Trans-Pacific Partnership

Starting March 4, some of America's most important trading partners will meet in Singapore, to negotiate expanded trade across the Pacific. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a free trade agreement being negotiated between the United States and 10 other Pacific-rim countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

American manufacturers and automakers are an economic success story. Jobs are returning home and U.S. auto production next year will reach its highest level since 2007.

A number of associations representing a broad spectrum of the U.S. economy, such as the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Emergency Committee for American Trade, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Business Roundtable and the Coalition of Service Industries want “a comprehensive agreement that covers every commercial sector and sub-sector of the U.S. economy”.

Over the next four years, President Obama should advocate forcefully for ambitious free trade agreements with our partners in Asia and Europe.

Dozens of groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and International Brotherhood of Teamsters met with negotiators during Pacific-region trade talks in Leesburg, Virginia, as protesters called for more openness in the discussions.

The most overlooked cause of the economic weakness in the US and Europe is what we call the “global currency wars”. If all currency intervention were to cease, we estimate that the US trade deficit would fall by $150bn-$300bn, or 1-2 per cent of gross domestic product. Between 1m and 2m jobs would be created. The eurozone would gain by a lesser but still substantial amount. Countries that were engaged in intervention could offset the impact on their economies by expanding domestic demand.

SINGAPORE–The top U.S. trade negotiator said he doesn’t see plans for an Asia-only trade pact that would bind China and Japan to other economies throughout the region as a threat to U.S. economic interests.