The Trans-Pacific Partnership and America’s Strategic Role in Asia
Published By: Edward Elgar Publishing
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The following is the introduction for Claude Barfield’s chapter “The Trans-Pacific Partnership and America’s strategic role in Asia”:
Trade policy stands at the intersection of a nation’s diplomatic and security strategies and its broad economic goals. Decisions regarding trade agreements, with both individual nations and groups of nations, are calculated to advance national strategic interests as well as the fortunes of domestic corporations and workers. Though not necessarily in conflict, security imperatives and economic realities exist in two very different universes, inhabited by very different constituencies and interest groups. With the exception of multilateral negotiations in the World Trade Organization – which deal exclusively with trade issues – bilateral, subregional, and regional trade negotiations inevitably are influenced and guided by collateral, compelling national priorities. Thus, in the case of the United States (US), the Executive Office of the President, with input from diverse public agencies and private interst groups – for example, from the US State, Defense, Commerce, and Labor departments, as well as as the US Environmental Protection Agency, and from outside groups and industries in manufacturing, services, agriculture, labor unions, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – calculate the economic and political trade-offs inherent in the decisions to go forward with a particulat bilateral or regional free trade agreement (FTA). Although prime responsibility for the nitty-gritty of negotiations is in the hands of the US Trade Representative, thse officials fulfill their responsibilities against a background of larger political, diplomatic, and security goals.
