Center for Business and Public Policy Experts Discuss Trans-Pacific Partnership

On October 1, the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy presented “Progress this Week on the Trans-Pacific Partnership?” at the Rayburn House Office Building, continuing its Georgetown on the Hill series of panel discussions on international trade negotiations.

Panelists Gary C. Hufbauer, Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics; Daniel J. Ikenson, director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, Cato Institute; and Robert Vastine, senior industry and innovation fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, discussed the prospects for the massive and complex Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, in light of ongoing negotiation.

TPP’s more than 30 chapters set forth new terms for trade and business investment among the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations that together represent one-third of world trade.

The panelists shared that:

• The TTP and the other mega-regional agreement (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) are essentially de facto replacements for the World Trade Organization. The TPP is the most important trade agreement the United States has negotiated.
• Even if the agreement is substantively sound, the public furor over some of its provisions could prevent its passage.
• If eventually successful, the TPP could coalesce a group of countries to power the Pacific Rim economy and lead to an even wider coalition – perhaps to a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.
• If TPP is not successful, the trade agenda is likely to fall to the bottom of the priority list for the next administration, until at least 2020.

Bradford Jensen, McCrane/Shaker Chair of International Business at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and senior policy scholar at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, moderated the discussion.

Housed at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, the Georgetown Center was created in 2002 to encourage thoughtful discussion and to document and disseminate knowledge on a range of issues in the public interest. Learn more at http://cbpp.georgetown.edu.