Comments by "annoyed aussie" (@annoyedaussie3942) on "China and 14 partners sign world's biggest trade deal without US | DW News" video.

God Emperor Elect I am Australian and see the benefits of socialism designed to protect vulnerable people versus the US model which is to protect industry. I see the great benefits of allowing non competitive industries to fail. There was a lot of crossover of Bernie and Donald voters because of their socialist credentials. If you look up socialism in the dictionary it says controlling the means of production which is exactly what industry subsidies and protection is. So yes I am speaking as an Australian that is doing fine with our and our regional partners approach to free trade. The US can be more protectionist without as much harm due to the massive domestic economy. Consider the 4 most free trade countries in my region Australia, New Zealand , Singapore and Hong Kong ( not sure what will happen with HK though as the communist party takes over). In relative terms our domestic markets are miniscule and we need free trade to maintain our living standards. See Economic Freedom Index by the Heritage Foundation as a pretty good indicator of socialism. I do still believe it's in the US interest to reverse direction again towards being more free trade orientated , however that's up to Americans. We will wait and see what happens in US politics over the next few years.
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A bit of a jab at the US for getting out of the TPP. Hopefully Biden changes that.
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Strange comment, Australia is a top 10 trading partner of China and most likely the highest per capita trade of the non Chinese partner. Taiwan and Hong Kong excluded.
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Jeff I don't think you understand the background and who is behind all of this. First of all the new agreement only creates free trade between China and Japan all the other countries have agreements in place however this is more comprehensive it would seem. When it comes into effect as an example there will be 4 trade agreements in effect with Australia and Singapore. So why do we keep pushing more and more agreements, I believe it's 2 fold, one reason is each new agreement we might get a little more concessions and secondly if there are like in the case of Australia and Singapore 4 agreements stacked on top of each other it makes it extremely difficult for one country to wriggle out of all agreements. Us smaller countries have to be nimble and agressive on the free trade front because the elephants, US and China can step on us mice very easily. Having read one of Australia's FTAs a while ago we are patient and allowed 20 years for some agricultural tariffs to be removed so the other country has time to adjust to the new market place. So in this region the most agressive free traders are Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. It was Singapore or New Zealand that initiated the TPP starting as P4 and currently called CPTPP and Australia's prime minister mentioned it in his speech or in answer to media questions when he congratulated Biden saying the door for joining this agreement was open.
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Yang Yue I know HK isn't it's own country however as you know up to now it's treated as it's own jurisdiction. Economic freedom is not about political freedom so you seem confused. The US is a relatively socialist country however it's got great free speech. These are different things. You might confuse socialism with a welfare safety net , many Americans seem to do this. A welfare safety net is a form of socialism but it's not as significant as other policies.
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Yang Yue on a personal level I would be less willing to do major deals with HK companies not as some sort of sanction but because CCP is incrementally taking over. Or another way to put it , consider HK almost the same as mainland China. I am not some big business man or something so I only speak hypothetically.
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It's a bit misleading because out of this entire agreement only one extra FTA partnership is created, that is China with Japan, all other countries already have FTAs with each other often duplicated arrangements. This makes it more comprehensive though and the main FTA advocates Australia, New Zealand and Singapore keep trying to get more and more agreements. Note the ratings of these countries on the Economic Freedom Index done by Heritage Foundation and you will understand why. Our wealth is derived from Free Trade. Once this current agreement comes into effect a country such as Malaysia and Australia also will find it extremely difficult to get out of Free Trade together because 3 overlapping agreements will be in place Australia Malaysia FTA and Australia , New Zealand ASEAN FTA and now this regional FTA. Good times ahead for our region. It's a pity India has declined to participate at this point in time from my Australian perspective because we don't have an agreement with them currently.
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@hgvina4024 TPP was led by either NZ or Singapore, search the history of it.
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@PuddingXXL ASEAN is specifically a trading block that doesn't get involved in member countries politics so quite different to the EU.
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@govindashyamsundar Australia isn't a proxy for the US, this is about trade and the US is our competition. Australia along with other countries wants the US to join the TPP and hopefully they will at some stage. We might be a proxy when it comes to other issues because China can slap tariffs on us as they have done with completely baseless claims at the same time increasing US market access. So possibly to create division between Australia and US on other issues not related to trade.
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It's not a game changer because Free trade agreements already exist other than China with Japan all other countries have Free Trade agreements with each other. It does however solidify the current arrangements and improves on trade rules hopefully. Geopolitically it doesn't change much other than puts pressure on other parts of the world which aren't so free trade orientated. If you listen to the UNGA speeches I know at least my country Australia and China were hinting at this mentioning free trade in the speeches, probably other countries also but I didn't watch that many of them.
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