2015-12-14

Cato: Trans-Pacific Partnership Deal Reached! Now What?

After six years of negotiations, a final Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement has been reached in Atlanta.  Check your pacemakers, trade policy wonks. This is about as exciting as it gets in our world.

First, congratulations are in order for the TPP negotiators, who worked extremely hard over the past several years in an environment of profound public skepticism – much of it driven by pervasive scaremongering – to arrive at this moment. Reaching accord on a broad array of subjects between 12 countries at different levels of economic development with disparate policy objectives is not a task for the faint of heart.

Second, there is still quite a bit of work to be done on the domestic front. Even with the deal “concluded,” the president cannot sign the agreement until 90 days after he officially announces his intention to do so.  During that period, there will be intensive consultations between the administration and Congress over the details; the legal text of the agreement will be made available to the public on the internet; the USTR advisory committees will submit their assessments of the deal to Congress; and there will be ample opportunity for informed, robust domestic debate about the deal’s pros and cons.

Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/trans-pacific-partnership-deal-reached-now-what

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