I'm totally behind Obama on this.
Zakaria makes a strong, sensible argument for Obama and the TPP:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-is-now-alone-in-washington/2016/09/01/4d2e1348-7080-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d_story.html?
. . . The Pacific will be the arena that defines the 21st century. According to the World Bank, in just 10 years, four of the five largest economies in the world will be in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States will be able to shape the 21st century only if it remains a vital Pacific power. How should Washington approach this region? One central task is obviously to prevent China from dominating it. . . The Obama administration has also enhanced security cooperation with a range of traditional allies such as Japan, Australia and Singapore.
But Washington’s policy is not containment. It can’t be. China is not the Soviet Union but rather the most important trading partner for every country in Asia. The larger project, writes Kurt Campbell, who was until 2013 the State Department’s top Asia hand, in his smart book “The Pivot,” is “to strengthen Asia’s operating system — that is, the complex legal, security and practical arrangements that have underscored four decades of Asian prosperity and security.” That means bolstering freedom of navigation, free trade, multilateral groups and institutions, transparency and accountability, and such diplomatic practices as peaceful resolution of disputes. The most vital of these right now, Campbell notes, is trade. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the sine qua non of Washington’s pivot to Asia because it works at many levels simultaneously — economic, political and strategic. It boosts growth, shores up U.S. alliances, sends a powerful signal to China and, most importantly, writes the rules of the 21st century in ways that are fundamentally American. Without it, expect China to begin drafting those rules in ways that will be very different.
And yet the TPP is under assault from every quarter in the United States. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Donald Trump flatly oppose it. Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have said that it doesn’t meet their standards anymore. What these standards are, they haven’t specified. Harvard’s Robert Lawrence has noted that for workers, the TPP’s gains far outweigh its losses.
The notion, often peddled by Trump, that the United States comes out badly in trade deals can be asserted only by someone who knows nothing about the topic. The simple reality is that the United States is the country with the largest market. As a result, it has the most leverage and — as foreign officials have often complained to me — it uses it, asking for exemptions and exceptions that few other countries get. The TPP is no different. Asian countries have made most of the concessions. And because their markets are more closed than the United States’, the deal’s net result will be to open them more. . . .
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