Economix Comix presents economics in comic form, tied to Michael Goodwin's graphic book Economix, with pieces on trade deals and net neutrality.
HN commenters recommend it as an accessible, broad introduction to economics despite the comic format, and link its explainer on the TPP.
Also a good review of the implications at http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
The comic is too detailed and too well written to summarize here. Go read it.
The TPP is basically why many companies gave up "policing" the Internet about 6-10 years ago. Many of the voracious file sharing lawsuits ($150,000 or $750 per download, which ever is greater) just stopped. They've been waiting for stronger legal teeth. Now they'll have the legal backing of governments to do private corporate takedowns. If we thought the MPAA/RIAA getting local police and federal officers to enforce their policies was bad, there's a lot worse ahead at a larger scale than most people can comprehend (required ISP logging/tracking/takedowns of every URL (retention time? forever), required in-line packet inspection (globally distributed GFW with local policies), etc).
Fighting this won't be silly little "sopa nope-a" web blackouts. It'll need full time DC congressional lobbying from our viewpoints. It can be done, but it would take a few million in funding to drive the point home and maybe a few more tens of millions in campaign donations to turn around the right wrong-thinking people.
You're touching on the Triffin Dilemma [1]. Basically, running a trade deficit is almost inevitable with any global reserve currency. There's not much you can do about that other than ot be a global reserve currency and there's simply no way that's going to happen voluntarily. The US derives too much power from the status of the US dollar.
The other issue you've touched on is a mistake that even economists make, which is to conflate the freedom of trade with the free movement of capital. These are two entirely different things. If you buy something, that's trade. If you sell land, that's the movement of capital. You can and should have policy that honors that distinction.
About the time the TPP was being rejected, I saw this comic [2], which honestly is worth a read as it explains pretty accurately this distinction.
Another angle to this is debt trap diplomacy [3].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma
[2]: https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-trap_diplomacy
The word-game being played with the TPP is when they talk about "free trade", it isn't generally referring to the free trade of goods or services. The last century of trade agreements already removed most tariffs[1].
Instead, when the TPP (et al) talk about "free trade", they are referring to the free trade of capital, which is an absolutely insane idea[2]. As you note, as it relates to actual goods and services, the TPP is generally restrictive, which is probably part of the larger goal of creating corporate sovereignty (e.g. ISDS), and general export of western power (e.g. the IP restrictions).
TL;DR - It's imperialism via corporate corruption and regulatory capture.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history#/media/File:US-Tariffs.svg
[2] http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
This is one of the few articles on HN that I read the whole way through. Good job whoever wrote it.
The interesting thing here is that the case is made that China can (and does) manipulate its currency and that devaluing one's currency is what has led to the shift of manufacturing jobs from the developed world to China (and other places) but it also notes that this suppression of currency value is becoming increasingly difficult.
Doesn't this support the argument that currency manipulation is ultimately time limited?
On a side note, I always like to point people to this [1] on the subject of free trade, specifically the conflation between free trade and free movement of capital.
[1] http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
I have followed news about the TPP for a while, since this great cartoon [1] grabbed my attention a few years ago. Without exception, coverage since then has been negative, describing a collection of rules that will benefit large corporations at the expense of just about everyone, the OP's article just being the most recent. I have tried finding articles in favor of it, just to get a more balanced perspective, but no luck.
How one earth is this thing still going forward? Is there any hope of stopping it?
[1] http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
I must recommend a remarkable primer in Economics in the form of a comic book:
Michael Goodwin - Economix (2012)
It also proportionately but categorically deals with the matters of the superficial interpretations about Adam Smith.
A timeline of the history the book covers, drawn by the book illustrator, Dan E. Burr, is available at:
https://economixcomix.com/wp-content/uploads/Econ-Timeline-in-total-revised-small.jpg
(as part of the book's website).