Exploration on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: Contradiction Between Ideal and Reality
Author: Yun-chen Lai
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
This thesis analyzes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to discuss the problems of Neoliberalism. Also, the impacts brought by TTIP to the EU integration as well as the prospect of TTIP acting as an economic NATO are also considered. To solve the economic stagnation brought by the financial crisis since 2008, political leaders across the Atlantic consider reducing the cost of production through deregulation. This idea comes from Neoliberalism and assumes economic growth as the result. However, many studies suggest that the economic growth brought by TTIP is insignificant. Also, the economic model used to evaluate TTIP is criticized as being overly optimistic and not entirely objective. Even if the optimistic viewpoints were true, the expected positive effects are trivial. Comparing to the trivial positive effects, TTIP could contrarily bring many severe problems in a wide range of areas, including food safety, consumer protection, labor rights, environment, agriculture, and medical care. Those problems could be harmful to the European integration. However, as large resources have been invested in the negotiation, the creation of TTIP seems to be inevitable. Both the EU and the US must face and deal with the potential problems of TTIP to make the greatest free market of the world successful.