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
Dec 15, 2025 8:39 AM

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
Economy of Wonder: Buzz Aldrin Takes Communion in Space
Today marks the 46th anniversary of the day we landed on the moon, and as we look back on that monumental moment, it’s worth remembering the efforts taken by one astronaut topause and recognize hiscreator. Prior to the lift-off of Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin spoke with his pastor about finding the “right symbol for the first lunar landing.” After some discussion, they agreed it was munion service, and the scripture passage he’d use would be John 15:5: “I am the...
The Greatest Country in the World: What is it to You?
I believe that greatness, if defined by power, economic and cultural influence, requires us to acknowledge that the United States of America was once the greatest country in the world. However, as it ceases to lead the world in these areas – as one survey after another shows – and other countries take its place, it can no longer be considered the greatest. If we change our definition of “greatest” however, America might still be great. I believe we need...
Jeb Bush Says Work Harder; Americans Respond By Complaining
During a recent interview, presidential candidate Jeb Bush outlined his economic plan, which included a goal of achieving 4 percent economic growth. As for how we might achieve thatgrowth, Bush went mita grave and sinful error, daring implythat Americans might need to work a bit harder: My aspiration for the country —and I believe we can achieve it —is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see,” he told the newspaper. “Which means we have to be a...
An overview of the riots of the 21st century
Back in April I wrote about the Baltimore riots and noted the long term impactriots have historically had on cities. At the time I wrote, “Within a few weeks the riots in Baltimore will subside and the country’s attention will shift to other problems. But the economic damage caused by the violence and looting will affect munity for decades e.” Most of us who weren’t directly affected have indeed moved on to other problems. But in the wake of the...
Laudato Si’ and the ‘less is more’ philosophy
Michael Severance, operations manager for Istituto Acton in Rome, wrote an article for Catholic World Report examining the economic concept of scarcity in light of Laudato Si’ and Pope Francis’s trip to South America. Severance focuses on the pope’s efforts to promote a culture of self-control and asceticism and specifically analyzes the implications of paragraph 222 of the encyclical, where Francis writes: “We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible....
Did America Invent Religious Tolerance?
Allowing people to think what they want about God and religious beliefs is a considered a cornerstone of a liberal society. But religious toleration hasn’t historically been considered a prized virtue. In fact, as Larry Schweikart says, it’s a historical aberration—an ideological revolution created by the Puritans and pre-1776 Americans. ...
Video: Jayabalan on Pope Francis and Economic Globalization
Kishore Jayabalan, director of the Istituto Acton in Rome, talked to Voa News yesterday about the flaws in Pope Francis’s pronouncements on free markets and globalization, as articulated in the recent encyclical Laudato Si’. “When the pope says that this economy kills, that this economy destroys the environment, I’m not quite sure what economy he’s talking about,” said Jayabalan. Read the full article here. ...
Radio Free Acton: Jared Meyer on Washington’s Betrayal of America’s Young
Much has been written about the plight of the young in America today, many of whom are leaving college and entering a phase of long term underemployment or outright unemployment. The phenomenon of Millennials stuck living in their parents’ basements is a real thing, and it’s troubling. On this week’s edition of Radio Free Acton, Acton Communications Associate Sarah Stanley talks with Jared Meyer of the Manhattan Institute about his new book,Disinherited: How Washington is Betraying Amerca’s Young, which details...
Why isn’t Liberalism an ‘Option’?
Not the Only “Option” This is the question I ask in response to Rod Dreher et al. at Ethika Politika today. By liberalism, of course, I mean the (classical) liberal tradition as a whole, not just progressive forms of mon on the social and political left. I write, So in one sense Benedict Option enthusiasts are not all wrong. Liberalism is the problem the same way “culture” is the problem, or “society,” or “religion,” or “secularism,” or any other general...
Senator Scott’s Passionate Speech on School Choice
Last week Senator Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) proposed an amendment to the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind bill that would allow Title I funds–the funds the federal government allocates to districts with high-poverty populations–to follow students out of their assigned district schools to schools of choice. Democrats in the Senate (joined by six Republicans) successfully fought to keep the portability amendment as well as school vouchers out of the legislation. As Think Progress explains, the White House and Senate...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved