Model trade deal con

countries to use it to their advantage, eg, investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions will allow investors from other TPP11 countries to sue the host government, in a special international tribunal, for unlimited compensation and compound interest.

As firms incorporated in other TPP11 countries may also enjoy lower taxes and other incentives, the recent trends of greater outward than inward FDI may well accelerate. China, India and other emerging market economies are already struggling to cope with such “roundtrip” FDI through offshore tax havens, and there is little reason to believe smaller TPP11 developing countries will fare better.

Lower interest rates abroad in recent years due to unconventional monetary policies, such as “quantitative easing”, have enabled highly leveraged foreign portfolio investors to increase their ownership of the corporate sector in many emerging market economies.

Capital account liberalisation has enabled net capital outflows despite sometimes inducing temporary episodes of massive inflows into emerging market economies. With greater external vulnerability the inevitable consequence, when such portfolio investment inflows are inevitably reversed, capital account management measures may be needed, but disallowed by the CPTPP.

Begging for US participation In their efforts to justify it, CPTPP proponents have again greatly exaggerated trade benefits while ignoring the two US government studies – by the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research