2 - Trade Agreements and the U.S. Congress – the Case of the TPP

Summary

After several years of hard-fought negotiations on a project co-founded and championed by it, the United States sent shockwaves through the international trade community by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This chapter seeks to discuss the political environment in Washington, DC during the TPP’s negotiation and the failed attempt at shepherding it through to final fruition, taking care to explain the seemingly arcane way that trade agreements are implemented in the U.S. system. The authors map out the shifts in trade politics leading up to completion of the TPP, highlight a few of the more contentious substantive issues that arose along the way, and deliver a kind of post- mortem for the United States’ participation in the TPP, commenting briefly on the likelihood of a resumption of interest in the project in Washington, DC.