WASHINGTON POST COLUMN: The trouble with our trade debates is that people assume they’re only about economics. Since World War II, U.S. trade policy has also been a pillar of U.S. foreign policy. In the early postwar decades, America encouraged trade with Europe and Japan — allowing more of their exports into the United States — as a way of achieving our political goals. Trade would build their prosperity, and their prosperity would promote democracy over communism…
All this provides context for the controversy over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the trade negotiation among 12 countries (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam). Together, these nations represent almost 40 percent of the world economy, with the United States and Japan accounting for about four-fifths of that…
A Trans-Pacific Partnership failure — because countries don’t agree or Congress kills the final result — could produce a historic watershed. Present U.S. trade policy dates to congressional passage of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, which authorized the president to negotiate tariff cuts with other countries. (Before that, U.S. trade policy was highly protectionist.) A TPP rejection could mean the end of an era… (more)
