The Grand TPP Illusion

Posted: July 15th, 2016

By Clyde Prestowitz

Clyde Prestowitz is the founder and President of the Economic Strategy Institute (ESI) and author of the recently released book - The Betrayal of American Prosperity. Prior to ESI, Prestowitz served as Counselor to the Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan Administration where he headed U.S. negotiations with Japan, Korea, the EU, Southeast Asia, and Latin America and served as a leader of the first U.S. trade mission to China. Subsequently, he became a Fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was appointed Vice Chairman of President Bill Clinton's Commission on Trade and Investment in the Asia-Pacific Region as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Before joining the Commerce Department, he was Head of Global Marketing with the American Can Company, Vice President-Japan for Egon Zehnder International, and Director of European Marketing and Planning for Scott Paper Company.

For America’s foreign policy establishment, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a grand “twofer.” It will improve U.S. national security by countering China’s growing economic, political, and military power in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, it will stimulate U.S. exports and thereby reduce the chronic U.S. trade deficit and create millions of American jobs.

Unfortunately, this is a grand illusion based on fundamentally false premises about national security as well as trade and globalization.

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