Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Explainer: What you should know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade accord
Explainer: What you should know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade accord
May 5, 2025 10:41 PM

In the recent presidential debate, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton disagreed on nearly everything. But there is one thing they both oppose: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Here is what you should know about the agreement and why it matters in the election.

What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

Five years in the making, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement between the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Vietnam, Chile, Brunei, Singapore, and New Zealand. The twelve countries in this prise roughly 40 percent of global G.D.P. and one-third of world trade.

The purpose of the agreement, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, is to “enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, promote innovation, economic growth and development, and support the creation and retention of jobs.” The agreement could create a new single market for goods and services between these countries, similar to what exists between European countries.

What exactly is a trade agreement?

A trade agreement is a treaty between two or more countries that reduces or eliminates barriers to free trade, such as taxes, tariffs, quotas, or trade restrictions. Three of the mon types of trade agreements the U.S. is involved with are Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFAs), and Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs).

The United States has FTAs in effect with 20 countries. These tend to be expansions or additions to other agreements, such as World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement. TIFAs provide frameworks for governments to discuss and resolve trade and investment issues at an early stage while BITs help protect private investment, develop market-oriented policies in partner countries, and promote U.S. exports.

Which goods and services are affected?

Almost everything. Tariffs will be immediately eliminated or reduced on nearly all agricultural products, industrial goods, and most textiles and clothing.

TPP will also provide mutual recognition of many regulations, including an exclusivity period for biologic drugs, which are derived from living organisms, and patent protection for pharmaceuticals.

What are the arguments in favor of TPP?

Some of the benefits outlined by the Obama administration are:

By eliminating over 18,000 taxes—in the form of tariffs—that various countries put on Made-in-America products, TPP makes sure our farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and small businesses pete—and win—in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world. With more than 95 percent of the world’s consumers living outside our borders, TPP will significantly expand the export of Made-in-America goods and services and support American jobs.

Free trade also tends to increase economic growth, reduces global poverty and hunger, and leads to better treatment of the environment.

Free trade also has national security implications. As Nobel-winning economist Thomas Schelling said, “Trade policy can be civilized or disorderly, US trade policies can antagonize governments, generate resentment in populations, hurt economies, influence the tenure of governments, even provoke hostilities . . . Trade is what most of international relations are about. For that reason trade policy is national security policy.”

What are the arguments against TPP?

The main opposition to the es from the political left (though, because of the Trump, they are joined by the populist right). For example, labor organizations such as the AFL-CIO argue that it will lead to additional outsourcing of U.S. jobs. Communications Workers of America President Chris Shelton called the pact “a bad deal for working families munities.”

Some large corporation also oppose the treaty. According to Bloomberg Business, Ford Motor Co. told Congress not to approve the agreement because it “fails to adequately address currency manipulation overseas, which may tip the playing field.”

What happens next?

Before the agreement can take effect a majority of Congress must also implement legislation to bring U.S. laws pliance with the TPP agreement.

Will Congress approve TPP?

It’s too soon to tell. Although this is a legacy-making issue for President Obama, many in his own party are vehemently opposed to the deal. Last monthSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hinted that the Senate wouldn’t be taking up the issue until next year.“The current agreement, the Trans-Pacific [Partnership], which has some serious flaws, will not be acted upon this year,” said McConnell.

Why should Christians care about TPP?

Even if the political left is right about the effect on labor within the U.S., these types of trade agreements tend to benefit our poorest neighbors across the globe. As Walter Russell Mead says,

These deals allow desperately poor people in other countries to escape lives of rural poverty, tenant farming, or utter urban destitution for factory jobs. And however poorly paid these jobs may initially be, and however polluting and dangerous the factories may be, they do give the global poor a chance to get a foot on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Rev. Sirico: How to heal soul, body and economy after a pandemic
The government-focused debate over how to emerge from the coronavirus shutdowns has been too dismissive of faith and private initiative, says Acton Institute President and Co-founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico in a new radio interview. In a wide-ranging discussion on Respect Life Radio, hosted by Deacon Geoff Bennett, Rev. Sirico began by outlining a wholistic response to the global pandemic. The public square has been dominated by petencies: science, economics, and faith, he says. “The extremes that people can take...
The great price of America’s great lockdown
One reason why economists are viewed as modern-day Cassandras is that they tell us many things we don’t want to hear. Economics points relentlessly to the costs and benefits associated with particular decisions about alternative uses of scarce resources. Not everyone likes to be reminded of the trade-offs and unintended consequences that flow from different choices. Some of those side-effects touch upon political questions. How much liberty are we prepared to exchange for some assurance of security? Are we willing...
Don’t seize Harvard’s endowment. Cut off federal funding.
William F. Buckley Jr. frequently told the joke about the doctor who asked his patient what he planned to do now that he had only a few months left to live. The patient said he would join the Communist Party: “Better one of them should go than one of us.” Conservatives often have the right diagnosis of the problem but the wrong solution. One such case is the proposal for the federal government to tax, or seize, the endowments of...
Rev. Sirico: The dangers of accepting government money, even in a crisis
Rev. Robert Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, reflects on the ways government programs and government money can be corrupting, even when those programs may seem necessary during a crisis. Rev. Sirico shares why the Acton Institute will not be applying for the Paycheck Protection Program and how other businesses and non-profits should weigh the benefits and risks of government relief programs like this. ...
The persecution of Jimmy Lai
It’s no secret that China isn’t exactly flavor of the month throughout the world right now. Before the court of global opinion, the reputation of the Chinese regime is about as low as it can go. That, however, does not appear to be deterring China’s Communist leadership from continuing to behave in ways which have rightfully drawn upon it the odium of the world. There are of course plenty of people in China who disapprove of their government’s actions. The...
La situación del coronavirus en América Latina
Traducido por Joshua Gregor Este artículo se publicó originalmente en . Hasta ahora el coronavirus ha causado menos caos en América Latina que en Europa y los Estados Unidos. Pero incluso si el calor del verano ayuda a erradicar el virus en el hemisferio norte, será casi imposible que el movimiento de personas entre Norteamérica y Sudamérica vuelva a la normalidad si los países latinoamericanos no logran detener el virus. La incertidumbre más grande en Norteamérica es lo qué pasará...
Acton Line podcast: Rev. Robert Sirico on the church’s response to COVID-19
As the United States continues to wrestle with the fallout of COVID-19, many people are falling back on their faith and the church for peace. Many churches have decided to hold services online, and local governments have also stepped in and put parameters around church attendance to help mitigate the spread of the virus. Some actions taken by local governments have been appropriate, but some others leave us wondering if the government has overstepped. How can we tell the difference...
Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer and the limits of science
There have been many responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in all spheres of life from businesses, educational institutions, churches, and within close intimate human relationships. Most of these responses have arisen spontaneously as people’s duties to protect themselves and others, both individuals munities, have e plain to them. Government at all levels has also acted, imposing a series of sometimes necessary but often arbitrary and capricious restrictions on economic and social life. Protests from citizens concerned with the economic and...
Many prisoners released over COVID-19 have reoffended. Here are 3 lessons we can learn from that.
On Friday at The Stream, I wrote about the policy of releasing prisoners from penitentiaries in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Perhaps hundreds of those who have been released mitted new pounding the tragedies the American people must suffer during this global pandemic. In New York state alone, 50 freed inmates found themselves back in jail within three weeks. Last week at the Cato Institute, Clark Neily advocated broader release of prisoners and a fundamental rethinking of...
In a pandemic, the poor need global markets more than ever
The coronavirus global pandemic has scrambled everything from economic policy to geopolitics. This disruption has created space for many to reconsider the world’s pre-coronavirus arrangements. Trade and globalization will undoubtedly be on the menu for renegotiation. As the world again considers the extent to which it wants to be interconnected, we must continue to forge a path that connects as many people to markets as possible. It is this arrangement, and this arrangement alone, that has led to the greatest...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved