I'm going to shamelessly copy a post that I like:
Countries InvolvedASEAN Countries
•Brunei
•Malaysia
•Singapore
•Vietnam
North/South American Countries
•Canada
•Chile
•Mexico
•Peru
•United States
Other Countries
•Japan
•Australia
•New Zealand
What does it mean for the people in those countries?The TPP does very little more than a normal trade deal. The most developed nations above (US, Japan, Chile, Peru, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, and Australia) will see little to no change whatsoever. The main difference will come in the governmental approaches to certain parts of the business world, like trademarks, copyrights, patents, and some aspects to the legal world such as increased penalties for piracy.
For the less developed nations on this list (Brunei, Malaysia, and Vietnam), you will see the markets flooded with products from the other nine nations, a larger international corporate presence, and an increase in manufacturing factories for hire, as seen in China, by small businesses around the world. This is on top of the changes to the more developed nations above.
What are the important sections of the TPP and what do they mean?
Chapter 9: InvestmentThis section puts forward economic plans to be carries forward by parties of the agreement in other countries of the agreement. This also pushes for more investment agreements in the future. Finally, this section goes to limit the parties of the TPP from playing favorites by treating companies from its own country better than companies from other countries.
Chapter 12: Temporary Entry for Business PersonsAlthough seemingly not important, having a requirement for the parties of this agreement to keep borders open to business people from around the world is a small, but great, stepping stone to strengthening border relations between countries. Something so simple can mean so much, diplomatically.
Chapter 14: Electronic CommerceThis is a huge section in this agreement. E-Commerce is rarely addressed in international agreements right now, so this is one of the first. Not much is accomplished in the nine pages of this chapter, but the steps are set up in the future to expand business ties in the E-Commerce sector.
Chapter 16: Competition PolicyThis section goes to set up laws outlawing anticompetitive business conduct. The Competition Policy chapter is essentially the US antitrust field's baby due to the smaller size of anticompetitive laws in the section, but similar goal/purpose.
Chapter 17: State-Owned Enterprises and Designated MonopoliesChapter 17 forces governments to treat all companies operating within the free market equally. This chapter focuses on making sure governments do not favor businesses of which the government holds a stake in (like Amtrak in the US). This is very big when we are dealing with developing economies, because developing economies often favor state-owned enterprises or companies given monopolies (like power companies in the US).
Chapter 18: Intellectual PropertyEssentially extends US intellectual properties to other countries. The biggest parts to this chapter are the terms of copyright and the new trade mark rules:
Copyright
(a) on the basis of the life of a natural person, the term shall be not less than the life of the author and 70 years after the author’s death;74 and
(b) on a basis other than the life of a natural person, the term shall be:
(i) not less than 70 years from the end of the calendar year of the first authorized publication 75 of the work, performance or phonogram; or
(ii) failing such authorized publication within 25 years from the creation of the work, performance or phonogram, not less than 70 years from the end of the calendar year of the creation of the work, performance or phonogram.
Trademark
Each Party shall provide that initial registration and each renewal of registration of a trademark is for a term of no less than 10 years.
Chapter 19: Labo(u)rForces countries to allow for the right to collective bargaining, the removal of forced or compulsory labo(u)r, abolition of child labo(u)r, elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation, and the requirement of countries to have acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health.
Chapter 20: EnvironmentPushes for member nations to be more environmentally friendly. I'm going to keep this one light because the 25 pages in the TPP have lots of details that I can't really paraphrase easily.
Chapter 26: Transparency and Anti-CorruptionPushes to make governmental actions more transparent, and pushes for governments to be anti-corrupt to be in accordance with the trade deal and not face international trade sanctions of any sort.
Other major parts to the TPP
Increase scrutiny on ISDS cases of all sorts
RECOGNISE their inherent right to regulate and resolve to preserve the flexibility of the Parties to set legislative and regulatory priorities, safeguard public welfare, and protect legitimate public welfare objectives, such as public health, safety, the environment, the conservation of living or non-living exhaustible natural resources, the integrity and stability of the financial system and public morals
Topic: Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)