From the NY Times:
The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations on Monday agreed to the largest regional trade accord in history, a potentially precedent-setting model for global commerce and worker standards that would tie together 40 percent of the world’s economy, from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia.
TPA was tough; concluding TPP sounds like it was tougher. Now for the really hard part: Getting TPP through Congress. Here's what Senator Hatch said today: "While the details are still emerging, unfortunately I am afraid this deal appears to fall woefully short."
So now that the TPP is done, can we see the text? Not just yet apparently:
Its full 30-chapter text will not be available for perhaps a month
Very soon, promoters of the agreement will start promoting it, and critics will start criticizing it. As soon as the text is available, I'm going to take my usual approach of focusing on very obscure provisions and thinking about what they might mean in the light of Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. I'll also try to weigh in on the U.S. politics aspect, although recent polling for the 2016 Presidential race has made clear to me how little I know about U.S. politics.
