Recently, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) suffered a major setback. A senior official in the Obama Administration announced that due to the changes in the US political situation, the fate of the TPP will be determined by the next US president and Congress. US President-elect Donald Trump has definitely expressed opposition to the TPP, so it is possible that the agreement may be stalled for the foreseeable future.

In fact, President Barack Obama invested significant resources into the TPP. At home, he tried to rally support by combining the forces of the two dominant parties. The Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) was passed in Congress by a tiny margin in June 2015. According to the bill, Congress will be allowed to vote to ratify the TPP in the future, but they will not be permitted to amend it. This actually opened a fast lane for the TPP.

Abroad, Obama communicated with TPP member countries via bilateral and multilateral platforms, pushing forward the negotiations and signing of the agreement. He also spoke in public many times in support of it.

There are many reasons why the TPP has stalled. First of all, it has been questioned for a long time whether the TPP is fair, transparent and representative. Member countries doubt the TPP’s effectiveness while the approval process of every country is full of uncertainties.

In addition, the TPP’s “birth defect” is that it doesn’t aim to enhance free trade and mutually beneficial cooperation. Instead, it is saddled with a heavy strategic responsibility that the United States has imposed on it.  

The United States intends to control international rules through the TPP. In 2008, the country proposed the TPP based on “close economic partnership agreement negotiations” among Singapore, New Zealand, Chile and Brunei, and it invited Australia, Peru and Vietnam to join. It has begun to dominate negotiations since then.

With the addition of Malaysia, Canada, Mexico and Japan, the TPP now covers 40 percent of the total global GDP and one-third of trade value. If established, it would become the biggest free trade agreement in history.

The TPP puts forward “high standards” in such fields as working conditions, government procurement, state-owned enterprises, intellectual property and environmental protection. It can be seen that the United States is planning to usher in the rules of international economy and trade, investment and services via the TPP, and it has even attempted to undermine the WTO.

 
Furthermore, the United States views the TPP as an economic tool in its “Pivot to the Asia-Pacific Region.” The Asia-Pacific strategy pushed in Obama’s tenure has aimed to maintain US leadership in regional politics, economy and security, positioning the country as a competitor to China. In 2015, Obama made a statement after the end of TPP negotiations that the US rather than China should formulate global trade rules. They excluded China while praising the TPP as mechanism of open cooperation.

Apparently it is US selfishness that has led to the stalled TPP. Going against the development trend of openness and cooperation in the era, the TPP does not conform to the development direction of fair and rational international economic order and is not beneficial to the construction of a community of common destiny.

It is hard for the TPP to contain China. With a GDP of $10 trillion, China is the second-largest economy, and it is the largest in terms of trade in commodities. Attention from all other countries is paid to the opportunities brought about by China’s development as well as the role China plays in global economic development.

China adheres to the principle of opening up and cooperation while pushing forward inclusive and interconnected development. In recent years, the country has been developing foreign economic and trade cooperation. It is also rapidly advancing the construction of the “Belt and Road” initiative. After successfully hosting the G20 Hangzhou Summit, China has become one of the main advocates of global governance reform.

The delayed implementation of the TPP means the collapse of the important economic pillar of the “Pivot to the Asia-Pacific Region.” This is what many Americans should think about deeply. It is hoped that the United States will abandon its Cold War mentality and the zero-sum game, returning to the path of mutually beneficial cooperation and common development.

 

Su Xiaohui is deputy director from the Department of International and Strategic Studies at China Institute of International Studies.