Translated "Avante!" article by Luís Carapinha, Member of the PCP International Department

The announcement of the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement “extinction”, although premature, is undoubtedly, another blow concerning the impressive vision of an imperialist globalization, in cruise speed, and unstoppable expansion, in a year of the Brexit triumph and Trump’s election. The agreement signed down by the USA and 11 countries, from both sides of the Pacific, in October 2015, upon years of obscure negotiations, accumulated large resistances, and that ended up by monopolizing, sensitively, the USA. On November 11, The White House recognized the lack of conditions for its ratification in Congress, until the end of Obama’s mandate, as it were his intention. The new Vietnam prime-minister, announced that the country needs a sufficient basis in order to submit the agreement to parliament, and be ratified. Finally, Trump confirmed his decision on abandoning the TPP, on November 21st. Abe, the Japanese prime-minister, one of the great TPP defenders, was obliged to recognize, that without the USA, the agreement was meaningless. The TPP run aground and threatens to sink, dragging along the twin agreement between the USA and the EU, so-called the TTIP, the negotiations being at an impasse and confronting turbulent uncertainties. Nevertheless, some consider that Trump ought to drawback and use the USA retreat as blackmail, in view of a TPP lion negotiation, similarly of what is in view for the North-American Free Treaty, NAFTA with Mexico and Canada.

It is important to remind that the Transpacific Partnership is the economic arm of the “pivot for Asia”, a strategy adapted by the USA, when H. Clinton was Obama’s secretary of state, with the major purpose of the central focus of the military USA presence within the China seas and boarders. China’s contention regarding the North-American imperialism is a central objective. Obama has been clear on reaffirming that the USA ought to, and not China, design the world trade rules, in other words, perform the world hegemony. And Trump has just been on the phone with the president of Taiwan, an old independence supporter, in clear provocation towards Beijing. Obama, in an article published in May last, complained as the TPP merit – the 12 signatory countries that represent 40% of the world economy – the guarantee for private companies of a “just competition with the state” companies. The TPP is not but a free trade treaty against China ( and Russia), which are outsiders. Mainly it is an ambitious attempt of subverting the legal space of the sovereign countries before the great transnational capital and the multinational corporations, consecrating new binding supranational juridical instruments and a whole of rules and regulations designed in order to impose and reinforce the monopolist domain, in a new jump ahead in progress on the WTO.

The difficulties in the TPP progress and its possible setback, are a result of workers and peoples protests and resistance, along with the worsening of internal contradictions and dilemmas, that cross imperialism ( see the developments within the USA, EU and Japan), inseparable from the capitalism structural crisis framework). Before this current created situation, it is more and more visible that the USA and the Triad powers hegemony is not omnipotent. China profits to relaunch its proposals on the trade agreement, regarding the Extensive Economic Partnership Treaty, holding 16 countries, along with the APEC free trade treaty. J.Wolsey, the former CIA director, who supported Trump in his run to election, recognizes as” a strategic fault”, Obama’s decision of not being part of the Asian Bank, promoted by China (the BAII), in an article published in Hong Kong. But a military threat is implied.
The struggle goes on, in a dangerous and volatile time, but of new potentialities and opportunities, regarding the social progress forces.