Obama Expects TPP To Pass Despite Opposition In US At his Ho Chi Minh City event, President Obama also responded to a question from one of the event participants who asked if the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would bring big rewards for Vietnam, would pass in the US given the hostile environment to trade deals in Washington. Obama said, “Well, it’s a great question. And first of all, just to describe why TPP is so important. What TPP does is it takes 12 countries along the Asia Pacific region that represent a huge portion of the entire world’s marketplace, and it says we’re going to create standards for trade and commerce that are fair; that create a level playing field; that have high standards; that encourage rule of law; that encourage protection of intellectual property – so if Vy or Hang come up with a great idea, somebody is not just going to steal it off the Internet but the work that they’ve put in is protected; that has strong environmental provisions so that countries can’t just take advantage of no environmental protection to undercut competitors who are following more responsible environmental practices. “And not only do all the countries who are participating stand to gain from increased trade, but Vietnam, in particular, I think economists who have studied it believe would be one of the biggest beneficiaries. From the United States’ perspective, it’s a common-sense thing to do because, frankly, our markets are already more open than many of the markets of the countries that are signing up. So Japan, for example, is able to sell a lot of cars in the United States but has a lot of problems importing beef from the United States. And what we’ve done is to make sure that a lot of the tariffs that are currently being placed on US exports and US goods are reduced. “And so it will create a better environment for US businesses – particularly because of some of the intellectual property protections, a lot of what we sell today are products of our knowledge-based economy. And so it’s a smart thing to do across the board. “Now, the problem in the United States around trade – and this is not new. This has been true for the last 30 years – is that some of the previous trade agreements did not have enforceable labor protections or environmental protections. I think when China came in to the WTO, it was able to take advantage of the growing global supply chain, and a lot of manufacturing shifted to China in a very visible way. So a lot of Americans saw companies close and saw what they viewed as their jobs being exported to China. And some of that happened in Mexico, with NAFTA as well. “And so the perception was that this is bad for US workers and US jobs. If you look at the data, then what is true is that some manufacturing jobs were lost as a consequence of trade. On the other hand, other sectors of the economy improved significantly. And overall, it was good for the US economy. But I think that in the design of some of the oil trade deals and some of the mistakes that may have been made in the past, people became suspicious of trade and worried that if we do TPP, then the same pattern will repeat itself, and the US will lose more jobs. “My argument is that if you’re dissatisfied with the current trading arrangements where tariffs are placed on US goods but other goods are already coming into the US, why would you want to just maintain the status quo? Why not change it so that everybody is operating in a fair and transparent way? “And the good news is, is that the majority of Americans still believe in trade and still believe that it’s good for our economy. The bad news is politics in the United States is not always – how would I put it – reasonable. That’s the word I’m looking for. … But I’m confident that we’re going to be able to get it done because, in the past when we negotiated trade deals, even though there’s a lot of opposition, at the end of the day we end up getting it done. Keep in mind that we negotiated a very big free trade agreement with Korea, and even though the Bush Administration negotiated it, he didn’t get it passed, when I came into office, one of the first things we did was we worked with Korea, we made some small modifications to some of the terms and we got it done, and it’s in force today. “So the argument that I’ve made and I will continue to make in the United States is that we’re not going to be able to end globalization. We have to make globalization work for us. And that means that we don’t try to put barriers and walls between us and the rest of the world; but instead, we try to make sure that the world has high standards, treats our companies fairly. And if we do that, I’m confident we can compete with anybody. “So nothing is easy in Washington these days. But despite sometimes the lack of cooperation with Congress, I seem to be able to get a lot of things done anyway. … It could have been easier. I would have less gray hair … if Congress was working more effectively, but we do have some members of Congress who are here. That’s Congressman Castro and Congressman O’Rourke who are two outstanding young congressmen from Texas. They’re strong TPP supporters and we’re very proud of the work that they’ve done. So we’re just going to have to work hard to convince some of their colleagues. But ultimately I think we can get it passed.” | 
