This is from President Obama in an op-ed pushing for the TPP:
... China is negotiating a trade deal that would carve up some of the fastest-growing markets in the world at our expense, putting American jobs, businesses and goods at risk.
...
Fortunately, America has a plan of our own that meets each of these goals. As a Pacific power, the United States has pushed to develop a high-standard Trans- Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that puts American workers first and makes sure we write the rules of the road for trade in the 21st century.
... America should write the rules. America should call the shots. Other countries should play by the rules that America and our partners set, and not the other way around.
... The world has changed. The rules are changing with it. The United States, not countries like China, should write them. Let’s seize this opportunity, pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership and make sure America isn’t holding the bag, but holding the pen.
I thought about writing something in response, but I'll just quote Deborah Elms instead:
First, 12 member countries wrote the TPP agreement—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam. The United States, by virtue of its overwhelming economic size and strength within this grouping, had an outsized influence in the negotiations, but it should not forget that the other 11 members also played key roles.
Many of these partners stepped up to the plate and agreed to take on significantly harder, deeper and more substantial domestic reforms than anything the Americans have agreed to do in the TPP. The most challenging elements of the agreement for many TPP members came about because the United States insisted on including these provisions.
A negotiation, after all, is a compromise and no country ever gets everything that it wants in an agreement. The US got most of what it asked for, but not all.
...
Second, and perhaps more important, bringing China into the equation as the “bad guy” is going to do substantial long-term harm. This is damaging to the United States, to China, to the TPP and to the global economy.
The long-term objective is to connect China and the United States together in a trade agreement that meets the high standards that Obama discusses in his article. Such an outcome will never be met if China is painted from the outset as somehow “outside” the bounds of such behavior.
