[crag]

The TPP was about something other then money and trade. It was about soft power. It was about containing China. It was about influence.

By cancelling it, Trump has handed 1/3 of the worlds GDP to China. Because I suspect China will step in and seal the deal.

I know Trump railed about the TPP. But I'm sad no one stood up to defend it. Clinton just flipped flopped. I suppose it's easier for the average American to understand "China is taking you job away" (and that's not the whole truth anyway) then to explain the nuances of soft power.

With TPP gone. We now really only have one form of leverage over China. The military. And I damn glad I'm retired from the Army.

[sn41]

I think it is not just about China. If you look at the unholy nexus of TPP, TISA and TTIP, the major economies excluded are Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa.

As an Indian, I feel frustrated that the world doesn't think that the economic advancement of India and South Africa are undesirable. Seriously?

[sremani]

As an Indian I understand why India is undesirable perfectly. India is not a cohesive economy or textbook nation-state, it is a multi-national nation and that makes New Delhi weak and states moving in what ever direction they want to go. As usual there is broadly speaking coastal vs hinterland divide in India. This makes India hard to govern and bring a uniform economic or governing policy, added to that a million mutinies big and small across the country make it not desirable country in certain ways.

Maoism and militant trade unionism in the structured economic sector living in parallel with bonded labor and child exploitation in unstructured economy makes it a world of contradictions.

[gman83]

If you look at something like TISA, the Indian government itself declined to join the negotiations, it's not like they were excluded or anything.

[gman83]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Comprehensive_Economi...

I fully expect ASEAN countries will move forward with this now.

[jwtadvice]

The insanity here (for me) is that I spent years trying to communicate the containment strategy aspect to TPP, even linking to public officials and defense documents specifying that this was the purpose. Ultimately I think I found some small measure success, but for the most part it was unwelcome news that the United States was trying to apply coercive statecraft on a competitor. For the most part the entire political spectrum didn't want to hear what I had to say. What's more those discussions often got hit hard by downvote brigading, trolling and moderator bans.

I never very much liked the TPP as it very clearly represented not only unwelcome international competition and power projection, but also because its chapters (first leaked and then eventually published) very clearly benefit large multinational businesses that lord over the United States' strategic resources, exacerbating issues of economic equality on the homeland. The benefit to the American people was that it made problems for the Rise of China - the real possibility of which could see my generations' children and grandchildren in an America that doesn't dominate the world like we do today.

I always felt like there was a better way: a way to both build America so that it is happy and safe, and create deals that benefit all social classes in the homeland.

I'm fairly certain that the Trump Administrations' instincts here will be to replace economic coercion with military coercion and I'm fairly certain that the administration's replacement deals will just as unequally favor those in America who already wield an outsized share of power.

In this regard I'm glad to see TPP go but I would much rather have seen a more creative administration holding the reins.

[dglass]

No one stood up to defend it because no one really knew what was in it. They tried to rush it through before anyone could actually read it.

[ameister14]

I read the TPP; so did a lot of people. It wasn't hard to read or understand.

[flukus]

And why should china be contained?

[794CD01]

There's no reason the US should have any leverage over China. This isn't the 1800s.

[ameister14]

Exactly - we do not live in a world nearly as isolated as we did in the 1800's; leverage is now far more important.

[794CD01]

The more important it is to have something, the less fashionable it is to have it.