Escobar reports on the developing Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) free trade agreement pushed by China's ruling class which directly competes with Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) promoted by the US ruling class which excludes China. It appears that Obama's cancelled trip to Asia that would include this summit is seen as a snub to APEC by many of Asia's capitalists.
While our corporate media have reported very little on TPP, we have heard even less from them about APEC's free trade goals. Apparently the directors in our ruling class feel that these agreements are none of our business. It seems that once the Supreme Court made its "Citizens United" decision in 2010, which essentially recognised corporations as citizens, our ruling class directors now view us as unworthy or even non-citizens (sarcasm).
Anyway, there is much evidence to indicate that if the US ruling class can't dominate in a free trade agreement, they won't participate at all.
Xi stressed over and over again that China favors one FTA to cover all of the Asia-Pacific. And as far as Beijing is concerned, that won't be TPP - which is essentially a major US corporate racket that will lower tariffs across the spectrum to the sole benefit of US multinationals and not small and medium-sized firms in developing countries, all this under the cover of a dodgy "highest free trade standard".In any case, all these free trade agreements favor the profit-making interests of corporations and capitalists who participate in the agreements versus the health and welfare of workers across the world. They provide an end run around national laws which still include some protections against exploitative and hazardous corporate practices.
