Not sure where you're from, but it's hard to imagine a rational basis for the European public to be an advocate of it.

My understanding of TTIP and TPP are that they're the US's last ditch attempt to standardise international trade along US lines before China overtakes and starts to set the tone.

On that basis they kinda make sense from a US perspective. From an EU perspective not so much.

(edit: not saying the US has a chance of staying ahead of China if TTIP/TPP are successful, just that standardised trade rules may soften China's negotiation position)

And in theory, this is actually a really good idea, and something the Western nations should be doing. China's human rights and environment records are abysmal. It would be to the advantage of western nations to be more unified for their common benefit, and force China to catch up. However the TTIP/TPP are going the wrong way: they're trying to water down or eliminate environmental and consumer protections in favor of large corporations' profits. In other words, they're trying to lower the bar rather than to raise it as they should be.

We really could use a standardized international trade treaty, but it has to be done in the open, and with input from more parties than just big corporations interested only in their profits, it needs input from environmental groups, workers' groups/unions, consumer rights advocates, food-safety organizations, etc.

Agreed, and it's unnerving that lobby groups seem to have a degree of access that neither the public nor many of our elected representitives seem to have.

My knowledge of history in this area clearly isn't strong enough; I have no idea how we got here.

> Not sure where you're from, but it's hard to imagine a rational basis for the European public to be an advocate of it.

Confindustria (the italian confederation of industrial companies) is strongly in favour of TTIP. Spirits exported to the US for example are heavily taxed, if they were not, we'd likely export more.

Or, if we get geographic denominations protection, we can get walmart to stop producing 40 things called "asiago" or "parmesan" (as it happened for german produced parmesan, or in reverse for the italian Tocai wine which clashed with hungarian Tokaji) and than it's a win for the producers of the real stuff.

Moreover in some things the US has _better_ legislation than europe, for example "bio" regulation is more strict, as are car safety rules, AFAIK.

I am not saying this will work out for the best, I am saying there are supporters of TTIP on the european side too.