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 30, 2025 2:23 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
Free Acton Institute eBooks on Judaism, Law and the Market Economy (May 20-24)
Beginning today, the conference “Religion and Liberty — A Match Made in Heaven?” gets underway in Jerusalem. Sponsored by the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies (JIMS), the Acton Institute and others, the event asks questions such as, “Is capitalism not only efficient but also moral?” In conjunction with this May 20-24 conference, Acton is offering its two Jewish monographs through Amazon Kindle at no charge. The two titles: Judaism, Law & The Free Market: An Analysis by Joseph Lifshitz. [Kindle...
Audio: Sirico on the Moral Case for the Free Economy
Rev. Robert A. Sirico, President of the Acton Institute, is making the rounds in the national media promoting his new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. This morning, Father Sirico was on the air in the Decatur, Illinois area as the guest of Brian Byers of Byers & Company on WSOY AM: [audio: Next up, he took to the airwaves on the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, WJR Radio in Detroit, Michigan, as...
Defending the Free Market review: More than Mere Economics
On his Koinonia blog, Rev. Gregory Jensen reviews Rev. Robert Sirico’s new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. Jensen: “Daring though the argument is, especially for a Catholic priest, it is also essential that it be made since for too many people (including business people), free market economic theory and policies are little more than a justification for greed. While not denying the excesses of capitalism and real sins of capitalists, Fr Sirico wisely...
Discerning God’s Call
For the next two weeks I’m privileged to be teaching a course on Christian ethics and contemporary culture at Farel Reformed Theological Seminary in Montreal, Quebec. This morning’s class focused on the issue of calling and the Christian life. We discussed some of the ways in which God’s call to follow es to different individuals in a variety of circumstances and in a variety of means. As background, we read Alissa Wilkinson’s short essay, “Vocation Takes Patience.” Discerning God’s call...
Catholic Diocese of Washington, DC and Forty Other Groups Sue Obama Administration
At least forty Catholic dioceses and organizations in the United States have filed suit against the Obama Administration for violation of First Amendment rights. According to , The suits filed by the Catholic organizations focus on the regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced last August and finalized in January that requires virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions. The...
If Christ is Lord, Everything Matters
Recently we had an excellent discussion on twitter about the following idea that @JakeBishop8 shared: “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” In response to this idea we retweeted, another Jake (@JakeBelder) jumped in with: “If Christ is Lord over all, is it right to say there are things that don’t really matter?” What ensued was a great interaction between two “Jakes” about what matters in God’s Kingdom....
The Death of Liberal Catholicism
Is it “game-over” for so-called cafeteria or dissenting Catholics? In a Crisis Magazine article, Acton’s Samuel Gregg, Director of Research, says it is. The demographic evidence for impending extinction is striking. The average age of members of female religious orders that are moving “beyond Jesus” into an alternative spiritual universe is over 70. This contrasts with those orders who joyfully embrace Catholic faith in all its fullness. They’re positively flourishing. Similarly, it’s very hard to find dissenters among seminarians –...
The Spiritual Temptation of the Welfare State
The conditions under which the government transfers wealth are different than the conditions under which the church transfers wealth, says James R. Rodgers. Yet many Christian leaders are tempted to use the power of the state to dowhat is required of the church: Ginning up donations, however, is the hard road. Given the imperative that the needy should be fed, how much easier it is to step around the church and the power of the Gospel, and instead to make...
Louisiana’s Valuable Commodity: Prisoners
Why is Louisiana the world’s prison capital? Are the residents of the Bayou State more criminal than other people around the world? Is the state’s law enforcement exceptionally skilled at catching bad guys? Or could the inflated prison population be, at least in part, the result of theperverse economic incentives of crony capitalism? The hidden engine behind the state’s well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied...
Media Events for “Defending the Free Market”
Fr. Robert Sirico, President and Co-founder of the Acton Insitute, has a busy media schedule to promote his new book, Defending the Free Market: the Moral Case for a Free Economy. Here are just a few that you might want to catch: Tuesday, May 22, 2:40 p.m. EST: The Bob Dutko Show Wednesday, May 23, 6:30 p.m. EST: Book Signing at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC – live coverage from C-SPAN Thursday, May 24, 10:30 a.m. EST: The...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved