The Puget Sound Business Journal confirms what many had already figured out: the Trans Pacific Partnership will be Very Good News indeed for apple and cherry growers in eastern Washington.
It's easy, here on the wet side, to think of our state's economy as Boeing for manufacturing, Microsoft for software, and Amazon for everything else. But the state's number two export, after airplanes, is agricultural products: potatoes, wheat, cherries, apples. Grain harvested in the Palouse gets loaded onto bargest and floated down the Columbia, where it's loaded onto ships that sail across the Pacific to make noodles in China. Apples keep pretty well if stored properly, and many uses: eating , baking, sauce, juice. Spuds go to processors in Idaho. Cherries, with a short shelf life, go out by air to markets in Europe as well as Asia. (There's talk of building a major new airport in Moses Lake, by the way.) Ag exports to the TPP nations came to $2.5 billion last year.
Not so fast, says the Seattle City Council and the statewide Labor Council over concerns that TPP will put up barriers to action on climate change, income inequality, labor issues, and human rights in other countries. The WTO demonstrations are apparently still fresh in the minds of many, even though Seattle hosted the event back in 1999. Looks like TPP will become a political football, too, since one of the earliest declarations of opposition comes from none other than Bernie Sanders.
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