The most likely outcome of this is that exports are sold at the price they are at now, not cheaper. The workers are paid the same as they are now, (which is the market rate). And the difference in what's normal and cost savings from TTIP will go to company bottom line. And the top officers at the company will collect a performance bonus.

The unlikely scenario is that the price comes down and more units are sold and/or the difference in export costs is divided between the workers to pay them above market rate.

I know Germany benefits big time from exports. But the benefits have stopped going to the workers. Like in the US wages are stagnating while the "economy" supposedly is doing well.

" should make regular Germans better off "

Please define a metric that we can use to establish this.

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.

> 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.