a violation of said laws by a government is similar (in principle) to any other violation by a government where an individual can sue the government for violating a law.

The TPP arbitration process is not like this at all. There is no democratic agreement on common laws that member states must not violate -- it's a process to allow a corporation to sue a government for enacting "discriminatory" laws (unless those laws are "fair and proportionate" -- which obviously is a very wishy-washy constraint).

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