Oct 4: TPP talks still deadlocked hours after presscon to announce deal cancelled

On the 4th of October, the TPP summit in Atlanta scheduled a 4PM press conference to announce that a deal had been signed. Less than an hour before the press conference, it was suddely rescheduled "until further notice." A 6PM press conference also did not materialize and the USTR took down their live Youtube channel for the TPP. As of 8:16PM EST, the Australian trade minister confirmed the talks were still deadlocked over the US demand for an 8 year patent on all "biologic" drugs. It was this demand that caused a cancer patient to be arrested as protesters raided the venue on Oct 1, and the Australian government was placed under incredible public pressure to make a goal-line stand and refuse the US demands.

Yahoo News is reporting that the US and Australia came to a "compromise" position on the obscenely expensive patented biologic drugs, only to have three or four new holdout countries emerge that disliked this compromise. Meanwhile talks over how many foreign dairy products will be allowed on US and Canadian store shelves had to wait behind this issue. The talks and a possible AM press conference were set for Monday, Oct 5 but this runs into the delegate's schedules for another summit.

On Monday, the 5th of October, many negotiators at the TPP summit must leave for the G-20. There is talk of another round in Miami at the end of the month, and talks at another summit in the Phillipines in November. If at the end of that time there is no TPP, some of the pro-trade people say that will put a stop to the talks and the TPP will go the day of the failed Doha(Seattle) round of WTO talks. That, in turn , would make the Euro-NAFTA TTIP deal also much less likely to be finished, stopping a pair of deals that would undo almost everything activists won at Seattle back in 1999.