Author: Claude Barfield, AEI

After Congress passes FTAs with Korea, Columbia and Panama, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) will become the single most important US trade initiative, serving as a building block for a larger Free Trade Area for the Asia Pacific Agreement (FTAAP).

TPP negotiators aim for a comprehensive 21^st century FTA. Read more…

Author: Claude Barfield, AEI

Recently, my American Enterprise Institute colleague Philip Levy and I published an International Economic Outlook, entitled ‘Tales of the South Pacific: President Obama and the Transpacific Partnership.’ In this analysis, we made the case for the Obama administration to move with dispatch in asserting U.S. leadership in the construction of a new Asian economic architecture that would be broad and inclusive. And we argued that the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) agreement was an ideal vehicle through which to achieve this goal.

Since then, bolder moves by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have increased the urgency for the Obama administration to advance a strategic vision of the U.S. role in a nascent Asian economic architecture. Read more…

Author: Claude Barfield and Philip I. Levy, AEI

After prolonged ambivalence about trade, President Obama finally found an agreement he could embrace – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But what is the object of the President’s new found passion? Why has the South Pacific caught his fancy when pending agreements in Latin America and Northeast Asia could not? And will this amount to anything more than the Administration’s rather empty promises to wrap up the Doha Round of WTO global trade talks?

In fact, the TPP is potentially a significant addition to U.S. trade policy. It could be a model for trade liberalisation and a means to address long-standing U.S. interests in Asia. Read more…