Where the top four US presidential candidates stand on the TPP (spoiler: it's not pretty)

After eight years of negotiations and minibar busting, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal turned out to be a bit of a non-event, with special interests from Fonterra to Big Pharma and Hollywood failing to get more than a sliver of what they wanted. But even its modest gains are in peril.

Here's a quick summary of how the top four US presidential contenders see the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, yet to be ratified by Congress.

• Trump: hates it
• Cruz: hates it
• Clinton: hates it
• Sanders: hates it

President Barack Obama pushed through special trading authority to help the Trans-Pacific Partnership get through congress (it means US lawmakers will consider the trade deal with a straight yes/no vote rather than getting the chance to add special pork provisions for their home state).

The Republican majority in the House and Senate helped him get that special trading authority passed into law.

So you’d think it would be a done deal to get the TPP ratified.

But the situation is shaded by the fact the top two Republican contenders, and the top two Democrats, are all militantly opposed to the trade pact.

Trump
Donald Trump says the TPP would help China exploit and trick the US. China is not, of course, a signatory to the TPP but that doesn’t seem to matter on Planet Trump, where populism and protection rules.

Cruz
More surprisingly, Senator Ted Cruz, who has emerged as the clear No 2 behind Trump in the Republican race, is also anti-TPP. He says he supports free trade but the TPP would undermine immigration laws and US sovereignty. Alas – for free trade advocates – Cruz has done most of his TPP bashing in Iowa, the first state to hold a primary (or in its case, a caucus). The populism seems to have done the trick: recent polls have him ahead of Trump in the state. He may take that as a signal that more TPP bashing is just the ticket (or I should say more populism in general; the TPP has hardly been central to the debate on either side). 

You have to go back to the third-placed Republican, Senator Mark Rubio (and he’s a distant third) before you encounter a TPP booster.

Clinton & Sanders
Meanwhile, the only two serious Democrat contenders, Hillary Clinton (a bit to the left of her NAFTA-loving hubby) and Bernie Sanders both oppose the TPP, citing the usual centre-left concerns about local jobs.

You might say none of this matters, because the US presidential election is not until November.

Yet getting the TPP ratified by Congress is no easy thing – or at least no fast thing.

As the Washington Post summarises (with my bolding):

The first steps begin when the White House formally sends Congress a notice of intent to sign the agreement, which kicks off a 90-day waiting period [this happened in the first week of November, 2015]. Congress gets to spend the first 30 days of that time privately reviewing the documents and consulting with the administration.

Next comes the public phase. The full trade deal will be open for anyone to review for 60 days [it's just been released] allowing interest groups to provide feedback. This window will provide critical insight into how much popular support the deal may receive. A poor reception during the public phase could make it difficult for Obama to rally support when it comes time for Congress to vote.

The next step will be for the U.S. International Trade Commission to conduct a full economic review of the deal. The agency has up to 105 days to complete that work but the process could take much less time.

That means nothing will happen until perilously (for TPP supporters) close to the election, when Trump, Cruz, Clinton or Saunders could take control and veto any legislation which can’t muster at least a two-thirds majority.

Too closely identified with Obama?
And if our fantastic four continue their current TPP bashing momentum, you’ve got to wonder if some of those in the pro-TPP camp in Congress will start to wobble. It could be that Obama tries to hustle the TPP through as a legacy project. If so, it could come to be seen as too closely identified with the departing Democrat President (despite most of his party opposing it) and Republicans might, perversely, cast knee-jerk votes in the other direction.

The best hope for TPP supports is that Trump and Cruz implode, and Rubio emerges as an establishment candidate. The horror scenario for Republicans, and TPP boosters, remains that Trump just misses the nomination (quite possible if he’s under 50% support, given the Republican Party has a proportional rather than winner-takes-all primary vote in many states), then tosses his toys and runs as a spoiler independent candidate.